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President Obama Appoints Antiabortion Pro-Obama Catholic to Senior Health Position – Causing Controversy
June 08, 2009 5:54 PM
President Obama has announced that Alexia Kelley, founder of the antiabortion group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, will serve as the director of the Health and Human Services Department's Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, arousing the ire of some abortion rights activists.
“Catholics in Alliance believes in the sanctity of all human life—from conception until natural death,” says the group’s website. “Our Catholic faith and the Catholic social tradition affirm that all life is sacred, and that every person has essential worth and dignity. Therefore, we support a consistent culture of life that includes protections for unborn children…”
Kelley’s appointment has revealed the chasm between what US News & World Report’s Dan Gilgoff calls “religious progressives” versus the “religious left.” (Gilgoff has a piece on this HERE.)
This won’t be a perfect description, but in the abortion debate (and there are lots of other relevant debates including war, the death penalty, and gay and lesbian rights) generally it can be described that progressives, in this construct, are those who seek the middle ground and try to work for abortion reduction. Kelley would be in this group. She opposes abortion, but she has supported politicians who support abortion rights and has supported lifting the ban on federally funding embryonic stem cell research.
The religious left is more traditionally liberal and more likely to see this “middle ground” approach as full of untenable compromises. Abortion reduction, in the view of some, is a patronizing term that implies that there’s something wrong with legal abortion, and that it’s anyone’s business but the woman in question. (Some say abortion reduction has its roots in the anti-abortion movement’s strategies of the 1990s.)
Gilgoff writes that Kelley “is certainly not a hard-core conservative.” Gilgoff says Catholics in Alliance is generally “more focused on social justice issues like fighting poverty and has promoted ways to reduce abortion that avoid curtailing abortion rights.”
Kelley advised the 2004 presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and her group came under attack from the conservative Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights.
But at Salon, Frances Kissling writes that abortion rights activists want to know “why the post, which includes oversight of the department's faith-based grant-making in family planning, HIV and AIDS and in small-scale research into the effect of religion and spirituality on early sexual behavior, has gone to someone who both believes abortion should be illegal and opposes contraception. That's right -- Kelley's group of self-described progressive Catholics takes a position held by only a small minority, that the Catholic church is right to prohibit birth control.”
Kissling sees the appointment as “political payback” since Kelley “provided abortion cover for the president and for candidates like Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius,” the Secretary of HHS.
Jon O’Brien, the president of an abortion-rights organization, Catholics for Choice, lambasted the appointment, saying “Alexia Kelley is on record with her support for restrictions on access to abortion, despite her organization's efforts to avoid the question of legalization at every turn.”
But Chris Korzen, the executive director of the progressive group Catholics United, said the group is “profoundly disappointed by Catholics for Choice's simplistic, incendiary, and unhelpful reaction to President Obama's appointment of Alexia Kelley to this important post. …O'Brien's statement, as well as his report attacking Catholics in Alliance and Catholics United for our own efforts to find common ground, is a roadblock to progress. It is intended as cover for Catholics for Choice's increasing irrelevance, and its inability to offer any real solutions to the challenges of our day. Despite annual expenditures of more than $3.5 million, the organization accomplishes little more than creating a hostile and divisive political climate—as evidenced by today's statement.”
Steven Waldman of Beliefnet says, "My view: if pro-choicers object to the appointment of Alexia Kelley then there's literally no kind of pro-lifer who will be acceptable. "
HHS has issued this typically soporific statement: “Alexia Kelley has worked in the faith and nonprofit community for over 15 years. Her experience and her commitment to helping families struggling to get by in this economy will be incredibly valuable as she leads the Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnership Center at HHS.”
-jpt
June 8, 2009 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (50)
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That's what I call going backwards.
Posted by: Tina | Jun 10, 2009 10:04:31 PM
Please, people. Groups like Catholics for Choice and their counterparts on the extreme right can only thrive by attacking others. Most people of faith are more than tired of the culture wars, which only serve to create pain and division that hinder our ability to work together for the common good. I applaud people like Alexia Kelley and President Obama as they attempt to move us beyond the wars and bridge the gaps. Now, THAT is progress!
Posted by: Stephanie | Jun 10, 2009 7:52:07 PM
I have read so little about this appointment, if you news/google it only 32 articles come up. If Obama went shirtless you would have thousands of articles.
What would you Obama defenders have said if Bush had appointed Ms. Kelly? I think I know.
Glad I voted Nader.
Posted by: Tina | Jun 10, 2009 12:23:41 AM
Even the lunatic fringe deserves some representation. There are about three times as many people who favor socialism over capitalism in America than there are people who oppose contraception. Obama so far hasn't found a single one to appoint, however.
Posted by: Flash Override | Jun 9, 2009 8:44:09 PM
I think its time to throw the less than 10% of Americans who oppose contraception under the bus. Their views are so fringe they have no relevance to modern society. There are more Dungeons and Dragons players than people who oppose contraception.
Posted by: Flash Override | Jun 9, 2009 8:33:07 PM
The proverbial fox guarding the hen house.
Posted by: Etbrand9 | Jun 9, 2009 5:43:23 PM
What's the big deal? Obama has appointed so many "Catholics" who are pro-choice, so what if he appoints one who is pro-life! The scales aren't even close to being equal. Jon O’Brien, of Catholics for Choice and Frances Kissling of Salon need to quit whining.
Posted by: Rican | Jun 9, 2009 5:05:57 PM
Uhhh.... Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good is not an "anti-abortion group." It's a group of Catholics. Some are anti-abortion, some are even pro-choice.
A little bit o' googlin' would help here.
Posted by: blip | Jun 9, 2009 4:42:08 PM
So Sammy,
A baby in the final month has ZERO rights in your world? Does the detainee at GITMO have more rights than the near birth baby as the doctor prepares to kill it?
Personally, I am all for putting side by side videos up of the water boarding with late term abortions and allowing people to see both and decide what is morally incorrect!
Posted by: Mike_C | Jun 9, 2009 4:30:08 PM
Why hasn't the Faith-based office been shut down? I don't want my tax dollars going to ANY of these religionists that pervert our system of government with fairytale stories.
No money for religious indoctrination!
Posted by: Greg | Jun 9, 2009 3:28:18 PM
If the anti-abortion folks put as much energy into the adoption of unwanted babies as they put into attempting to deny other citizens' the right to choose, the abortion issue would be solved.
Posted by: Sammy | Jun 9, 2009 2:43:57 PM
The simple equation liberals have created but never semm to understand!
"Torture" > Abortion
Posted by: Mike_C | Jun 9, 2009 11:27:36 AM
Jake,
Can you ask the WH, is it now US policy to exchange Iranian insurgents captured in Iraq for hostages?
Are we to allow Iranian proxies to grab hostages in Iraq and hold them for prisoner trades?
Posted by: J House | Jun 9, 2009 11:15:34 AM
Whatever...
Posted by: Bud | Jun 9, 2009 9:17:31 AM
"It makes life easier for those who can not handle the realities of our world. To believe in a religion, you must first lose faith in yourself. To believe in yourself never requires it."
Actually I would, personally, restate that: "To believe in President Obama's 'Government is the answer,' you must first lose faith in yourself."
Posted by: James Danley | Jun 9, 2009 8:56:53 AM
I wonder, if, in the past.. this level of scrutiny was given to an appointment at this level. How important is it?
This kind of supports my theory that the ObamaNation has a polarizing effect. I think they try to unite, not divide, but their left leaning supporters are being very impractical about small issues. Bill Clinton was given a lot of leeway while governing as a centrist, Obama is being overly scrutinized from both sides of the political spectrum.
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | Jun 9, 2009 8:28:31 AM
Is is hard to understand that abortion is killing, and that killing is just not right? In God we trust, do you say. How do you trust in Him when you twist His laws? Contradiction.
Posted by: ist his laws? Contradiction... | Jun 9, 2009 3:59:33 AM
It is a psychological weakness of the human mind and a flaw in the character of the faithful. It makes life easier for those who can not handle the realities of our world. To believe in a religion, you must first lose faith in yourself. To believe in yourself never requires it.
Posted by: tim gallien | Jun 9, 2009 3:00:14 AM
Republican fear mongering? If we'd headed the warnings in 2001, instead of discounting them as Barney Frank, et al did, we wouldn't be in the terrible shape we're in today. Continue to blindly follow your leader.
Posted by: Charlie C | Jun 9, 2009 1:38:01 AM
'The sheep want to follow their shepard Obama but he's venturing off the normal liberal path.'
Posted by: Charlie C
you may find it difficult to accept, but most folks who voted for Obama understand he will make changes, adapt and take longer to get around to certain issues...... and we will complain about it..
but we know that America is a much better place, and will be a better place with Obama as president.
America, whether you believe it or not is changing, the days of Republican fear mongering are coming to an end.
'The amalgam of evangelical Christians, hardcore gun-rights fanatics, anti-tax, anti-immigrant and anti-choice voters who make up the base of the Republican Party amount to less than 30 percent of the overall electorate. '
Posted by: ^-||-^ | Jun 9, 2009 1:19:43 AM
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