I just finished reading the full transcript of the Commencement Address given by President Obama at Notre Dame last Sunday. Now before I continue let me say that the opinions I have today regarding the interruption to the President's speech are the same opinions I would have if it was President Bush who was at the podium. It's true that I never wrote about these instances when they happened but you'll notice I didn't write about much at all during the last few years. To me, "you'd never say that if Bush was in office" implies that either you don't know me very well or you agree with my argument but wish to find some way to poke a hole in it (or both).
I'm also aware that the President was prepared for the outburst that occurred, which was documented even in the transcript recorded on the White House website and which became the subject of hours of news commentary and a portion of this post. The issue I have with the young man, who interrupted Notre Dame's graduation ceremony shortly after President Obama took the stage and began congratulating the graduates on their achievement, is the motivation and true consequence of his display of free speech. While it served to get his face on national television and his six short words committed to the White House blog, it accomplished little more for the Pro-Life cause than a display of disrespect for the highest office in the country and a sense of self-importance that outweighed any regard for the graduates in the room. It was not the beginning of a dialog or a well-reasoned approach to Pro-Life principles; nor was it an appropriate time or place to get an undiluted message across. That moment, that graduation, was not about the protester or his beliefs or the unborn children he clearly wishes to fight for; it was about the culmination of four years of grueling hard work shared among all of the robed students in that room. Making the moment (ever so briefly) about him showed contempt not only for the office of president but for the years of hard work each student had to put in to get there. It exposed his intellectual walls rather than a willingness to initiate a discourse on the subject; it reduced his (presumably) complex views on the subject to the span of two brief sentences: "Abortion is murder! Stop killing children!"
Ironically, the domestic policy differences on abortion between the former and current administrations are minimal. Yet Pro Life activists never accused President Bush of "killing children" or "having blood on his hands" (the words of another Notre Dame protester). In fact, the Obama administration appears to be doing more to understand and reduce the number of abortions happening in the US, working with thought leaders on both sides more intentionally than any administration in recent memory. He's called for the development of a task force within his Domestic Policy Council that is working with Pro Life and Pro Choice advocates to seek a consensus on how best to approach the issue, and has addressed those who disagree with his perspective with deference.
Abortion is a complicated and deeply personal issue that permeates the individual histories of thousands of Americans each year. Each of us have deeply felt opinions on the issue that may conflict with our own philosophies on other issues. (How can one person reconcile being Pro-Life and Pro-Death-Penalty, Pro-War or even Pro-Gun, for instance?) The issue isn't whether we should be allowed to share or express our beliefs. The issue is whether we can do it out of respect for the common Image that is in each of us, or at least our common humanity, with open hearts and open minds. Put another way...
The question then is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without, as Father John said, demonetizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?
And of course, nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion.
As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called "The Audacity of Hope." 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." Fair-minded words.
After I read the doctor’s letter, I wrote back to him and I thanked him. And I didn’t change my underlying position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that -- when we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe -- that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.
That’s when we begin to say, "Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually, it has both moral and spiritual dimensions.
So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let’s reduce unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available. Let’s provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term. Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women." Those are things we can do.
Now, understand -- understand, Class of 2009, I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it -- indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory -- the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.
Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.
In the world of instant news and instant messages, it often feels unnatural to encourage open responses to our own expressions of ideas, or at least not those responses which require more than 140 characters to complete. Listening to opposition keeps my mind from falling asleep on important issues and humbles me when I am reminded that in my limited experience of the world I have much to learn.
Congratulations to Notre Dame's Class of 2009 and to all of the graduates who will shape the future of the world as we know it.
