Conscience is Irrelevant

Or apparently, the Senate thinks so. By a vote of 56-41, splitting mostly down party lines, Democrats (along with a few Republicans) declined to protect the rights of doctors to follow the dictates of their conscience (and in some cases, their faith) by refusing to perform abortions.

So what you have is the specter of doctors being forced by the government to violate the Hippocratic Oath, which specifically prohibits abortion (isn't there something wrong when a bunch of pagan Greeks understood the imperative against killing better than the self-proclaimed Judeo-Christians in the Senate?).

The Democrats' vote puts them squarely in line with the President -- and offers yet another reason that Notre Dame deserves all the criticism its president has received for asking the President to speak there.