Today, at Notre Dame, President Obama was, literally and figuratively, “preaching to the choir.” And, as usual, the words of his “sermon” (or homily) were eloquent and appealing. In fact, I’m in complete agreement with him when he said, “… 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.” Sadly, we have become what President Lincoln warned us against, “a nation divided against itself.” If, as a nation, we don’t start to embrace this theme, restated today by our current President, inevitably our nation “cannot stand.”

 In addition to the “common ground” theme the President expressed in today’s Notre Dame Commencement Address, he touched on abortion in a way that seemed pretty reasonable. I thought that was particularly true when he said, "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.” Of course, I’d want to hear more on Obama’s views of a “sensible conscience clause” but, otherwise, I find it hard to take exception with those words.

However, as seems typical with President Obama, the problem is not with his words … it’s with his actions. Of course, I haven’t done an exhaustive study on this but, by Googling “Obama’s actions against abortion”, I found nothing. On the other hand, Googling “Obama’s actions for abortion” produces a sad abundance. The most telling, I think, is an article, dated May 11, 2009, entitled “President Barack Obama's Pro-Abortion Record: A Pro-Life Compilation”. That article listed 38 specific “bill signings, speeches, appointments and other actions that have promoted abortion” just since Obama won the Presidency. Considering that, prior to becoming President, Senator Barack Obama was known to be “the most extreme pro-abortion member of the legislature”, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that he has continued that theme in the Obama Presidential Administration. What is remarkable is how many seem to be mesmerized by Obama’s words and lose track of the fact that they not only don’t match his words, in many cases, such as this, they are nearly diametrically opposite.