"I Was An Alter Boy"

Keith A. Fournier dissects John Kerry's clumsy attempt to separate his deeply held beliefs from policy positions.

It was toward the end of this debate that a question was raised about the fundamental human rights issue of our age, the right to life, and the first freedom, the freedom to be born. When I heard candidate Kerry’s answer, I groaned with deep disappointment. “I was an altar boy…” the candidate proclaimed. He then went on to commit an act of sophistry, continuing his efforts to deceive Catholics, whose votes he is courting.

Without the preeminent right to life, our entire structure of human rights is in jeopardy. Without the freedom to be born, there can be no other freedoms, at least for our smallest neighbors. Medical science, in all of its advances, confirms what our consciences have long ago told us, the child in the womb, the first home of the entire human race, is our neighbor. These “first neighbors”, children in the womb, have a voice that is not being heard in a society that has lost its sense of solidarity, along with its moral compass. They are, what Mother Teresa called, the “poorest of the poor” and they need our protection.

How we treat the poor is the bellwether of our claim to be a compassionate people. The position that supports the right to life and the freedom to be born is simply a human position. Just as the position that people of color could not be owned as property was, and is, a human position, so it is with the right to life of our first neighbors in the womb. Supporting this fundamental human right, the right to life, is not a “religious position”, in the sense that John Kerry seeks to present it.

His comment “But I can’t take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn’t share that article of faith, whether they be agnostic, atheist, Jew, Protestant, whatever” not only betrays his lack of understanding of his professed Catholic faith, it defies reason. The natural law, written on our hearts, along with all legitimate medical science confirms the humanity and personhood of the child in the womb. To treat persons as property to be disposed of rather than gifts to be received is wrong for all. He knows that.

I was an altar boy as well. So, I will pray for the Senator. That he will come to his senses and reread his Catechism.

Then, I will do everything I can to keep him out of the Whitehouse.