Posted on 11/25/2004 9:05:56 AM PST by jobim
THE ABORTION DEBATE
It's the pro-lifers' moment Bush's re-election, the Peterson case and other factors show that the right has gathered steam James P. Pinkerton
November 25, 2004
On abortion, the tide has turned.
Events in 2004 have heralded the moment when pro-life - or, if one prefers, anti-choice - forces gained decisive momentum. This trend cannot be dismissed merely as a victory of Karl Rove and the Religious Right. Instead, deeper forces are at work: the basic instinct to perpetuate the species.
Let's consider the evidence, from just this month. First, George W. Bush, an abortion opponent, won 31 states and a second term.
Second, Sen. Arlen Specter, one of the few pro-choice Republicans in the Senate, was threatened with the loss of his judiciary committee chairmanship - unless he pledged not to block pro-life nominees for judgeships, including for the Supreme Court.
Third, just on Tuesday, Congress passed legislation guaranteeing the right of health-care providers to refuse to take part in abortions. In the cheering words of the conservative Family Research Council, "This is a monumental victory in the fight for life."
Indeed for years now, the right has been winning the fight. In the '90s, conservatives won the moral-intellectual battle over "partial-birth abortion"; most Americans deem it to be an abhorrent practice. In fact, the more time people spend pondering the mechanics of abortion, the less likely they are to support it. In the meantime, pro-life sentiment builds further as ultrasound technology improves, to the point where in utero imaging becomes three-dimensional and all the more vivid.
The coverage of the 2002 killing of eight-months-pregnant Laci Peterson in California illustrated a further shift. Reporters routinely referred to "the murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn son Conner." That a fetus was thus deemed to be a full person, with a name, was a spectacular success for the right. Scholars call it "semantic infiltration." Indeed, this infiltration was enshrined in a new federal law making it a crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman. Bush himself refers to the bill as "Laci and Conner's Law."
The continuing, growing power of the right-to-life movement has many sources, but the most profound source is basic biology: The human species, like any species, is programmed for its own perpetuation. And yet across the industrial nations, the birth rate has fallen. Births are now at or below the numerical replacement level. The once-feared "population bomb," in other words, has proven to be a "population bust." Three major books have been published of late on this topic, the most recent of which is "Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future," by Ben Wattenberg, a scholar who hardly rates as a traditional pro-life conservative.
One solution to the birth-dearth, of course, is immigration. Yet that brings controversy. A more natural solution, which people yearn for in their bones, is an increase in the birth rate - more patter of more little feet. Hence the surging popularity of "pro-family" policies put forth by "family values"-oriented candidates. And yes, as part of the same swell of feeling comes the impulse to restrict abortion.
To be sure, the pro-choice establishment is deeply entrenched - in the media, in the legal system and throughout the affluent knowledge economy. Yet pro-lifers have growing numbers on their side. How so? People in "red states" are having more children - which is to say, more future voters - than people in blue states.
The abortion debate is hardly settled, but biological instinct, as well as demographic destiny, is smiling on the pro-lifers.
James P. Pinkerton's e-mail ad- dress is pinkerto@ix.netcom.com. Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
Amen!!!
I opposed the appointment of Specter, but I'm willing to wait and see. I won't pull the plug until the time comes to do it.
The Republican Party is at a critical juncture. Either they will move ahead expeditiously with conservative, prolife judicial appointments, or they will lose the extraordinary momentum we have seen in the past two elections. The showdown is now, and the results will be seen in the 2006 elections.
Ordinarily, midterm elections see losses by the party in power. That wasn't true in 2002 and it won't be true in 2006 IF Bush redeems his word and appoints prolife judges. Otherwise, the next two years will be remembered as the time when the Republican party had victory in its hands and threw it away.
Karl Rove, take heed. This is not the time for wheeling and dealing and business as usual. There can be no compromise on the murder of children.
You nailed it.
Huh? Since November 3rd it's been one defeat after another for pro-lifers. Bush hasn't put one person clearly pro-life on his cabinet. And there are no consequences for Specter challenging Bush on anything.
All of those large majority votes to protect traditional don't mean a thing to a black-robed Constitutional hit-man.
It's the liberal courts that's making the laws that are anti- Christian religion, anti-life, anti traditional marriage and anti- God anywhere even in the founding documents.
When they remove Him, by using another Constitutional baseless law imposed by activist judges "separation of church and state", then those documents will be useless.
The country the founding fathers envisioned will be separated not only from church, but from it's foundation and will crumble, which is the real intention of those that hate it.
Since when have pledges and promises and a political carreer other than his own, meant anything to Arlen Specter? The author is dreaming. BTW, if Arlen truly thought he wouldn't be able to make some advances in his own agenda, he wouldn't have taken the chairmanship.
Very much agreed.
There is only one positive gain I can see. Without all the ruckus, Arlen would have been a GREATER impediment. Now he'll be a bit more selective about when he'll choose to be an obstacle.
However, you are right. We have no choice but to wait and see.
FYI
That strip is very funny. where can I find it and what is it called? I can't make out the small print.
I suggest that you ask your local paper to carry it. It can be gut-splittingly funny. The attack it carried on for a week against the New York Times after the Jayson Blair affair was awesome.
Status quo ... I fear you are right and the Specter chairmanship will be the GOP's way of excusing the lack of movement toward ending the abortion on demand serial killing.
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