Protests against the US president’s impending visit to a noted Catholic college come when the anti-abortion movement is increasingly splintered
AS SOME students kicked a soccer ball and others stretched out on the bountiful lawns of Notre Dame, the peace of a sunny graduation-week afternoon was broken by the incessant buzz of an aircraft engine overhead.
Churning in endless circles above the slate rooftops and the famous golden statue of the Virgin Mary, the small craft towed a banner depicting the remains of an aborted foetus and the words “10 Week Abortion”.
The graphic message is directed at President Barack Obama, who will arrive on Sunday on a campus that has been jolted by abortion opponents who object to the pro-abortion-rights Democrat delivering a commencement address at the US’s largest Catholic university.
The protests come at a time when the anti-abortion movement is increasingly splintered amid a debate over goals and tactics. Their cause has been complicated by Obama, who has sought to ease tensions over an issue that has dogged politicians on the right and left for nearly three decades.
Anti-abortion activists see Obama’s appearance before 2,603 graduates and the national media as a chance to challenge the president on turf hospitable to their cause.
Daily protests have begun outside the university gates. Promoters are issuing radio appeals to anti-abortion activists, inviting them to be arrested on tomorrow and Saturday in acts of civil disobedience.
At least 74 Catholic bishops criticised the invitation by Notre Dame’s president, Rev John Jenkins, and more than 360,000 people signed a petition calling for Obama to be disinvited because of his support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research.
“It is clear that Notre Dame didn’t understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation,” said Cardinal Francis George, president of the United Conference of Catholic Bishops.
He called the decision an “extreme embarrassment” to “many, many Catholics”.
On campus, students expressed distaste for the methods of anti-abortion hardliners Randall Terry and Alan Keyes, who are leading the protests.
They also described a sense of pride that Notre Dame had chosen Obama.
“It cheapens the argument. As someone who is pro-life, I don’t respect it,” Mary Teresa Disipio (20) said as the aircraft circled above her. Her friends, she said, are split on Obama’s appearance, but she believed it will be “amazing”.
Obama will be the sixth president to speak at Notre Dame and he follows Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George W Bush in speaking at the university in the first year of their presidencies. He will be addressing a Catholic constituency he covets in a state that, until he won in November, had not gone Democratic since 1964.
He comes to the lush campus to address an array of themes at a moment when abortion’s foes are confronting a changed landscape – their federal influence shrinking because of Obama’s triumph and the election of strong Democratic majorities in Congress.
Although conservatives in a number of states are trying to restrict abortions, voters in South Dakota and Colorado rejected November ballot initiatives to outlaw virtually all abortions. On a bigger scale, a majority of Americans oppose overturning the key liberalising case Roe v Wade.
As a result, a growing number of anti-abortion clergy, academics and grassroots activists have been pushing other approaches designed to make abortion more rare. Obama’s domestic policy staff is discussing ways to reduce unintended pregnancies and to strengthen adoption, part of a search for what the president calls common ground.
“We really see this event as an opportunity,” says Eric Scheidler, spokesman for the Pro Life Action League, which is planning graduation day protests. The group hopes to reach Catholics who support Obama’s views on social justice without “thinking so much about his extreme views on abortion”.
Anthony Lauinger, a national Right to Life executive, who sent all eight of his children to Notre Dame, accuses Obama of using the graduation speech “to co-opt the Catholic vote”.
In South Bend, former Operation Rescue leader Randall Terry has set up shop, scheduling rounds of protests. Followers stand at the university gates, holding up sign boards with photographs of aborted foetuses.
“We want this to be a political mud pit for Obama,” Terry said. “Our mission is to tar him with the blood of the babies so he can never shake it between now and 2012.”
Carolyn Rumer (20) said a clear majority of students favour the visit, “but the people who are against it are really against it”. “I think it’s good that he’s coming and increasing dialogue, because that’s what a university is all about,” she said.
A small number of the graduating seniors intend to boycott the ceremony, said Mary Daly, former president of the school’s Right to Life group. Others will attend, “to be respectful to the office of the presidency and pro-life witnesses”.
These days, however, a billboard greets drivers travelling to South Bend from Chicago. Trucks continually circle the campus bearing signs that say, “Shame on Notre Dame” and “Judas and Jenkins Betrayed Jesus”. Then there is the plane, plying the skies several times a day for weeks.
“People are weary of it,” history professor R Scott Appleby said. “I certainly feel this is not the best way to respect life. It makes the cause a circus.” – (LA Times-Washington Post service)