Posted on 06/21/2005 1:35:35 PM PDT by cpforlife.org
Are Republicans bidding farewell to pro-life supporters?
If they are, then many Catholics will be bidding farewell to the Republican Party.
More Catholics voted for Republicans in the last election than ever before — and they did it even despite Catholic voters’ opposition to the Iraq war. Abortion was the biggest reason why.
A Gallup Poll conducted just before the November elections found that 19% of likely voters say the abortion issue directs which candidates they are willing to support. A big majority of those voters chose President Bush — so much so that Gallup said it gave the president a 7% advantage among all voters, and the presidency.
In the Democratic Party’s platform, conventions and party leadership, any opposition to abortion is strictly forbidden. Pro-lifers have largely given up on them, and hoped the Republican Party’s official pro-life stance would make it a more natural home for them.
But the GOP is starting to look less like home.
When Democrats controlled the Senate, President Clinton’s judicial appointees sailed through despite their out-of-the-mainstream support for abortion. With little objection from the GOP, America got Supreme Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the federal judges who routinely overturn the pro-life measures states manage to enact.
But with Republicans in charge, Democrats wouldn’t allow the most reliably pro-life appointees to even get a vote — and Republicans were too afraid to give them the vote the constitution guarantees them. Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler wrote to U.S. senators Jan. 6, urging them to resist pressure to impose a pro-abortion litmus test on federal judicial nominees. Cardinal Keeler, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, objected to the judiciary’s virtual “Catholics need not apply” policy. To no avail.
America’s pro-life majority elected a Republican president and Republican Senate. Will these people be able to successfully seat a pro-life Supreme Court justice for us in return? That remains to be seen. But the GOP doesn’t seem as willing to fight as hard for pro-lifers as pro-lifers fought for them.
Look at what happened in the House.
The Republican-controlled body voted to spend money from American taxpayers’ paychecks to pay for unethical research that isn’t promising enough to attract private investors. Embryonic stem-cell research has been hyped as cure-all miracle research. But a review of the facts reveals it for what it is: the creation of human beings for the sake of science experiments that have so far produced only tumors in patients.
Adult stem-cell research, on the other hand, has produced amazing treatments for medical conditions. But no one is asking for taxpayer money to spend on it. Pharmaceutical companies are more than happy to invest in it themselves, because it works.
Formerly pro-life members of Congress are using pro-abortion arguments to explain their betrayal. They say these children are unwanted anyway, or that they aren’t fully human — even after being visited on Capitol Hill by “unwanted” embryos slated for death who were adopted, allowed to grow up, and now walk, talk, play and, some day, will vote.
If pro-lifers are starting to feel out of place in the Republican Party, the feeling might grow in 2008.
The party’s dream candidates for President — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar — are not pro-life.
Some party watchers say not to lose hope.
“I don’t think there is anything happening in the party per se on this issue. We are a pro-life party and will remain so,” Republican campaign strategist Bill Dal Col, who managed Steve Forbes’ 2000 presidential campaign, told the Washington Times.
The answer, says Steve Ertelt of Lifesite, is for pro-life advocates to work overtime to make sure the party knows what pro-lifers expect.
There is a long list of possible pro-life Republican presidential candidates, he said, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist; pro-life Senators Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; and former Virginia Governor George Allen.
A pro-abortion Republican can’t win the next presidential election. The religious supporters that the GOP counts on won’t vote for the opponent, certainly — they simply won’t vote at all.
As Americans, our House and Senate leaders should support pro-life positions because if they vote the wrong way, they’ll end human beings’ lives.
As politicians, they should support pro-life positions because, if they vote the wrong way, they’ll end their political careers.
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
Do you guys come from the Barney Fife school of politics?
And there is the main difference between the Democrat and Republican Parties . . . we don't "forbid" discussion. There is room for pro-life and pro-choice views within the Republican Party structure. As President Ronald Reagan always said, "If you agree with me 80% of the time, you are my friend."
Could be happening but then this could be totally wrong. When Rudy was speaking at a Catholic University - there was supposed to be a huge pro-life protest against Rudy speaking - it turned out only 2 or 3 people protested and Rudy had a standing room only crowd inside cheering him on.
If Gore were a serious pro-lifer and pledged to overturn Roe, he'd be president.
Your comments are right on the mark. I just posted my two cents on another thread about the whiners against Republicans. This is getting disgusting on here with all the trashing of Republicans. Want to bet if Frist weilded an iron fist that he would still get trashed?
Beginning to think we have professional posters on this site agitating a lot in recent months.
When will people wake up?
Too early for people to pay attention....Rudy doesn't have the nomination yet.....You can bet there would have been more there if it really looked like Rudy was going to be the nominee...wait until it get closer to actually picking a candidate....
That would be a yes. Or do you also misunderstand the meaning of the word majority? The Pubbies control the executive branch and both houses of the legislative branch and still can't seem to press the pro-life agenda.
Pubbies fault? Yessir, buddy.
I don't necessarily agree with that. If Gore had been a serious pro-lifer and pledged to overturn Roe . . . 1) He would have never received the Democrat nomination, and 2) Even if he did, many of his voters would have gone to Nader, allowing President Bush to win with a bigger margin.
The pro-life position of the GOP is the main reason for their success.
While the pro-life plank is definitely a huge factor for much of our success, I wouldn't call it the "main reason". I think the main reason is that we are the party that advocates individual responsibility.
George Allen isn't pro-life. They also left off McCain, who is pro-life.
Apparently the Republicans in Congress do.
Well I am going to support whomever the nominee is. I think this race is not going to be as easy as we think. The Dems are in fighting mode and will try to move back and forth to the middle.
This sort of lumping all Republicans together angers me.
Who gets hurt by this? The good Republicans.
If the 46% of the House that is Democratic colludes with the 10% that is liberal-Republican, guess what? The Democrats hold sway. But then blame the Democrats and the liberal Republicans, not the Republican Party.
Oust Chafee! Oust Snowe! Oust Collins! Oust Specter! Oust McCain! Oust Voinovich! Heck, oust Santorum if he's not conservative enough for you. But this talk of "the Republicans" is foolish nonsense designed to destroy the party, and don't think it isn't.
We have Republican control of all the houses....and yet nothing is done.
George Bush is no Christian and the Republicans love the pro-life....pro abortion issue because it gives them power over the gullible Republicans who think they will do something about killing babies.
>> Well I am going to support whomever the nominee is. <<
I will do everything I can imagine to defeat Atty Gen Gonzalez' nomination.
Guiliani won't get the nomination and his views on abortion are only part of the reason why. His bitter, public divorce and his 1994 endorsement of Mario Cuomo might actually hurt him more.
I agree completely......
Jerry Falwell once said something to the effect that the Christian Right needed to use their numbers to force the issue of abortion and then worry about "educating" people on the "why" after the fact. I think that's misguided.
The Catholic Church and all Christian churches that oppose abortion need to win in the "arena of ideas" as Rush calls it. We need to make our case powerfully and convince people that abortion, while legal, is not a moral option. Once we successfully do that, the practice of abortion will fade from existence.
I believe that, if the War Between the States hadn't occurred, slavery would have eventually disappeared in America because the anti-slavery side held the moral high ground. The economic arguments for slavery would have lost to the moral arguments. The same thing will happen with abortion if the churches stay with preaching the gospel and not try to ramrod a legislative agenda.
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