Ryan asks Biden: if you’re protecting Catholics, why are they suing you?

If you missed the debate last night, Life News can fill you in on the best question of the night.

Excerpt:

Paul Ryan had perhaps the question of the night when he challenged pro-abortion Vice President Joe Biden on the issue of the HHS mandate that compels them to pay for abortion-causing drugs.

During the debate, Ryan brought up the controversial mandate that pro-life groups oppose.

“What troubles me more is how this administration has handled all of these issues. Look at what they’re doing through Obamacare with respect to assaulting the religious liberties of this country. They’re infringing upon our first freedom, the freedom of religion, by infringing on Catholic charities, Catholic churches, Catholic hospitals,” he explained. “Our church should not have to sue our federal government to maintain their religious liberties.”

Biden try to explain away the Obama administration’s pro-abortion assault on Catholics, evangelicals and other religious groups and businesses.

“With regard to the assault on the Catholic church, let me make it absolutely clear, no religious institution, Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic Social Services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy Hospital, any hospital, none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact,” Biden falsely claimed.

“Now, I’ve got to take issue with the Catholic church and religious liberty,” Ryan retorted.  “Why would they keep — why would they keep suing you? It’s a distinction without a difference.”

The mandate compels religious employers to pay for and refer women for abortion-causing drugs, birth control, contraception and sterilizations.

The mandate has drawn significant opposition from Catholic, Protestant and evangelical groups, pro-life organizations and others concerned that it includes no conscience protections for employers that don’t want to be required to pay for or refer women for drugs that end life and violate their faith.

Americans United for Life called the mandate a “payout for the abortion industry.”

So how does a person who claims to be Catholic explain why he supports the murder of unborn children?

CNS News explains what Biden said:

“With regard to abortion,” he said, “I accept my church’s position on abortion as a, what we call de fide doctrine. Life begins at conception. That’s the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life. But I refuse to impose it on equally devote Christian and Muslims and Jews, and I just refuse to impose that on others, unlike my friend here, the congressman.

“I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that, women, that they can’t control their body,” said Biden. “It is a decision between them and their doctor, in my view, and the Supreme Court. I am not going to interfere with that.”

The actual position of the Catholic Church is that any law legalizing the killing of an unborn child is an unjust law that violates the natural law and is, therefore, no law at all. Vice President Biden’s church teaches that it is not acceptable even to obey such laws let alone support them as part of a political campaign.

The abortion issue can best be understood by comparing it to slavery, although abortion is worse than slavery. Slavery involves the mistreatment of an individual for your own benefit. Abortion goes further – you actually murder an individual for your benefit. What Biden is really saying is “don’t like abortion, don’t have one”. He certainly won’t have one, but he doesn’t mind if you do. Now apply that to slavery. Biden might say that he personally would never own slaves, but he doesn’t mind if you own slaves. But is that a moral view? No – the moral view is not only to not own slaves yourself, but to help people escape slavery and to make the practice illegal. The moral thing to do is to save the victims of slavery as much as possible, and that goes the same for abortion.

Recall that Biden had previously defended China’s one-child policy, which is enforced through forced abortions and mass sterilizations. That’s his view. And he calls that Catholicism.

Biased debate moderator joins unhinged VP Joe Biden in interrupting and bullying Paul Ryan

The full video is above, and the full transcript is here.

Results:

One undecided woman on CNN called Biden a “buffoon“, but why? Let’s see:

Here’s a debate re-cap from The Blaze.

Excerpt:

Ryan argued the current administration had provided insufficient security to Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed, along with three other Americans, in a terrorist attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11

However, Biden sought to blame Republicans, saying the budget that Ryan authored as chairman of the House Budget Committee cut the Obama administration’s funding request for diplomatic security by $300 million.

Despite multiple reports that indicate there were requests for additional security at the U.S. Consulate in Libya, Biden claimed the Obama administration wasn’t “told they wanted more security.” The statement appears to be at odds with the official record.

Many times throughout the debate, Biden could be seen smiling sarcastically and shaking his head as Ryan spoke. Both men also interrupted each other a number of times, though Biden was a more frequent offender.

“I know you’re under a lot of duress to make up for lost ground, but I think people would be better served if we don’t interrupt each other,” Ryan said. But he didn’t exactly stick to his word.

Actually, Ryan didn’t initiate any interruptions of Biden the entire night. It was Biden who kept breaking into Ryan’s speeches, with the full support of the moderator, and Ryan had to interrupt Biden then to get back the use of the time which he had been allocated to respond. Joe Biden could not control himself. He looked like some sort of Gollum flipping back and forth between laughing psychopath and somber sycophant. And always the leftist ABC News moderator was there to give him extra rebuttals, while denying Ryan any similar rebuttals. And if things started to go Ryan’s way, she immediately shut him up and moved on to another question.

Here’s a review with some specifics:

  • The first question that I heard was the moderator passing judgement on Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney as to their timing of their response to the murder of our Ambassador. Then she allowed Uncle Joe to cut off Representative Ryan, and asked him to elaborate further and in detail about all the reasons why Paul Ryan was a liar. Why do Republicans put up with this sort of third-world dictatorship facade of a debate? She asks Paul Ryan why he was wrong and then asks Biden to tell her why his policies were so good- and this passes as unbiased and fair?
  • Next question- “Romney has book on No Apologies- tell me why this book is wrong and sucks and you are wrong for being part of this book”, then she interrupts Ryan to be critical of his answer. Look, I know that Obama appointed her baby’s daddy to a major office and Obama was at her wedding, but I can’t believe that she just interrupted Ryan about 30 seconds into his answer, especially after she let Uncle Joe ramble on and on for a full answer. He should have just stood up and walked out on her- I’ve been watching it for 7 minutes now and it’s clearly a joke of a ‘debate’.
  • This set-up- sit down in silence and no responding to each other and a moderator who wants to prove that she is something important- is boring.
  • So Biden’s strategy must be to question and ridicule everything that Romney and Ryan say- “this is incredible,” “that was malarkey,” “facts matter,”, etc.
  • Biden- “Iran has no weapon to put an atomic bomb in”- but yet Iran has Shahab missiles and Sajjil missiles- the Sajjil-2 is a medium-range missile of about 2,200 km or 1,375 miles when carrying a 750-kg warhead, capable of hitting our assets in the Middle East or any of our allies in the regime (although admittedly it’s rather inaccurate). So he’s wrong, flat wrong, and totally wrong.
  • This moderator continues to judge Ryan, have a conversation with Biden, throw tough questions at Ryan, softball questions to Biden, cut off Ryan, and let Joe ramble. This debate is a joke- the format, moderator, and set-up are all BAD. Ask a question and get the heck out of the way.
  • At 9:52, Paul Ryan is asked a question, and is interrupted and attacked by both the moderator and Joe Biden, he turns right, he turns left, he is being interrupted, and he keeps trying to push through, even over the moderator, who at 9:55 began to summarize Ryan’s plans in a typical-liberal manner, and now that she is done hearing his views and hearing him defend himself, she says “I want to move on now and ask another biased and slanted question of you.” Get out of the debate, moderator, and let Biden and Ryan talk.

Read the whole thing.

Here’s the moderate Chris Wallace of Fox News to make it clear:

I don’t think that the debate is worth watching. The moderator ruined the debate because she has connections to Barack Obama, as I pointed out before, and it showed. I didn’t expect her to basically be a mouthpiece for the Obama campaign, but that’s what she did. This was a 2 on 1 debate from the first instant. It’s not worth watching. I don’t think that independents were impressed with 90 minutes of arrogant bullying by Biden and Raddatz.

You can read some tweets here which agree with this analysis. But it’s not just ordinary people who thought that Biden lost. Left-wing media people like Piers Morgan and Kirsten Powers tweeted their disapproval, too.

Abortion debate: Scott Klusendorf debates Nadine Strossen on abortion

Abortion can be a complicated issue, but the nice thing about Scott is that he cuts right to the core of the debate and makes sure to clarify what each side is saying. He strips away the rhetoric and gets down to the real arguments on each side and  the pro-life side comes out on top.

Relevant  resources

Recently, Scott taught two classes on the techniques that he uses when debating abortion.

The first talk was on Tactics. Here is the PDF. In the handout, Scott explains how to use questions to make your opponent give reasons for their views instead of just asserting them.

The second talk was on Relativism. Here is the PDF. In the handout, Scott explains what moral relativism is, and some of the problems with the view.

You can find out more about Scott’s organization, the Life Training Institute, on their web page. He is the #1 pro-life debater in the United States, in my opinion. I have met Scott, and he is someone I personally admire. His book “The Case for Life” is the best introduction to pro-life apologetics that you can get. With that book, anyone can learn to be confident and bold when defending the right of unborn children to live.