Posted on 04/23/2016 2:43:50 AM PDT by reaganaut1
As Donald Trump hurtles toward the Republican convention, he is on a collision course with the anti-abortion movement — a crucial conservative constituency that contends Republicans must own that issue to win a general election.
Leaders of the movement are suspicious, if not outright opposed, to the three-time married billionaire who only recently came to oppose abortion and whose gaffes suggest he does not understand the issue.
The latest flap exploded Thursday after Trump vowed he would "absolutely" change the Republican platform opposing abortion "for the three exceptions" — rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother. The platform is silent on exceptions, but anti-abortion groups such as March for Life shot back that Trump's revisions would undermine the party's "solidly pro-life" position.
“The suggestion that the platform should weaken its position on the pro-life issue would set back years of hard work in the pro-life movement,” said Tom McClusky, vice president of March for Life Action. Add to that the GOP front-runner’s statements last month that women should be punished for getting illegal abortions and that he doesn’t want to change existing law — positions his campaign later recanted — which are anathema to a movement that portrays itself as supportive of pregnant women and seeks to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
The speed with which he corrected the two gaffes — which he rarely does — proves that he knows to take the movement seriously.
At the same time, Trump has not toned down his praise of Planned Parenthood, which he says “has done very good work for many, many — for millions of women” despite the fact that the group is reviled by anti-abortion advocates as “a seller of baby body parts.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
As a practical matter we are not going to ban abortion in cases of rape and incest. Trump is being realistic about this.
A sensible approach would be to say that the rape or incest had to be reported within a very short time frame....two months at the longest. That would achieve three things:
It would increase the possibility of prosecuting the perpetrator
It would could down on bogus claims of rape
It would save the life of pre-born infants
What about prison terms for suicide attempts?
‘As a practical matter we are not going to ban abortion in cases of rape and incest. Trump is being realistic about this.’
That is where 85% of the population was in a poll sometime back. Might have eroded somewhat. Abortion is now better understood.
But heck — ultra-religious GW had the same position.
The whole pro-life movement is muddled. The constitutionally sound approach to the abusive Supreme Court decisions, is for the governors of the states to nullify those decisions. The two approaches attempted by the pro-life movement for the past 40 years, a constitutional amendment, and putting so-called pro-life judges on the court, are futile.
It was stupid for Trump to even bring up the subject of the “exceptions.” The President has no role to play in passing the state statutes that will someday outlaw abortion.
One thing is certain. Hillary is incomparably worse than Trump on every issue, including abortion.
The focus of the pro-life movement should be the governors. Since the Supreme Court decisions on abortion command the governors to act criminally, that is, not enforce their state abortion laws,it is up to the governors to nullify the Supreme Court decisions. And that should be the demand of the pro-life movement.
And what exactly has all that hard work accomplished? The pro-life people really should learn from the left how to use incrementalism. Concentrate on the stuff that most people agree with like parental consent, partial birth abortion, and good supreme court justices. Once you win there move on to the next item. Instead they want to fight over something that will chase away people who agree with them on those issues, while accomplishing nothing.
Trump is not going to have a fight with pro-life groups. Hitlery will promote killing babies already born.
The choice is easy.
As a practical matter, perhaps not. But if the Republican party's core position is opposition to the whole idea of abortion then why weaken the platform?
Marriage issue was being approached the same way. What happened?
“the three-time married billionaire who only recently came to oppose abortion”
Only recently became republican as well. One of the things about
liberals is everything they say, do or promise has an expiration
date. That’s whats always been my concern about Trump.
Will he still be a republican after he is elected?
Here we go again. Politico doesn’t give a damn about the pro-life movement. Except, of course, to use it as a wedge to stop Trump. At the state level, pro-lifers have made great advances only to get stopped by federal judges. What have elected Republicans, who have held Congress for 18 out of last 22 years, done about these judges?
What about the funding of PP? Have Republicans stopped that too?
Maybe you should ask the same thing of all our elected Republicans because they sure as hell vote and pass legislation like a bunch of Democrats.
....especially in DC!
Trump's advisors will likely tell him to blow off any objections that may arise from pro-life groups. And, given their apparent strategy of trying to soften Trump's image, that's the smart thing for them to do.
Pro-lifers, faced with the choice of somebody who is apparently soft on the subject of life and somebody who is radically pro-abortion will obviously go with the former.
The dems are too stupid to bring up Trump's past before he evolved into being pro-life (sort of). The reason why is because, as a party, they are far too ideological and would view that as making him more acceptable to moderates and their own party members. Given the Hildabeast's horrible likeability, they don't want to do ANYTHING to make the Donald more acceptable to their base...even though it would destroy his support among social conservatives.
The point is that they are going to blow off pro-lifers from this point moving forward...and I would imagine this to be doubly the case once the primaries next week are over.
We need to double down our support for Trump going forward so that the dems know that they won't be able to fracture his base (and I say that as a non-supporter).
Remember: what Mr. Trump believes or doesn't believe is utterly irrelevant at this point. We have made our collective choice in the matter and now we have to live with that choice. The only thing that is important is defeating the Hildabeast.
“sure as hell vote and pass legislation like a bunch of Democrats.”
Naa, that’s Yew York your talking about. Not everyone is
as stupid as them. Now I think I’ll go get me a 32 oz. Coke
and head to the gun range. I know you wish you could.
Exactly correct. Take what you can get now and try for more later.
There should be ZERO reasons, even shaky almost made up reasons, for this headline to ever even have a chance to be written about anyone a God-fearing conservative, a FR member or for that matter the owner of FR would support for President of the United States. This is an absolute of this site and as I said any God-fearing real conservative.
That's not what I've seen, for the case of a soft Republican versus a radical pro-abort Dem. There are pro-Lifers, including here on FR, who would rather the Dem win. They figure that if they can block soft Repubs from being elected, that eventually the Repubs will nominate a hard-line pro-Lifer.
That never happen, though, since the GOP Establishment would rather lose than oppose the Dems in any fundamental way.
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