Obama tightens the screw

When Barack Obama ran for the US presidency he presented himself as a unifier. Last week he succeeded in unifying the quarrelsome American Church – against him, that is. Catholic commentators were united in condemning the Obama administration’s decision to force Catholic institutions such as universities and hospitals to cover sterilisation, abortifacients and contraception in their health insurance plans.
In a striking post on the website of the National Catholic Reporter, the vocal Obama supporter Michael Sean Winters declared: “The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again.” He added that the decision was “a politically stupid act” because Mr Obama might need Catholic votes to win re-election in November. It is unlikely, however, that the US president failed to weigh the political costs of his decision. And it could, in fact, be a politically astute move, for Mr Obama handed his powerful pro-abortion backers a considerable gift on the eve of the 39th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision, thus securing their support at election time. What did he lose? Well, he never had the US bishops’ unanimous support in the first place and knows both that most American Catholics use contraception and few heed the hierarchy at election time. So he has consolidated his support base without necessarily losing Catholic swing voters.
The biggest losers are undoubtedly those Catholics who championed Mr Obama in spite of considerable evidence that he was, in the American theologian George Weigel’s words, “a perfect prolife nightmare”.