Posted on 01/24/2005 9:02:24 AM PST by TBP
In a December 16, 2004 National Review Online article "A Pro-Life Mistake" , Attorney Clark D. Forsythe of Americans United for Life recommended that State Legislators cease and desist in the introduction of legislation prohibiting abortion in their States. Attorney Forsythe counseled that since the Supreme Court is not pro-life (despite the fact that Republican Presidents appointed a super-majority, seven out of nine, of those Justices), it would be folly to introduce such legislation at this time. An old proverb comes to mind, "If not now, when?"
On November 2, 2004, the American electorate voted into office a Republican President, Republican House, Republican Senate and a majority of Republican Governors. The Supreme Court is made up of a super-majority of Republican appointees. We have, in America, undeniable Republican Party Rule. If the Republican Party is pro-life, now is the best and only time to effectuate any real pro-life legislation.
Those pro-lifers who refused to support the reelection effort of Mr. Bush were told that the election was about the judiciary and the Supreme Court - without good appointments, we'll have another 32 years of Roe v. Wade, we were told. Prior to the election, and since, was there any evidence from the White House that there is any intention to nominate pro-life justices? In fact, has not Mr. Bush nominated several abortion supporting judges to the lower benches, and wasn't his campaigning for Arlen Specter (who has promised to block all pro-life Justices) evidence that Mr. Bush has no intention of creating a pro-life judiciary and of eliminating legal abortion in America?
Perhaps we must come to grips with the fact that with Republican President, Republican Senate, Republican House and majority Republican appointees on the Supreme Court, 4,000 dead babies daily is the best the GOP has to offer. Given the President's remarks in the third Presidential debate, that "reasonable people can come together and put good law in place that will help reduce the number of abortions," we ought not be looking to the Republican Party as the vehicle by which abortion will be made illegal. All the big-government GOP has to offer is regulations that might reduce the number of abortions. I know from a statistical point, 1,000 puréed babies daily would be "better" than 4,000 diced-up babies, but it is not better for the 1,000 the President has permitted to die on his watch.
I question why the director of Americans United for Life (AUL) would council his fellow colleagues in the pro-life movement to refrain from introducing legislation that would prohibit abortions. I can't help but believe that he shares the opinions of the Republican Party - and the President specifically - regarding minimizing abortions, and he is not committed to ending legal abortion in America. The AUL offers model legislation guides to pro-life lobbyists on Abortion Clinic Regulations, Cloning, Crimes Against the Unborn Child Act, Human Embryo Research, Heath Care Rights of Conscience Act, Parental Involvement for Minors Seeking Abortion, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Informed Consent Legislation. Not a one of the AUL eight recommended legislative strategies decries the legality of abortion. If, and frankly since, abortion is immoral and unlawful, it cannot be regulated without us acquiring the same bloody hands that the pro-abortion lobbyists have. Regulating abortion concedes its legality, and assumes that abortion is here to stay as a Constitutionally secured right. Apparently this is the best the Republican-minded pro-lifers have to offer - to concede defeat before the battle begins. Compromise requires that you be willing to accept half a loaf, we are told. Then the GOPers ask for a quarter loaf, and get about an eighth. Why has no one thought to ask for a loaf and a half? Preemptive concession - in this case that abortion is legal and will remain such - is the rule of day.
Additionally, regulating abortion creates new federal regulative programs, requires funding and oversight, and permits the pro-life movement to remain on its high horse demanding more federal intervention in abortion related causes. Keeping abortion legal for nearly 32 years now is quite possibly the best fund-raising strategy any lobbyist organization could have ever conceived.
It is due to this politically impotent view that I am not a member of the Republican Party. When you belong to the political machine, as Attorney Forsythe and his Americans United for Life, the National Right to Life and other compromisers satisfied with being the reasonable people the President suggested would come together and pass good laws permitting a certain number of abortions, you lose your taste for victory. What Mr. Bush, Attorney Forsythe, the AUL and others have effectively said is that they want abortion to remain safe, legal and rare. But, if every pregnancy resulted in a natural end (either birth or miscarriage), but abortion was still legal, the pro-life movement would have lost the battle, and the pro-abortion "rights" advocates would have won.
The GOP and the pro-life lobbyists have demonstrated their lack of commitment to the unborn, and they must, therefore, be opposed. They are no longer the friend of the unborn, and they are no longer our friends if they are unwilling to expend the political capital we have given them to protect the unborn. Parties and lobbyists are vehicles to advance a cause – if they stop advancing, it is time for us to find or create one that will.
The crux of Attorney Forsythe's argument (I'm not picking on him since in reality the grand majority of these "pro-life lobby" organizations would contend the same as he) is this: Legislatures, don't expend in 2005 the political capital received in 2004 since the courts will oppose you, and you will be slapped with an attorney's fees bill from the ACLU.
Legislators, if I may humbly submit to you an alternative to the preemptive concession of Attorney Forsythe: If you fail to act, you will be slapped with a bill for the blood of the unborn you have permitted to be shed in your State. As State Legislatures, you can interpose between the Judicial Usurpation of Roe and the unborn babies in the womb. Since Roe was decided unconstitutionally and fraudulently, it is void ab initio and invalid as against the States - but you must be willing to make and stand by that argument.
As a party to the Contract of the United States Constitution, you have an absolute right to insist upon compliance to it from the other Party, namely the Federal Government. Go right ahead, declare abortion illegal - you have, after all, also taken an Oath to the United States Constitution. To submit to Roe in your jurisdiction is to commit perjury of your Oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
The only question left is this: If the Republicans elected into office are willing to make that stand, will the leaders of the Party and the pro-life movement support it? If not, and frankly my hopes are not very high, or if they are not even willing to raise Interposition as a remedy against a Federal usurpation of power, it is time to conclude that neither the Republican Party, nor the pro-life lobbyists, are committed to ending legal abortion in America.
Arlen Specter is installed as Judiciary chairman and proceeds to hire a liberal pro-abort from the NAACP to be his guy on judicial nominations after promising that he wouldn't use his committee to block the President's nominees. Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales, who had a pro-abortion record on the Texas Supreme Court, says he does not think Roe vs. Wade should be disturbed.
Why do pro-lifers continue supporting a party that gives them nothing but rhetoric and never intends to give them anything but rhetoric?
Why do lying liberals, Democrats and Libertarians always feel the need to pretend they are conservatives?
Americans are not quitters! I'm positive that we can break the current murder rate by abortion if Americans work together! C'mon! Let's go for 90 million people killed! We can do it! /"it's a human stupid" (dripping sarcasm off)
And conservatives pussyfoot to libs?
As much as the Republicans have.
Why do Republicans always feel the need to pretend they are conservatives?
Many if not most of them are! So what is your point?
No one is saying that. Wht is being said, if you would stop being a Republibot for a moment and read the article, is that we need to build a party that is genuinely committed to protecting life.
oh really? there are a few conservatives but unfortunately the republican party seems to being taken over by big government rinos. can you explain to me why our government has expanded more in the past 4 years then it ever has? can you tell me how a prescription drug plan of that magnitude got passed with a republican majorities in the house and senate? dont be disillusioned. there are plenty of liberals in the republican party.
Many if not most of them are! So what is your point?
Thney certainly don't vote like they are. We get all the rhetoric, but then we get the largest entitlement program in almost 40 years, no effort to stop abortion, de facto amnesty for illegal aliens, increasing (and unconstitutional) Federal spending on education (without even so much as a school choice plan), a massive boost in agriculture subsidies, the unconstitutional "campaign finance reform" bill, an apology to Red China after THEY shot down OUR plane, not a single veto, and so many other policies that do not in any way resemble conservatism.
Then conservatives come along and say, "Well, we have to support them because the Democrats are worse." Oh, so it's better to lose slowly.
To achieve victory, first you must seek it.
I stand corrected. As a Catholic, I've had that form of discussion with too many Democrat "Catholics" who will justify their voting on this premise and thus I am a little sensitive to this topic. I apologize.
I haven't looked yet, but I'll just bet this is article is an advertisement for the Peroutskites.
Sorry, but puppies, manatees, seals, whales, snail darters, etc., don't qualify as humans...
Someone up there fleshed out the source label. You'd have won that bet.
Let me propose a new acronym: PLINO (Pro-Life In Name Only). A "pro-life" Senator or Representative who does not favor the use of Article 3 of the Constitution to remove abortion from the purview of the Supreme Court is a PLINO. Wringing his hands and pretending that nothing can be done until (at some indeterminate point) the makeup of the Court is changed (and PLINOs often vote for pro-abortion Justices BTW) may make good political cover (his goal), but it essentially makes his claim to be "pro-life" a lie, in the same manner as if I were to claim to be "anti-rape" but then looked on and did nothing while a woman was being attacked.
And, at the State level, open defiance of the Supreme Court must be left in the playbook. One individual state won't be enough, but imagine if an entire swatch of the country, from North Dakota to Texas, decided to legislate against abortion anyway and simply told the Fed gubmint to go to h*ll. Any State "pro-life" legislator who insists on absolute fealty to the Supreme Court (as though it were God) is also a PLINO.
And the Republicans haven't done a single thing to protect unborn humans, either. That was what I meant when I said they've done as much as the Democrats. Neither party has done anything to advance the pro-life cause, and it's time one of them did.
And what difference does it make anyway? What he says is correct.
Bob smith was right about the Republicans.
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