Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Bishops draw slavery/abortion parallel

From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Cardinal Francis George told the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops yesterday to rejoice that the nation has changed enough to elect a black president, but he drew parallels between the laws that once made slavery a right and those that make abortion a right.

"The common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice," the president of the group said to long applause from nearly 300 bishops gathered here for their regular meeting.

"If the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision that African Americans were other people's property, and somehow less than persons, were still settled constitutional law, Mr. Obama would not be president of the United States. Today, as was the case 150 years ago, common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good."

In 1857 the Supreme Court ruled, 7-2, that Dred Scott, a slave who had lived with his master in free states, could not be free after his master died. It declared that no slave or descendent of slaves could ever be a U.S. citizen.

Opponents of abortion draw parallels between that case and Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08316/926989-84.stm

1 comment:

PseudoPiskie said...

As much as some value unborn life which may or may not be viable on birth, they have little concern for the already living. Those slaves would not be allowed to marry each other had not "the traditional definition of marriage" been changed. It is beyond time to remove marriage from the control of religion and make it available to all equally. If religions desire to bless it, that is their choice. It should not be their prerogative to determine who should or should not be allowed to marry.