Partial-Bullet Assassination

Barack Obama told Doug Kmiec that abortion could not be outlawed in the United States because it would favor one religious tradition over another. This argument is odd not just because it is specious - we don't apply that standard to any other act, so why do we apply it to abortion - but also because it is wrong.

American law currently DOES favor one religious faith's definition over another. According to rabbinical teaching, the baby becomes ensouled only at first breath, and not before. So the idea that abortion should remain legal until birth - which is the default position of United States law - is an embodiment of peculiarly Jewish teaching.

Gabby Giffords was both Jewish and a staunch defender of abortion rights, holding that abortion needed to be legal in all circumstances. In this regard, her political stance was perfectly in line with her religious beliefs.

She not only supported abortion in all circumstances, she supported embryonic stem cell research, was strongly supported by the pro-abort Emily's List and pushed contraception like it was going out of style.

This past Saturday, a man stirred her brains with a bullet in much the same way that an abortionist stirs the brain of unborn child with a knife during a partial-birth abortion.

In this case, the only major difference between Giffords and the babies whose death she supported is that medical professionals are trying to save her life instead of end it.

Make no mistake: the act which put Giffords at death's door was evil.
But God is good - He can draw good out of even the worst evil, as the Crucifixion shows.

Let us hope that Giffords first-hand experience with partial-birth abortion, or in this case, partial-bullet assassination, gives her a little more compassion for the children who she had once willingly consigned to the very grave she now so desperately wants to avoid.