Anti-Abortion Craziness Takes Over at the National Day of Prayer

May 1, 2014-A few years ago, I coined the term "Medical Right." It describes the connection between religiously influenced pseudo-medical organizations and the “Religious Right,” a fundamentalist political force.  “Medical Right” organizations intentionally mingle politics and religion, with the overall goal of outlawing abortion and - believe it or not - contraceptive methods that they wrongly equate with abortion.

What got me thinking about this today was the mind-boggling news story about James Dobson calling President Obama "the abortion president" at the National Day of Prayer event at the U.S. Capitol - what is supposed to be a nonpartisan day of unity. Here's the story. Dobson is founder of the right-wing Christian advocacy organization Focus on the Family - which qualifies as a Medical Right organization because of its anti-abortion politics, which are based on the erroneous notion that contraception is abortion. This is a quote of what he said in the Capitol  - a house of democracy, funded by taxpayers of all faiths and no faith. 

“President Obama, before he was elected, made it very clear that he wanted to be the abortion president. He didn’t make any bones about it. This is something that he really was going to promote and support, and he has done that, and in a sense he is the abortion president." 

Baffling? Only if you don't realize that Dobson and his nutty Medical Right allies believe that contraception is abortion and that the Affordable Care Act's inclusion of contraceptive coverage is the same as government-sponsored abortion. 

Representative Janice Hahn, a California Democrat who is the co-chair of the weekly congressional prayer breakfast, walked out in disgust. Later, she said: “James Dobson hijacked the National Day of Prayer - this nonpartisan, nonpolitical National Day of Prayer - to promote his own distorted political agenda.”

Dobson also read from a recent letter he said he had sent to “250,000 people,” in which he proclaimed that “The Creator will not hold us guiltless if we turn a deaf ear to the cries of innocent babies.”

“So come and get me, Mr. President, if you must,” Dobson's letter concluded. “I will not yield to your wicked regulations.” 

The event was organized by the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a conservative evangelical Christian non-profit, whose chairwoman is James Dobson's wife, Shirley Dobson.

In April, task force vice chairman John Bornschein defended the event against criticism that it was promoting evangelical beliefs, describing the day as a nonsectarian gathering.

"This is not about proselytizing," Bornschein said in April. "This is purely about prayer and praying for our leadership and asking for God's wisdom and blessing over our leaders."