Catholics Ryan and Biden debate abortion
Last night Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Paul Ryan engaged in the one and only vice presidential debate of the 2012 election cycle.
I thought Biden lost hands down, coming across as a snide, rude, condescending, blowharded buffoon, while Ryan appeared presidential and gave measured, polite, substantive responses.
As somebody said on one of the radio talk shows this morning, watching the debate was like watching someone try to carry on an intelligent conversation with a drunk at a bar.
Then again, I’ve never for the life of me understood why people don’t always see the Biden we saw amplified last night. And I’ve never been able to figure out why people aren’t frightened to death of the prospect of Biden as president.
All that aside, and on to our issue, I thought moderator Martha Raddatz’s question on abortion was great, quite pointed. It was just too bad she had Ryan answer first, and it was too bad she didn’t make Biden actually answer her question:
Raddatz: This debate is indeed historic. We have two Catholic candidates, first time on a stage such as this, and I would like to ask you both to tell me what role your religion has played in your own personal views on abortion. Please talk about how you came to that decision. Talk about how your religion played a part in that. And please, this is such an emotional issue for so many… people in this country. Please talk personally about this if you could. Congressman Ryan.
Read the transcript of their responses here.
Bearing in mind that Ryan was speaking to undecideds and independents, his answer was for the most part good. He started by humanizing preborn children at a very young age. ABC listed this as one of the top 10 quotes of the night:
[A]bout 10 1/2 years ago, my wife Janna and I went to Mercy Hospital in Janesville where I was born for our seven-week ultrasound for our firstborn child, and we saw that heartbeat. Our little baby was in the shape of a bean, and to this day, we have nicknamed our firstborn child, Liza, “Bean.”
Ryan struck the Obama administration on the religious freedom issue as it pertains to Obamacare. He struck the Democrat Party for being extreme on abortion (“The Democratic Party used to say they want it to be safe, legal and rare. Now they support it without restriction and with taxpayer funding, taxpayer funding in Obamacare, taxpayer funding with foreign aid.”), and he pointed out Biden’s own extremism on abortion, wheren he condoned China’s one-child policy.
My quibble would be that Ryan didn’t go far enough in exposing Obama’s extremism on abortion – opposing the Born Alive Act (which Biden supported), opposing the Partial- Birth Abortion Ban, opposing parental notification, opposing a ban on sex selective abortions, opposing a ban on abortions after babies can feel pain – any and all of which the public would be horrified to learn.
Ryan could have also done a touché on abortion flip-flopping by pointing out Biden’s remarkable “evolution” on abortion. (Funny how the media doesn’t notice that.)
But Ryan did well enough. My only real regret is the Romney/Ryan ticket’s support of abortions for rape and incest.
Biden’s response to the question was fallacious. He began by agreeing that “[l]ife begins at conception. That’s the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life.” Then the but: “But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews and – I just refuse to impose that on others, unlike my friend here, the congressman.”
Stop. A moderator experienced on the topic of abortion, or desirous to discuss it any deeper than on the surface level, would have made Biden explain how he believes life begins at conception but finds it is acceptable to allow someone to kill that life. As pro-life Democrat strategist Kirsten Powers tweeted:
Biden’s ‘i accept the church’s teaching that abortion is murder” but people shld be able to do it is 1 of the most specious args ever made
— kirsten powers (@kirstenpowers10) October 12, 2012
Biden also lied by denying Obamacare forces religious institutions to pay for abortions.
And Biden made a big deal out of Ryan’s personal opposition to abortion for rape and incest. “I just fundamentally disagree with my friend,” which is pretty impossible if one really believes life begins at conception.
Biden also reminded the audience that Roe is endangered if Obama isn’t reelected and gets to choose the next one or two justices, as is anticipated. Does that sound like someone who honestly believes life begins at conception? Of course not.
Oh, for a reporter who would actually delve in to this topic. The responses are always the same. Everyone knows what answers are coming. Why after almost 40 years of legalized abortion does no reporter ever ask a follow-up question of abortion proponents? Raddatz certainly had one for Ryan:
I want to go back to the abortion question here. If the Romney-Ryan ticket is elected, should those who believe that abortion should remain legal be worried?
What are your thoughts? How do you think Ryan and Biden’s debate on abortion will impact the electorate?
[Photo of Biden via USA Today; photo of Ryan via ABC]
What are your thoughts? How do you think Ryan and Biden’s debate on abortion will impact the electorate?
I think it will hurt Romney. Biden’s views are more mainstream. Even among Catholics.
http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/news/pr/2012/documents/CFC-BRS_2012_Election_Study.pdf
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I’m not as disappointed about Ryan not making an issue of the rape exception. That’s our job to convince people. Ryan and Romney’s job for the next weeks is to win the election so that we can get the amateur out of office. Hal, you may believe that Biden’s opinions are more popular (so we decide infanticide and feticide by popularity? ew) but really, the mainstream media has done a super job of hiding the reality of China’s one-child policy. Does the American public know how extreme Biden is for real? Does the American public know how extreme Obama’s views are? (Every woman who pays for a dead baby is entitled to one). Obama’s abortion views go way beyond your neighbor or coworker who is pro-choice. Obama’s views (and Biden’s acceptance of China’s policy) are WAY OUT OF LINE with most people’s views on abortion, even pro-choicers. Sure, Amanda Marcotte might be as pro-abortion as Obama, but she’s not representative of your average American.
Personally, I can’t believe how badly Biden is blowing it. Using cutesy insults is just a soft version of what rabid pro-aborts are doing all over the internet and with their signage: using profanity when they can’t think of an intelligent response. Quite unprofessional, not to mention un-Presidential. Are Obama and Biden tired? Are they trying to lose on purpose??
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Catholics and Catholics that actually go to church are two entirely different ballgames.
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I respectfully disagree with you Hal. I think that Bidens arrogance, demeaning attitude and air of superiority will not ring well with younger voters and with many of us who are ready to support younger people in the political arena. I think that Bidens demeaner expressed basic anger directed toward a Catholic younger family man with traditional family values. However, there is a reason for it and I am not quite sure what that would be because the two of them come from middle class backgrounds with similar social histories. Why would they develop opposite political ideologies? Politicians are pretty good actors for those they represent. Biden perhaps has the gift of mercy and Ryan is more of a “cheer leader” which is refreshing.
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Does that sound like someone who honestly believes life begins at conception?
I think Biden realizes life begins at conception but he is all about his party and he has an inability to admit he is wrong.
I think that Bidens demeaner expressed basic anger directed toward a Catholic younger family man with traditional family values.
Maybe he has coerced a mother or two to abort? Has anyone ever asked him?
Biden’s facial expressions were more that of a spoiled 6th grader than anything else. I’m guessing he did better in high school forensics class than he did in debate class. Drama kings make poor leaders.
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Not practicing Catholics that actually KNOW their Catechism, Hal. There are some that are disgusted at the thought of the gruesome way a baby dies through partial birth abortion. And even NARAL had no problem with the BAIPA in IL that OBAMA voted AGAINST…which he said he did because it violated the original intent of KILLING THE BABY.
Biden kept interrupting Ryan many times through the debate, which was rude and he should know better as a grown adult.
Paul Ryan knows a lot about economics!
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I understand what you mean. I agree with the guy and was fed up with Ryan’s lies too, but I wish the Vice President would have expressed his disdain in a more professional manner. It won’t matter on election day, however.
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“Paul Ryan knows a lot about economics!”
But apparently not much about math. He thinks he can cut taxes, increase defense spending and balance the budget.
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“I think it will hurt Romney. Biden’s views are more mainstream. Even among Catholics.”
Hal, CatholicsForChoice is an oxymoron and fictitious cult of people. The moment a catholic cooperates in an abortion they have excommunicated themselves from the Church. Read it for yourself:
2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,”77 “by the very commission of the offense,”78
But I sometimes forget how far a liberal mind can bend and twist itself.
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LOL
Hal, Obama’s deficit spending averages around three times Bush’s on a deficit-to-GDP ratio. That’s after discounting 2009, which included TARP (Bush) and Stimulus 1 (Obama).
When it comes to math, there’ve been no loons more clownish than this administration.
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Hal,
At least you do agree that Biden conducted himself like a schoolchild, especially the very inappropriate laughter and smirking during such serious discussions. Also, didn’t Biden’s mother ever teach him how rude it is to interrupt people?Ryan at least looked and acted like he took these issues very seriously. Personally, I think Ryan was smart to follow the old adage about giving people enough rope so they can hang themselves.
Do you find such issues as the Americans murdered in Benghazi and the troubled economy as hilarious as our vice president seems to?
We know he was trying to pull his boss Obama out of a deep hole but that doesn’t excuse this kind of behavior.
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Biden’s own church has called him a liar over his HHS mandate lie. But please, tell us more about what a liar Ryan is. What a joke.
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Well, color us all fools. BY LAW, PLANNED PARENTHOOD CANNOT PERFORM ANY ABORTIONS! No, really. If Joe Biden said it, it must be true:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SJ96iyAC66w
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Is the media going to roast him a-la Jon Kyl?
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“Is the media going to roast him a-la Jon Kyl?”
I hope so, because frankly Biden’s statement was much further from the truth. I mean, Kyl’s claim was reasonable if you assume the number he was referring to was percent of pregnancy related services.
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Imagine if Joe Biden were running for high office somewhere in the Middle East:
“My faith teaches me that honor killing is a gross injustice, and I believe that. But there are lots of people in this country with equally deep religious convictions who disagree. It would not be right to impose my own faith’s teaching on the rest of the country. We need to respect a parent’s freedom of choice on the sensitive issue of honor killings.”
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Is Paul Ryan secretly Kurt Cobain reincarnated or something? That whole “named Bean because of how she looked on the ultrasound” is why Cobain’s daughter has the middle name Bean.
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LOL.
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The amazing thing about Biden is that he has the ability to come across as convincing and honest even as he lies boldfaced. It is just amazing. If he hadn’t been so rude, Biden would have been the big winner. As it was, he defeated himself by way overdoing the snide attitude. A little of that gives some advantage, but he lost that by being over the top. Kind of like comedy. A few clever lines are a plus. Too many make you look unhinged and out of touch with reality.
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He’s just that darned cool, Jack.
Anyone else catch it when gaffemaster Biden said “…outlaw Planned Parentho-outlaw abortion…”?
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VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: My religion defines who I am. And I’ve been a practicing Catholic my whole life. And it has particularly informed my social doctrine. Catholic social doctrine talks about taking care of those who — who can’t take care of themselves, people who need help.
Well then, he ought to jettison that “social doctrine” – all welfare – along with any laws against abortion, if he really wants to keep his faith separate from government.
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Amazingly, when I google:
“histrionic incredulity” “Biden”
I get no results. And yet no phrase better describes the man’s manic reactions to nearly everything Ryan said.
It would have been fun had Ryan asserted some outright axioms — because Joe would have tossed his head back in uproarious derision at such foolishness.
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Hal says: October 12, 2012 at 3:53 pm “Biden’s views are more mainstream. Even among Catholics.”
But Biden is not the loon at the top of the democRAT ticket.
That would be the obamateur and b o’s views on abortion are not mainstream, even democRATs like Hillary Clinton and especially among rank and file democrats.
mr. bo-jangles has expanded abortion to include an entitlement to a dead baby even after she/he has survived the abortions first assault on his/her life and been born alive.
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After reading the commentary about Joe Biden’s behavior during the debate I could not help wondering if he was one of those angry white men clinging to his religion of whom the o’bumbler in chief speaks.
I was also reminded that Joe Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committe hearings when Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the SCOTUS was being considered.
It took a while, but Joe finally got rewarded for the attempted “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.”
Clarence Thomas
I guess ole black Joe Biden had forgotten his encounter with Clarence Thomas by the time mr. bo-jangles came on the scence.
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” [democRAT Senator Joe] Biden said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”
Hal,
You may be partially right. Joe Biden does accurately reflect the mainstream………of the democRATs.
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CatholicsForChoice is an oxymoron.
The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,”77 “by the very commission of the offense,”78
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Xalisae, I heard it. Talk about a Freudian slip.
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And I’ve been a practicing Catholic my whole life.
He keeps forgetting to practice the prolife part.
I’m guessing Biden has that disease that causes you to forget things but I can’t remember what it is called.
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Why CatolicsForChoice have lost all standing in the catholic church. This from the catechism of the catholic church
“Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life.”
Message to Joe Biden from the catholic catechism: “The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights.
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CatolicsForChoice have lost all standing in the catholic church. They have excommunicated themselves. This from the catechism of the catholic church
“Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life.”
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Yesterday at a campaign rally Biden said that Planned Parenthood cannot legally perform abortions…. I guess he was talking about the Hyde amendment.
http://nation.foxnews.com/joe-biden/2012/10/12/biden-says-planned-parenthood-can-t-perform-abortions-under-law
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“Yesterday at a campaign rally Biden said that Planned Parenthood cannot legally perform abortions…. I guess he was talking about the Hyde amendment.”
TS,
No one knows for sure what Biden is talking about, least of all Joe.
Biden is kind of like a pińata.
You poke him with stick and it is always a complete surprise what comes out, especially to Joe.
But I will point out that Biden did NOT assert that pp does not perform abortions, only that ‘legality’ is not an obstacle to them.
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Is it ok to say that the American public should abort Obama?
If not, why not?
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Great question, Tyler!
What would happen if all prolifers put bumper stickers on their vehicles that say,
“America should abort Obama”
Would this be antagonizing speech?
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In poor taste. We should be better than that.
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Abortion is in poor taste. It is antagonistic in itself.
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Jack Borsch,
Could you try to elaborate why it would be in poor taste.. This might be a fruitful exercise.
Would it be better if we said Obama and Biden should be aborted?
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How many times have we seen pro-choicers make “jokes” about so-and-so being an argument for abortion? It’s crass, and it isn’t funny to make those type of jokes and innuendos ourselves.
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Jack, do you think it has the potential to be a conversation starter.
Just to clarify, I never meant to say the Obama and Biden should have been aborted by their mothers, but they should be aborted now as grown adults, and most importantly, I meant they should be aborted from office. Jack, I guess you didn’t realize that I used the word abort as euphemism for “voting someone out of office.” I was just trying to protect the electibility of Republicans. If Democrats are allowed to exist the freedom of Republicans to get into office is hampered. Republicans need to have the ability to abort Democrats so that their poltical careers are not postponed. Carrying a Democrat to election day could cost Republicans a lot money due to the need to run a long policitical advertising campaign. Aborting the Democrats would be so much easier and convenient.
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Finally, unelected Democrats aren’t real politicians/human beings, they are politcal fetuses. As long they don’t survive and win on election day, in short, if they are not wanted, they are not real politicians.
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Tyler. I’m not completely stupid lol, I got the analogy the first time. I still think it’s crass.
I think we should endeavor to raise the quality of political discussions, not stoop to certain levels.
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Jack, Democrats don’t seem to understand how crass they sound (to us/prolifers) when they talk about preborn children in the way they do. I thought talking in this way about Democrat politicians might awaken their moral sensibilities a little bit.
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I don’t really think so. I think that the moral high ground tends to be the way we should go sometimes. I don’t normally mind snark and stuff, but using the word abort when pro-lifers tend to freak out about the other abortion “jokes” just seems dumb to me.
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Well, thanks for your opinion Jack. However, I disagree.
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