[gov_bean_ counter]

I think it was Bush One who said you fight abortion one heart at a time (or something to that effect). That one went over like a woot in church.

He implied that it was a local church, community, cultural issue and was not going to be impacted by government action.

I don't believe the government should be paying for the procedure. However, I also believe the Federal government cannot legislate morality. Couldn't do it with booze, can't do it with drugs, prostitution, gambling.

Change the heart, change the outcome and that is not the government's job.

[Zack Nguyen]

Bush said that he wanted to “change one heart at a time” because it sounded good to and pro-choice Republicans.

Abortion is murder, and while as a Christian I am delighted to change one heart at a time, I expect government to do its job. And that is job is to preserve life and liberty.

[Rodney King]

I also believe the Federal government cannot legislate morality. Couldn't do it with booze, can't do it with drugs, prostitution, gambling. Change the heart, change the outcome and that is not the government's job.

Yet murder is illegal, theft, fraud, kidnapping, etc. Why is it ok for the government to legislate morality there, but not on abortion? Or do you think that all governments should repeal the laws against murder and theft?

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

However, I also believe the Federal government cannot legislate morality. Couldn't do it with booze, can't do it with drugs, prostitution, gambling.

Comparing abortion to booze, gambling, porn, etc. is apples and oranges.

I consider myself a Libertarian, but I believe that abortion should not be legal or government-approved.

[bluecollarman]

"I also believe the Federal government cannot legislate morality"Then your believer's broken. Murder, Rape, Child molestation, all moral things. Got laws against them too. But I agree that we need to change the heart of America.

[Graymatter]

Yes but if you follow that reasoning too far, someone’s bound to ask why we need laws against murder. The govt does legislate morality all the time, passing laws against moral choices that result in harm to others.
I’m from a libertarian background, and I’m also uneasy about drug laws and prohibitions of gambling and such like. But abortion has a consequence of death to a living human being. And if that weren’t enough, there’s the slippery slope argument, which has been settled to my satisfaction over the past few decades: diminished respect for the life of the unborn leads to diminished respect for the next defenseless category, and the next and the next.
From a Christian perspective I agree with you that morality springs from the individual heart, and is not imposed from above. But neither did Jesus suggest that we do away with temporal authority.
I became a conservative when I realized that the defenseless need government, and the world’s a jungle in which anyone may find himself defenseless against a stronger person or a treacherous one, who won’t be swayed by an appeal to their nonexistent conscience.
Abortion should be illegal. You can still fight it one heart at a time, you’ll just have fewer fights, and a lot fewer dead babies.