Obama: The Morning After

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly," President Barack Obama said, "firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

With words like these, President Obama made himself into an uber-WASP for our time. His inaurugal address was, rhetorically speaking, an extraordinary reflowering of old-school Protestant rhetoric. It was a speech virtually without applause line, for when the president paused, it was most often to a stunned (perhaps prayerful or awe-inspired?) silence on the part of the crowd.

Is this what seriousness of purpose sounds like?

"This," our new commander in chief told us, "is the price and promise of citizenship. ... With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy current, and endure what storms may come," so that, as our new president of stern and noble mien promised, our grandchildren will say "we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."

Let no one say that President Obama has not given us fair warning: The next few years are going to be, as my dad used to say, character-building.

The morning after the uplifting rhetoric brings, for many of us, the hangover: Obama's first act promises to be an executive order lifting the so-called Mexico City rule -- a ban on taxpayer money to international organizations that promote and provide abortions -- or so reports the Los Angeles Times.

The New York Times reports that President Obama is also considering overturning a new Department of Health and Human Services regulation, the "provider conscience rule," that expands legal protections for nurses, doctors and health care providers and clinics that have moral or religious objections to providing abortions. Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and seven states have filed a lawsuit challenging the new conscience protections in federal court.

Those who urge Obama to overturn the provider conscience rule offer two contradictory arguments: One is that new protections are unnecessary because other federal regulations such as the Weldon Amendment already protect nurses and doctors from being penalized or discriminated against for refusing to participate in abortions. On the other hand, they are also asking judges to stay implementation of the rule immediately, lest "confusion and chaos" -- as Connecticut's attorney general Richard Blumenthal put it -- reign.

The Hartford Courant gave a particularly breathtaking display of internal inconsistency by editorializing both that the new rule is an "assault on women's rights with an eleventh-hour rule that could keep rape victims from getting emergency contraception," as well as based on "imagining problems where there are none."

How can redundant regulations against imaginary acts of persecution wreak such havoc?

An inauguration is a moment of new hope and shared joy. Thanks to President Obama, the morning after will be the day your tax dollars will begin flowing to international organizations that perform and promote abortions.

As thousands descend on Washington, D.C., on Jan. 22 for the annual March for Life, President Obama is making it all too clear: "Hope and virtue" will not stand in the way of the inevitable march of death disguised as progress. The protests of people like me won't matter that much to him.

But will the prominent pro-Obama voices who so vigorously promised that good Catholics may in good conscience vote for him raise their voices loudly at this misuse of taxpayer dollars for international abortions? And if they do, will President Obama care?