Austin Ruse not a fan of the Open Minds abortion conference

At the Catholic Thing, Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute President Austin Ruse, provides his take on Princeton's "Open Hearts and Fair Minded Words" abortion conference.

But for the most part the pro-lifers were out-numbered and outclassed. Every single panel was weighted in favor of the pro-abortion side, some embarrassingly so. The panel on preventing unintended pregnancies consisted of four abortion advocates pushing contraception and one priest ineptly explaining Catholic teaching. Pro-lifers who knew what they were doing would never have allowed these kinds of odds. It was worse than what happens on the leftwing MSNBC.....

Besides the speakers who were outmatched or embarrassed or both, many of the others seem to be of the progressive persuasion, which meant the conference was at least in part the Left speaking to the farther Left. Any conference where Notre Dame’s Cathy Kaveny is on the pro-life side means the conference is in trouble from the start. Kaveny is known for siding with Barack Obama, and taking every opportunity to scold pro-lifers, including bishops, who dare to take a strong public position. Another of these was an Evangelical pastor who described himself as a progressive and who could not bring himself to say anything much stronger than abortion should be resisted.