Protests await Obama's appearance at Notre Dame

President Barack Obama ventures to America's foremost Roman Catholic university Sunday, where the country's deep divisions over abortion and stem-cell research have moved to the forefront in a time of war and recession.
A storm blew up immediately after the University of Notre Dame invited Obama to address its commencement exercises. It still rages, with anti-abortion activists promising to disrupt the president's appearance at South Bend, Indiana, where he was to receive an honorary degree.
Students opposed to abortion rights attended an all-night prayer vigil to protest Obama's visit, and 200 people prayed at a packed Alumni Hall Chapel.
More than 100 protesters gathered and 23 marched onto the campus Saturday. Police say they arrested 19 for trespassing and four were also charged with resisting law enforcement. None of those arrested were students, said university spokesman Dennis Brown.
In Washington on Sunday, the head of the Republican Party said Obama should be denied the honorary degree.
Obama is a liberal Democrat who supports abortion rights but who says the procedure should be rare. The issue has divided Americans for decades, especially since the US Supreme Court ruled in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case that states may not ban abortion.
Recriminations against Obama's appearance in South Bend, Indiana, are zinging across the Internet, on cable television and the editorial space of newspapers.
The Catholic church and many other Christian denominations hold that abortion or the use of embryos for stem cell research amounts to the destruction of human life, is morally wrong and should be banned by law. The contrary argument holds that women have the right to terminate any pregnancy and that unused embryos created outside the womb for couples who cannot otherwise conceive should be available for stem cell research, which holds the promise of finding treatments for some of mankind's most debilitating ailments.
Within weeks of taking office, Obama eased a Bush administration executive order that limited such research to a small number of stem-cell strains that existed when the former president issued the directive.
In his commencement speech, Obama ``obviously would make mention of the debate that's been had' over abortion, while emphasising that ``this is exactly the kind of give and take that is had on college campus all over the country,' White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. Obama's appearance at Notre Dame would appear to be complicated significantly by new polls that show Americans' attitudes on the explosive issue have shifted dramatically toward the anti-abortion position. A Gallup survey released Friday found that 51 percent of those questioned call themselves ``pro-life,' or anti-abortion, and 42 percent ``pro-choice,' or supporting abortion rights. This is the first time a majority of US adults have identified themselves as ``pro-life' since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.
It's a dramatic shift from just a year ago when Gallup found that 50 percent supported abortion rights while 44 percent were anti-abortion. A Pew Research Center survey found a similar, if less dramatic, shift, with public opinion about abortion more closely divided than it has been in several years.
Pew said its latest polling found that 46 percent of Americans say abortion should be legal in most (28 percent) or all cases (18 percent). Forty-four percent of those surveyed were opposed to abortion in most (28 percent) or all cases (16 percent). Gallup said shifting opinions on the divisive issue lay almost entirely with Republicans or independents who lean Republican, with opposition among those groups rising over the past year from 60 percent to 70 percent. ``There has been essentially no change in the views of Democrats and Democratic leaners,' the Gallup organisation said.
The abortion issue, meanwhile, also is front and center as Obama vets potential nominees to fill the vacancy left by the retirement this summer of Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Abortion opponents are determined to see Roe v. Wade overturned, but only four court justices out of nine have backed that position. Souter has opposed arguments for overturning the key ruling. Republicans, meanwhile, see an opening for political gain. ``Those institutions don't hand those degrees out that readily. So it is a very strong sticking point, and I think a lot of Catholics and a lot of pro-life Americans are very concerned about that, and I think it is inappropriate,' Republican National Committee chief Michael Steele told NBC's ``Meet the PAP.``The president should speak, but the degree should not be conferred,' said Steele, who is a Catholic.
The Rev. John Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, has not joined the debate that erupted after Obama's invitation. Friends and colleagues say Jenkins has listened to the criticism but is confident in his decision. ``He respects people who differ, but he's resolute in his decision because he did it based on conscience and what he really believes in,' said Richard Notebaert, chairman of Notre Dame's board of trustees.
Notebaert said Jenkins, who is in the fourth year of a five-year term, has the ``full support' of the trustees. That hasn't soothed critics who question whether Notre Dame has lost touch with its Catholic roots. Calls for Jenkins' ouster have grown louder amid protests by abortion opponents, who have flown pictures of aborted fetuses over campus and paraded dolls smeared in fake blood outside a recent trustees' meeting.
A leading Catholic scholar, citing the Obama invitation and honorary degree, declined the school's most prestigious award, making this year's commencement the first time that the Laetare Medal hasn't been awarded since 1883. To be sure, though, there was division on campus.
The Rev. Richard McBrien, a theology professor at Notre Dame who supports Obama's speech, noted on ``Fox News Sunday' that the president's positions put him at odds with Catholic doctrine but added: ``There are other positions he has taken, whether it's on immigration or poverty or whatever, which are entirely consistent with Catholic social teaching.'
On campus, students generally favoured Obama giving the graduation speech. The graduating class voted to name Jenkins their Senior Class Fellow. But there were some students who opposed Obama giving the speech. ND Response, a coalition of university groups, has received permission from Notre Dame to hold a protest on campus on Sunday. Spokesman John Daly said he expected 20 to 30 graduating seniors to skip commencement and attend the prayer vigil.