Schwarzenegger Criticized for Saying GOP Should be More Pro-Abortion

LifeNews.com ^ | December 20, 2004 | Steven Ertelt

[Ed Current]

Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) -- First, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came under fire from pro-life advocates for backing a $6 billion measure using taxpayer funds to destroy human life in cloning and embryonic stem cell research. Now he drawing criticism for suggesting the GOP should become more pro-abortion.

In an interview with Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily newspaper published Saturday, Schwarzenegger said the Republican Party should move "a little to the left" on issues such as abortion -- a shift he claims would pick up more voters.

Schwarzenegger told the paper that "the Republican Party currently covers only the spectrum from the right wing to the middle."

"I would like the Republican Party to cross this line, move a little further left and place more weight on the center," he said. "This would immediately give the party 5 percent more votes without its losing anything elsewhere."

However, post-election poll of voters shows that a majority of Americans are pro-life and the abortion issue gave pro-life candidates such as President Bush a twelve percent advantage.

Thinking about their own position on abortion, 55 percent said they took a pro-life position and only 40 percent took one of three positions in favor of legal abortions.

That November 2004 Wirthlin poll conforms to others showing pro-life Republican presidential candidates benefiting from that view on abortion.

According to Lydia Saad, Senior Gallup Poll Editor, "national exit polling in every presidential election since 1984 has shown a net advantage to the pro-life side over the pro-choice side, based on the percentage of single-issue abortion voters in the electorate."

Schwarzenegger's comments drew opposition from Karen England of the Capitol Resource Institute, a California group involved in pro-life issues.

"Schwarzenegger's statements that the GOP would not lose its base if it embraces ... abortion rights show extreme arrogance and total ignorance concerning the values and dedication of the party's core constituents," England said.

"Schwarzenegger has spent too much time in Hollywood. He needs to start mingling more with mainstream Californians," she added.

"We are outraged that Schwarzenegger has the audacity to misspeak for the millions of Republicans in this country who believe that abortion is murder," England concluded.

[bill1952]

Good point. Oh, my bet is on Afghan & Iraq.

Have a great Christmas.

[Ed Current]

Ethic of Reciprocity - Every person shares certain inherent human rights, simply because of their membership in the human race.

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Matthew 7:12, "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." Luke 6:31

Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League Homepage - James Matthew (Matt) Wallace, aka The Compleat Heretic; a Secular Humanist atheist and a pro-life advocate. A nontheistic and nonreligious opposition to the life-denying horror of abortion"... because life is all there is and all that matters, and abortion destroys the life of an innocent human being."

As I contemplate the Declaration of Independence on the anniversary of its signing, I am chastened by the tragic fact that too many Americans are denied their "unalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Ironically, these same rights are used as an argument for alienating these oppressed and persecuted Americans from their rights as human beings. These Americans are the more than one million preborn children violently killed annually by abortion.

The day will come when we as a people will live out the true and full meaning of our dearest creed: All human beings are equal under the law. We will no longer deny the humanity and the human rights of preborn children. Freedom will cease being corrupted into the right of a mother to slaughter her innocent and helpless child within the sanctum of her body. The inhuman and barbarous genocide that is abortion as birth control will end. On that day, all Americans will be free at last.

Some Information on LFL

In 1976, when she became pro-life, Doris Gordon founded Libertarians for Life "because some libertarian had to blow the whistle."

As libertarians, LFL's interest in the abortion debate is in everyone's unalienable rights. LFL's reasoning is philosophical, not religious. Some LFL associates are religious; others, such as Gordon, are atheists.

LFL focuses mainly on two central points: personhood (what "person" means, and why all preborn children are persons); and parental obligation (how parents incur it). From our answers we conclude that prenatal children have the right to the protection of the law.

Libertarianism affirms the central, inalienable right of all persons to be free from aggression (the initiation of force or fraud). Nonaggression belongs in every code of morality. LFL also affirms that from conception to death, we are persons with the right not to be killed. The killing of an innocent person, as in abortion, violates this right.

LFL further affirms that, under libertarian principles, parents owe their dependent children, born and preborn, care and protection from harm. Even if abortion were merely a case of "abandonment" or eviction, as some wish to rationalize it, it would still be wrongful death.

Dependent children are like "captives" of their parents, for they are in the parents' control. This is not voluntary for the children, but it is for the parents. Therefore, when parents choose not to provide care and the children get harmed, the parents have initiated force, and they are accountable.

Abortion, then, violates two rights of children: the right not to be killed, and the right to parental care and protection. Even when pregnancy is due to rape, both parents still have the general obligation not to kill or further endanger their innocent preborn child.

[Stringfellow Hawke]

This is what you are letting into the Republican party, *points at the RINO Schwarzenegger*. RINOs like Ahnold will only weaken the GOP, water it down and betray the core beliefs of the party.

Ahnold, using the little bit of logic you were able to muster, let me take it a little further. Why don't we just move further and further left? If we do that, we could garner many more votes, couldn't we? But what would we lose in the process of moving more in your direction? We'd lose our core beliefs and become just a mirror image of the democRAT party.

I'm serious, the only way to keep the GOP strong is to say NO to RINOs. Kick every liberal RINO out of our party and tell them to go make their own party or join the democRATs, their ideological soul-mates.

It's amazing how all these RINOs are being paraded around as heroes of the GOP. They are a victory for the left, not for conservatives across this nation.

If you want your conservative values represented in Washington, there's only one way to do that, make sure you put CONSERVATIVE politicians in office, no 'compassionate wuss conservatives', no RINOs, no spineless leaders that cave to every demand the democRATs make.

[Ed Current]

They are a victory for the left, not for conservatives across this nation.

You nailed it down completely!

[Avenger]

No, I wrote what I meant to say. Thanks.

How to you propose the government implement the policy of forcing a women to bring an unborn child to term against her will? There are many ways to abort a child without a doctor including the use of commonly available herbs that have been used for centuries throughout many cultures. If a woman is pregnant, does the government have the right to keep her from engaging in risky behavior, e.g. drinking, smoking, kickboxing, bungy-jumping, or imbibing certain completely legal herbal concoctions? How do you suggest such government controls be implemented? May I suggest we take all pregnant women who seem to have a predisposition toward abortion and place them in an artificial coma for 9 months until the unborn child comes to term. That way we can be certain the mother doesn't do anything that might harm the unwanted baby.

[Ed Current]

no 'compassionate wuss conservatives',

Arinie is one of the best 'girlie' men the feminized left has.

[MonroeDNA]

So put it on the ballot. And live with the result.

I'm in favor of a ballot measure. Are you?

[Tealc]

Wow. Thank you for posting that.

[Ed Current]

Read & understand the CONSTITUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MonroeDNA]

What's with the shouting?

Personally, I think ROE should be repealed, because it is bad law. That said, I am confident that most states will then legalize abortion.

Sounds good to me.

So go find a state you can take over, and outlaw abortion. Move there. Or to Iran.

[Coleus]

He's in company with the sanctimonious, phony, big mouth. Where in her book does she  mention that she was asked to leave EPA for going against the president's policies.

 

Former NJ Governor/EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and aides start consulting firm

 

Whitman says in new book that catering to GOP's far-right wing will hurt party

[demecleze]

Just making it illegal and NOT trumpeting it like it was some glorious right of all free woman would be a start.

They can be more lenient to the pregnant woman but nail the provider for second degree murder of a child with life in jail or death penalty.

It is not about eliminating it, just curtailing it as per all crimes.

What you imply is like saying do not punish drug offenses as people can just sniff organic solvents anyway.

[Ed Current]

Personally, I think ROE should be repealed, because it is bad law.

Finally, you start to make sense. I was beginning to think you were a fresh recruit from Moveon.com!

Rehnquist, "Roe V. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973):

"To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment. There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. The only conclusion possible from this history is that the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter." ^{caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=410&invol=113}

FT January 2003: Constitutional Persons, Robert H. Bork made the following comments about Roe v. Wade:

"Blackmun invented a right to abortion....Roe had nothing whatever to do with constitutional interpretation. The utter emptiness of the opinion has been demonstrated time and again, but that, too, is irrelevant. The decision and its later reaffirmations simply enforce the cultural prejudices of a particular class in American society, nothing more and nothing less. For that reason, ROE is impervious to logical or historical argument; it is what some people, including a majority of the justices, want, and that is that....Science and rational demonstration prove that a human exists from the moment of conception....Scalia is quite right that the Constitution has nothing to say about abortion."

[Ed Current]

So go find a state you can take over, and outlaw abortion. Move there. Or to Iran.

POST #42

 

[MonroeDNA]

I am not sure why the admin mod removed my comment; it must have been for lack of details.

I was in a Catholic school until 15. The nuns were sadistic, to say the least.

In 1974, my best friend, in the world, William Morrisette (Bill), shot himself in the head with a .22 rifle, while "cleaning it."

Turns out he was being molested by the head priest of the "Our Lady of Sorrows" Parish, in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

Priest's Name was Father Gary.

Feel better, Admin Mod? You could have left the allusions alone.

[firebrand]

I believe questions of rights are supposed to be decided by the judicial branch. Correct me if I'm wrong. That is why we don't have a referendum. But the Supreme Court made the wrong decisions in Roe v. Wade and Casey. Now the only alternatives are constitutional amendment or reversal of the decisions.

[MonroeDNA]

"I was beginning to think you were a fresh recruit from Moveon.com!

Check my signup date, newbie.

[Ed Current]

Turns out he was being molested by the head priest of the "Our Lady of Sorrows" Parish, in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

POST #9

[ElkGroveDan]

Why hasn't the abortion issue ever made it on the ballot as a referendum to be voted on by the public?

Because thanks to liberal legislation created by the Supreme Court, the only process that might change things would be a Constitutional Amendment. A few have been started, but amending the federal constitution is a Herculean process.