As Sarah notes, the main thrust of Obama's Notre Dame commencement address yesterday was finding common ground on reproductive health issues such as abortion and stem cell research. But toward the end of the speech, he switched gears, mentioning the 55th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board decision ending de jure school segregation.
Brown was of course the first major step in dismantling the "separate but equal" doctrine, but it would take a number of years and a nationwide movement to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all of God's children.
The juxtaposition of the two topics struck me, because the most ardent anti-abortion-rights activists often compare abortion to slavery and Jim Crow. This is a favorite tactic of Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, for instance, a national spokesperson for conservative Catholic positions on social issues. The same logic leads many evangelical and Catholic youth groups to teach children that they are "survivors" of a mass "holocaust" -- a holocaust of embryos and fetuses since Roe v. Wade.
I doubt the president's speech was written to consciously rebut this theory. Nevertheless, given the familiarity of many in the Notre Dame audience with anti-choice activism, some listeners undoubtedly made the connection.
--Dana Goldstein
