Patrick Kennedy Comes Unglued Over Abortion in Kenya

PUBLISHED ON

July 15, 2010

Stephen Phelan, communications director at Human Life International, writes at Catholic Advocate about the alarming attempt of Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) to investigate pro-life efforts to protect the unborn in Kenya.

Reading about Kennedy’s effort to mount a federal investigation of a perfectly legal lobbying effort, you have to wonder if he is coming unglued and needs our prayers.  The kind of hate underlying his attitude is palpable.

As Phelan explains, Kennedy’s threat is ironic given the fact that the Obama administration may well have broken the law using federal funds to promote abortion (see Brian’s IC post from yesterday):

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Kennedy’s blathering is as much pre-emptive damage control as it is an empty threat. The Obama administration is currently under investigation by the Auditor General for funds given to pro-abortion groups to promote the passage of the new pro-abortion constitution. Unlike the supposedly suspicious activities that Kennedy wants to investigate, the administration’s actions — if the charges are true — are highly illegal. Per the Siljander Amendment of 2006, no government entity can use federal funds ‘to lobby for or against abortion and violations are subject to civil and criminal penalties under the Antideficiency Act.’

On another front, as Phelan shows, the Kenya episode is another example of the disingenuousness of the Obama administration on the subject of abortion.  The number of outright lies just proliferates to a level of absurdity. 

Speaking in Kenya’s capital in June, Vice President Joe Biden stuck his foot in his mouth by saying that a huge financial windfall would come Kenya’s way if they would just get with the program and approve the new constitution. This promise has since been repeated by other administration proxies. Responding to questions, Biden’s office has claimed objectivity, saying that it’s up to the Kenyan people to decide the outcome.

Really? The administration is neutral toward the outcome of the Kenyan constitutional vote, but it is spending millions on “educating” the Kenyan people on how they should vote, it sends the second in command to promise great things will come to the country if it adopts the new constitution, and it sends representatives like Kennedy to undermine the opposition?

Some may take comfort in the fact that Patrick Kennedy is not running for reelection, but I don’t.  Most of the Catholics in the U.S. Congress are pro-abortion, even if they don’t act as outrageously as this Kennedy fils.

This is a sad fact that will only change when the laity and the clergy simply draw a line in the sand.

 

Author

  • Deal W. Hudson

    Deal W. Hudson is ​publisher and editor of The Christian Review and the host of “Church and Culture,” a weekly two-hour radio show on the Ave Maria Radio Network.​ He is the former publisher and editor of Crisis Magazine.

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