There is a lot of controversy on the Hill and in state capitals about alleged obstructionist politics. Its no surprise that partisan politics is notoriously obstructionist. Like a ball game, when one teams objective is to get the ball across the goal line - the other team’s objective is to obstruct their progress. Voila! Party politics.

The problem with political obstructionism is that it has real consequences for people’s lives: this is true whether it is the party trying to get the bill passed, or the party blocking it. Whether the effect is good or bad depends on what the content of the legislation is.

When it comes to good and evil it is a far, far more serious matter. When an intrinsically evil action is being advanced, then it becomes the moral obligation of those who know and recognize it to be evil, to block its progress.

This was vividly displayed when Pro-Life Democrats in the House of Representatives successfully blocked the forward movement of health care legislation that would have permitted government sponsorship of abortion. That any government, which principal responsibility is to protect its citizens, attempts rather to kill or harm those citizens, that action must be impeded and ultimately stopped.

Whether or not those Democrats will be ultimately succesful remains to be seen, but Rep,. Stupak and others with him have done what emmbers of the government are supposed to do. In other words, they had a moral obligation to be obstructionist.

Throughout salvation history we see heroic acts of obstructionism. Moses obstructed Pharaoh’s progress toward destroying God’s people. Mordecai obstructed Haman’s intentions to commit genocide against the Jews. John the Baptist obstructed Herod’s evil machinations and our Lord Jesus obstructed Satan’s evil designs for the condemnation of the world!

So, obstructionism is not always bad - after all, more than half the world mobilized to obstruct Adolph Hitler’s advance on Europe. And we must obstruct Satan’s purpose to pervert human society and build a culture of death.

St. Augustine so aptly described evil as the absence of good. Evil advances when good people do nothing. That makes obstructionism a good thing.

Pro-life people are pretty anxious right now, with pro-abortion, embryonic stem cell research and even some pro-suicide leaders of Congress in control of the agenda. I admit, if you rest your hopes for a culture of life on the political process, especially the federal government, there isn’t much cause for optimism. But that is just the thing: we shouldn’t, we mustn’t, we better not be putting our hope in Washington. Capitol Hill and the White House are magnificent examples of human foibles - conflicting motivations, the dominance of personal ambition, fear of the next election, the influence of powerful lobbies and special interests, very little at all of duty to the Common Good.

But Washington is vastly outnumbered by the ordinary people who carry on the daily life of the nation, moms and grandmas, minimum wage earners and young, idealistic students, dedicated family men and selfless hard workers, courageous law enforcement and long suffering teachers…and on and on. These are the neighbors, schoolmates, nurses and servers we work, study and play with each day. Unlike the cynical, hard bitten pols on Capitol Hill (a lot of private suffering up there in the political stratosphere), these folks are emerging as decidedly pro-life.

Young people are not turning first to the fortified, police-surrounded and politically protected abortion clinics when they’re faced with an unexpected pregnancy - instead, they’re surrounding the mom with support and even moving into lofts and communally raising the child. Not the best situation, they should be married, should be leading chaste lives, shouldn’t have compromised their virtue and had sex before they were ready to make a lifetime loving commitment, but the mistake was made and now a human being has come into being - and they’re God given instincts to embrace new life kick in.

I always say, everyone you’ve ever met, everyone you’ll ever meet and everyone you know right now was born pro-life! No one is born pro-death, it is contrary to our nature and our conscience. Instead, they have to be talked out of that. Fewer and fewer young people are falling for the twisted logic and false rhetoric of pro-death, pro-abortion razmataz. Instead, young people are quietly, unpolitically turning pro-life. Politicians can’t coopt that natural move towards life, and if any try to, they will be rejected - and that goes for all parties!

Pro-life is a-political, it really has nothing to do with electoral politics, it has to do with the heart, the soul and the nature of human beings. There is an emerging Culture of Life, but it is illuding the political culture on Capitol Hill. Eventually, just like with Jim Crowe and civil rights, pols will be forced to confront it, but by then, they will be relatively powerless to control it.