President Expands Faith Based Initiative

OBAMA MOVES AHEAD WITH PLAN TO REDUCE ABORTIONS
Conservative Catholics, AWOL. President decides he can't wait for them.

This week, President Barack Obama will be expanding the mission of his faith based initiative to include abortion reduction. The Wall Street Journal described the President's approach to the federal faith office as reflecting "his search for common ground on contentious social issues, and his willingness to dial back some of his campaign positions."

The President's plan is likely to anger some hard line secularists who want the initiative abolished entirely. But the President received a favorable reaction from David Kuo, the former deputy director of the Bush faith-based office, and who says that too much energy was spent on questions that have little impact in the real world.

The office will be given four new specific missions, including an administration effort to reduce abortions and teen pregnancies. The goals, said Mr. DuBois, the head of the initiative, will include ensuring access to health care and support for adoption.

Three months after Obama's historic victory and Establishment Pro-Life leaders are yet to make any offer to work with the Administration to reduce abortions. Even the Catholic Bishops have for the most part done nothing despite this tremendous opportunity to reduce abortions. Nothing was said in the USCCB statement after the election and only after pressure from the lay faithful was some vague mention made in the USCCB statement before the Inaugural. The bishops did not bother to meet with the Transition team, have appointed no staff person to direct or coordinate on this matter and generally been AWOL to the leading opportunity to reduce abortions. Instead they have invested money and time in a phony FOCA campaign -- a bill that died last December without any congressional action and does not currently exist.