Now, you could say that my clients did not do all they could do because the abortionists were not killed and their mills not burned or blown up. Forgive me. I prefer it that way. If Henry Hyde and Chris Smith, for two, are not pro-life heroes, I do not know what a pro-life hero is, but I think I do.
I will take second place to no FReeper and to no person in despising Margaret Sanger, Planned Barrenhood and all of their works and pomps, likewise Kate Michelman and Lawrence Lader and NARAL, or any of their ilk. I went to the assistance of clients in Wichita, Kansas, who had been arrested in an Operation Rescue action against Killer Tiller's mill.
All that having been said, and conceding that I would personally vote against the bill in question, Henry Hyde and Chris Smith have earned the right not to have their pro-life bona fides or their motives questioned by thee or by me.
I don't know you (solely from your posts) as well as I thought, apparently.
For those in England who hated slavery, it must have been wonderful to have utterly single-minded members of Parliament like William Wilberforce spend 50 years doing nothing but using their floor privileges and votes to highlight and dramatize the evils of slavery until finally, with Wilberforce on his deathbed, Parliament paid him tribute by abolishing slavery at last when he lay dying. I will take 435 Henry Hydes and Chris Smiths and we won't have to worry about Planned Barrenhood funding from Congress because there won't be any.
I participated in the New Right for decades. There were always those who thought they could prove themselves more worthy by being the furthest out on given issues. Condemning the Henry Hydes and the Chris Smiths from a pro-life perspective IS misleading. I'll take your word for it that the omnibus bill in question provided funds to Planned Barrenhood (as all too many government budgets do). The pro-lifers undoubtedly voted for the bill in spite of that fact and not because of it.
Abortion is my most important issue and, no doubt, yours. That does not mean that it is the only issue. You and I and other pro-lifers have not succeeded in making our most important issue a front-burner issue in Congress. There is little purpose in insisting on votes on constitutional amendments that even pro-lifers are not in agreement upon since there are many competing amendments (absolute or state's rights or with trimester considerations or whatever). We have not united our own movement but we should act as though we are entitled to have formal votes to expose the squabbling within????? That is not how the process works.
Also, Dubya is in the third generation of political Bushes, a family notorious for a political tin ear gene. The first generation was Senator and Mrs. Prescott Bush (the senior senator from Wall Street as he was known). That Mrs. Bush (Dorothy) was on Planned Barrenhood's national Board of Directors for many years with Peggy (Mrs. Barry) Goldwater. Dorothy Bush also was a militant in her attitude on the subject and denounced George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush the Elder and the second generation) privately for selling her out on abortion. His nickname in Congress was Rubbers for good reason. Like the Huguenot Henry IV (?) of France, GHWB decided that the Vice Presidency was "worth a Mass." Dubya is the third generation and, whatever his failings, he is the real deal much more so than his predecessors. Dubya and GHWB don't agree on Iraq either.
Since you brought up the discredited term "neocons" (liberales/palepantywaistese for actual conservatives), I must observe that I am delighted to see that Tancredo and the faux Republican paleopantywaists Ron Paul and Weepy Walter Jones are on the Rosa DeLauro/Emily's List side of the vote, whatever their excuse. Paul and Jones belong in the Demonratic Party on foreign policy, military action alone. Tancredo deserves a lifetime achievement award for isolating the border obsessive crowd, trying to redefine them as the GOP or the conservative movement AND alienating Hispanic voters (read prolife reinforcements until alienated) en masse.
National Right to Life Committee is a fraud. I agree with you that they fear nothing more than the possibility that they might not retire with 50-year pins and gold watches or that the paychecks might end. BUT, South Dakota was foolish to pass that pro-life bill before we got at least one more vote on SCOTUS. The law will probably result only in another Webster or Casey style decision that will make it MORE difficult with one more judge to override all of the dishonest stare decisis arguments.
The franchise on our issue is changing the personnel on SCOTUS. Effective politics is not an exercise in impatient self-satisfaction patting itself on the back for being right. Bill Buckley called antiwar demonstrations public incidents of mass political masturbation and he was right. Effective politics is the patience to serve the wine at its peak and not before (especially when the votes just are not there in Congress or in the courts). Saying I'll show them for killing babies by slashing my own throat in public and THEN they'll be sorry, ummmm, does not work.
Federal funding for crisis pregnancy centers is no answer. If we cannot fund them ourselves without gummint strings attached, you can see why South Dakota will not win in court, why we aren't winning in Congress and why, although pro-life is probably second only to abolitionism as a social/political movement without success, our enemies are still confident of their success. When pro-lifers were arrested, pro-life lawyers represented them without concern for fees. We did not use public defenders. We did not charge the clients. There are a lot more pro-lifers than there are pro-life lawyers. We can fund our own crisis pregnancy centers and we should. That would be, ummmm, fiscally responsible.
By analogy, we may look at the current antiwar despicability posing as a "movement." Jackass Murtha (a war "hero". He says so himself! What r=eason does Jackass have to lie???? Ummmmm, of course, every reason!) proposes that American soldiers assume the Demonrats' favorite posture for members of our military: tuck tails between legs and run like hell NOW!!!! Then thirty-seven or thirty-seven hundred other peaceniks come forward (Look at ME!!!! Look at ME!!!! No, No, Loooook at MEEEEEE!) each with his/her/its own nuances and denouncing everyone else's "plan" from instant surrender to surrender on the instllment plan, just so long as it ends in surrender.
Pro-life needs coherent strategy and unity. As General Patton said (in the movie anyway): This individuality crap promoted by the Saturday Evening Post has to go!
If you think that attacking Henry Hyde and Chris Smith is a priority, then you need new hobbies. Note that I am not pinging my friends.
We have to touch the very mind, heart and souls of these men, so that when this wrong is presented to them again they vote for rightousness, life and truth. They have the power to close planned parenthood and it's up to us to give them the strength to do so.