In their speeches at the Alfted E. Smith Memorial Banquet a week or so ago both Senator Obama and Senator McCain were witty and charming, self-deprecating and gentlemanly in their allusions to each other. Senator Obama in the course of his remarks voiced his conviction that "we are all God's children."   To which, apart from a gaggle of supercilious atheists, the rest of us will reply "Amen!" But that being so, might I address to Senator Obama a rhetorical question: Senator, given your commendable belief that we are all God's children, how is it that you have co-sponsored the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) and have even given your public pledge to sign it into law as your very first official act as President of the United States, when this legislation will strip away all existing restrictions on abortion, legalizing even the barbarous procedure known as Partial Birth Abortion, a procedure that was outlawed by Congress not so very long ago  with nearly unanimous consent, legislation further that would deny to doctors, nurses and other medical personnel the right to refuse to participate in procedures that violate their consciences; legislation finally that would constrain tax-payers, including those who object on grounds of conscience, into funding abortions with their tax dollars? Is the expanded slaughter to which FOCA will open wide the door the right way to be of service to "God's children"? For these unborn babies, these smallest, most defenseless, most innocent little guys and gals are God's children, too, just as much as we are! After all, doesn't science tell us that the species to which an organism is assigned is determined not by the organism's size but by its DNA? And the DNA of an unborn baby carried by a human mother is the DNA that is the signature of the species Homo Sapiens. That DNA is already there, all of it, right from the start, right from the moment of conception. The only thing that this newly created organism needs in order to develop into a fully formed human baby is nourishment in a secure environment; the master plan that will control all future development is already there, requiring no further intervention. So if "we are all God's children", so is the unborn child a child of God. He or she shares the same basic pattern of DNA as do the rest of us. WHY, THEN, THIS WAR ON DEFENSELESS BABIES WHO, LIKE US, ARE GOD'S CHILDREN, TOO? And may I be allowed a follow-up question to Senator Biden.
   Senator Biden, you recently told Tom Brokaw and the millions who were watching the interview he conducted with you on Meet the Press that as a believing Catholic you are personally opposed to killing unborn babies but that you cannot impose your own private views on the general public. As we seem now to be on the verge of a major expansion of abortion "rights", one might accordingly assume that you would react to so massive a victory as many now predict for the proponents of unrestricted abortion (and to so staggering a defeat for the pro-Life cause) with at least a certain measure of sadness, if not with indignation or even rage, despite your professed readiness to abide by the majority will. How is it, then, that a comment you have made on another recent occasion seems to convey not so much a sorrowing acquiescence in a fait accompli  as a tone of triumphant satisfaction? The reference is to your statement: "I strongly support Roe v. Wade.... That's why I led the fight to defeat Bork. Thank God he is not in the Court or Roe v. Wade would be gone by now." Senator, don't you seem to be saying: "And wouldn't THAT be a TERRIBLE thing?"
   Consistency, thou shouldst be living at this hour! America hath need of thee!