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People who expect Barack Obama to be a firm defender of abortion rights may be disappointed. In a joint appearance by him and John McCain at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, he said he doesn't have the competency to answer a question on when a human first has rights:
"I am pro-choice. I believe in Roe v. Wade. ... not because I am pro-abortion ... but because, ultimately, I don't think women make these decisions casually," he said.
But Obama- in an answer that Republican partisans immediately pounced upon - sidestepped a question from the pastor who asked him to define at what point a human being gets human rights.
"Whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade," he said.
McCain, by contrast, did not hesitate on the question, saying to loud applause that human rights begin "at the moment of conception."
A more complete transcription is available here.
The implication in Obama's statement is that the theory of rights isn't the concern of statesmen (does anyone even use that word any more?), but of theologians and scientists. But a free society cannot base its theory of rights on theological decrees, and moral issues simply aren't the province of science. Obama's response wasn't just an evasion; it was an abdication.
This left McCain free to advocate fertilized-ovum rights without being contradicted.
