Exclusive: Jack Cashill reminds readers of Ann Dunham’s politics, peculiar pregnancy narrative
By Jack Cashill
Published June 29, 2022 at 7:11pm
If Barack Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, had been alive today, we can be confident she would have been among the loudest voices at whatever pro-abortion protest would have her.
As Obama describes his mother in his memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” Ann was “a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism.” And she was all these things before such things were cool.
Her parents were a bit more traditional. In the summer of 1960, they faced a dilemma. Their daughter was pregnant, and she had alerted them that the father was black. Today, a mixed-race couple can make a living just starring in TV commercials.
Not so in 1960 Seattle. In those days, getting pregnant out of wedlock with anyone was an embarrassment. Getting pregnant out of wedlock with a black man was a stain on the family honor.
The parents were not all that traditional. I suspect that if abortion were legal, they would have pressured their daughter to have one. And Ann, being prematurely woke, would have been pleased to oblige them.
