& Al Gore Follows Obama

A Sacred Moral Commitment

Family Research Council Action

Over the weekend former Vice President Al Gore took the stage before a crowd of Democratic Party supporters and alluded to the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 25 when he said the country has a "moral duty to pass health care reform" because we must take care of the "least of us." Evoking Scripture to support congressional passage of federally-run health care has become commonplace in this debate, not just among the Religious Left but among politicians. They trot out Jesus' injunction to care for "the least of these" (which is not an instruction to the civil government but for individuals followers of Christ) to justify the plan to control roughly one-sixth of the American economy.

Earlier this month, the President even went so far as to quote Jewish rabbinic literature in asserting that "We are God's partners in life and death." The media are either complimentary of these remarks or silent about them. Yet when conservative Christians suggest that Scripture upholds the dignity of the person and the sanctity of human life, liberals accuse us of "injecting religion" into a public policy debate. So much for logical integrity!

We agree that steps need to be taken to improve access to health insurance in America, but this can be done without the government taking over health care and expanding taxpayer funded abortion. I am all for appealing to Scripture as our guide in this discussion but any intellectually honest interpretation of Scripture argues that personhood begins at conception. Myriad passages attest to this, from Jeremiah ("Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you") to the Apostle Paul ("God ... set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace").

So, as a Christian organization, we are using Scripture to defend the most vulnerable among us, the unborn and the aged. Of course, our position is buttressed by science, which is replete with evidence that personhood starts at conception, and simple reason (an embryo has the same DNA as an adult: What makes it, therefore, less human or any less valuable, as a person, than you or me?). Apart from Divine revelation, our case stands. Yet we cite the Bible because of who we are - a group of people who believe in the God of the Old and New Testaments.

Congressman Bart Stupak, (D-Mich.), says that when Mr. Obama denies his plan would fund abortion, either he does not understand what's in the Democratic health bill or he deliberately is "misleading" people. And no amount of selective Bible quotations by the President and his allies can change that.

FRC's fidelity to God's Word, to God's most unique creation, human life, and to the "right to life" affirmed in our Declaration of Independence calls us to oppose federally financed abortion and rationed care for the elderly. That's a sacred moral commitment we will never compromise.

The Weekly Standard: Dem. Rep. Bart Stupak: Obama Either 'Misleading People' Or Uninformed on Abortion in Health-Care Bill