Obama in Notre Dame

After watching the president's speech in Cairo, where he traveled into one of the centers of a potentially hostile Muslim world, I decided to take another look at the president's speech at Notre Dame, where he ventured into the heart of the potentially hostile Catholic world.

Unlike in Cairo, Obama was occasionally jeered at by protesters at Notre Dame. "Abortion is murder! Stop killing children!" But then the audience at large shouted down the jeer with "We are ND! We are ND!" and "Yes, we can! Yes, we can!"



There are many parallels between the two events. Both were steeped in religious controversy, and Obama sought to do what he does best -- find common ground. In both situations, the actions and beliefs of religious extremists weighed heavily on the venue. But at Notre Dame, Obama sought a cease-fire with the extremists:

"A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an e-mail from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the Illinois primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life -- but that was not what was preventing him potentially from voting for me. What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my website -- an entry that said I would fight 'right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.' The doctor said he had assumed I was a reasonable person, he supported my policy initiatives to help the poor and to lift up our educational system, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, 'I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.'"

Obama had the 'right-wing idealogue' language taken down from his Web site. And he seemed to have done so to stop the escalation of dangerous rhetoric. He allowed that a reasonable, thinking person could conclude that abortion was wrong. To paint all opponents on an issue as 'right-wing idealogues' is insulting and can inflame the passions, and result in such as things as hecklers in the audience at Notre Dame.

He talked about more than abortion. He touched on the need for all of us to come together as one human family. He practically made Father Ted Hesburgh, president emeritus of Notre Dame, teary when he related how Hesburgh played a key role in the civil rights movement through a fishing trip. (Obama had dropped the emeritus in his speech.)

The biggest news out of the speech was when he called for "a sensible conscience clause."
Although Obama did not define it in his remarks, "Conscience clauses protect doctors, nurses and pharmacists who refuse to participate in abortions or dispense abortion pills from being threatened or fired."

Obama has announced his intention to end Bush-era conscience-protection rules by the Department of Health and Human Services. So, the president seems to be saying he wants to replace the Bush rules with something that makes sense. However, it doesn't appear that he's clarified his remarks any more and there's been a lot of comments on the blogosphere about the word "sensible" and what that word is supposed to mean.

But whatever words he used in South Bend or in Cairo, one is reminded that while words can be powerful, they take time for their effects to be felt.

At the beginning of the speech, Obama asked "How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without, as Father John said, demonetizing (demonizing?) those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?"

Sadly the demonization of opposing sides on abortion continues. Two weeks after this speech, Dr. George Tiller was shot dead at his church in Kansas.

And so many on the "pro-life" side cheered.

Obama will have to wait a while longer for a cease-fire on abortion.