Hi, CS ... I guessed I've missed your explanations elsewhere ... and I haven't heard Sen. Allen clarify this.
Does Sen. Allen still support legal abortion up until brain wave activity?
If so, isn't that a bit different from Bush, Frist, McCain, and most other Republican pro-lifers, who (at least in theory) oppose all abortions except for rape, incest, life of mother?
Dear Oliver Optic,
"Does Sen. Allen still support legal abortion up until brain wave activity?"
From what I understand, Sen. Allen believes that individual states have the right to decide what precisely their own abortion laws should be. Thus, he affirmed the right of South Dakota to pass an extremely pro-life law banning all abortions.
His own belief is that the ideal is to ban abortions after brain-wave activity commences.
Since even that rather limited restriction directly conflicts with the central holdings of Roe (and its companion, Doe), it is reasonable to assume (although I've never actually read or heard him say it just so) that he believes Roe (and Doe) must go.
From my perspective as an extreme pro-lifer, I can easily live with a President George Allen if he appoints Supreme Court Justices who recognize that the Constitution doesn't recognize or protect any "right" to abortion, and who will thus fully overturn Roe as being the bad hallucination of a derelict old man supported by six equally derelict morons back in 1973.
sitetest
I believe that is his personal understanding of where life begins. But I also know his pro-life record, banning government funding for employee abortions, pushing four years to get the ~right~ parental notification through the Virginia General Assembly, voting against partial birth abortion and more are as consistently pro-life as any candidate out there.
I'm not sure what else I can say. There is no pure, without exception pro-life candidate that has a prayer of getting to the White House.