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Posted on 05/31/2006 12:08:30 AM PDT by Aussie Dasher
Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman doesn’t mind telling you that he sees the pro-life cause as a moral and political winner for his party.
When I asked Mehlman (during an interview he did last week with HUMAN EVENTS) whether the pro-life issue was good for Republicans, his response was instantaneous. “Absolutely,” he said.
As proof, he pointed to the 2002 Senate races in Missouri and Minnesota. In Missouri, pro-life Republican former Rep. Jim Talent defeated pro-abortion Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan. In Minnesota, pro-life Republican former St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman defeated pro-abortion former Democratic Vice President Fritz Mondale. In both races, abortion helped the Republican.
Mehlman insists, however, that the GOP should advance the pro-life cause “because it is morally right,” not because it is politically advantageous.
“Those people that say we should abandon our pro-life platform, I believe are wrong from a political perspective, and I think are wrong from the perspective of what’s right for this party,” he said.
Mehlman’s analysis can explain the self-contradictory behavior Democrats often exhibit on abortion. But it cannot explain similar behavior by Republicans. Democrats find themselves caught between the demands of commonsense and good morality on the one hand and a core constituency adamant about preserving legalized abortion on the other. They forsake commonsense and morality to appease their base.
But why are Republicans so timid about advancing a cause where they occupy the moral and political high ground?
Consider one of the few things President Bush, Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist, House Republican Leader John Boehner and Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, have in common: They all say human life begins at conception.
In a 2001 interview with ABC News, Bush said: “I think life begins at conception.”
On MSNBC’s “Hardball” in 2001, host Chris Matthews asked Frist: “When do you believe life begins?” Frist answered: “Conception, when that sperm meets the egg, at that point in time.”
In a January letter to fellow House Republicans, Boehner said: “I believe, and have always believed, that life begins at conception.”
And Kerry told the Dubuque (Iowa) Telegraph Herald in 2004: “I believe life does begin at conception.”
What Bush, Frist and Boehner said was hardly treated as news. But Kerry’s statement earned a front-page headline in The Boston Globe: “Life Begins at Conception, Kerry Says.”
That ought to have about the same ring as: “Earth is Round, Kerry Says.”
Unlike, say, Al Gore’s claims about global warming, Kerry’s claim that life begins at conception did not spark scientific controversy. Enraged embryologists did not rush forward to claim life begins at some other point. Kerry’s statement attracted attention precisely because by stating the obvious he put himself in an obviously untenable position: If life begins at conception, Senator, how can you justify taking life in an abortion?
The Bush campaign pounded Kerry from exactly this angle: “His rhetoric is at odds with a long record of opposing common-sense measures like the ban on partial-birth abortion,” a campaign spokesman told the New York Times.
But if it makes “common-sense” to ban partial-birth abortions because life begins at conception, doesn’t it make even more sense to ban all abortions?
The Republican Party’s pro-life platform—which Mehlman argued is right for the party—offers a solution to abortion commensurate with the Bush-Frist-Boehner affirmation that life begins at conception. It endorses “legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”
In this Congress, Rep. Duncan Hunter, the California Republican, introduced H.R. 552, the Right to Life Act, which follows through on the platform by defining as a “person” for 14th Amendment purposes “all stages of life, including but not limited to the moment of fertilization or cloning,”
It recognizes in law, what Bush, Frist, Boehner and Kerry already recognize in fact.
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 42 million babies were aborted in the U.S. between 1973 and 2002. Each subsequent year, adds about 1.3 million more
Today, we are having a great national debate, driven by a President at odds with the base of his own party, over how many immigrants we should allow into our country and by what means—so we can fill a shortage in workers. What if we had a great national debate driven by a President in unison with the base of his own party, over how many babies we can save?
South Dakota had that debate this year, and the pro-lifers won. The state banned all abortions, only exempting normal medical actions taken by a doctor to preserve the life of a pregnant mother.
What South Dakota proved is that truth is persuasive. All you need are politicians who will fight for it.
If a ban came yesterday, it would be thirty three years too late.
Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
Since this STUPID law of the land was created by a DUMB ruling from the SCOTUS, it probably needs to be corrected by a reversal by the SCOTUS. Then, it can go back to the states to be fought out in the political arena.
Can't see a *congressionally mandated* solution to this issue.
Abortion is one of those tragedies that makes absolutely no sense in how it is perpetuated.
It is based on the premise that there are unwanted pregnancies which result in unwanted children, who then suffer through life.
Pro-Abortion activists ignore the fact that unwanted pregnancies are 99.9999% avoidable if contraceptives are properly used in conjunction with other contraceptives, or 100% avoidable in the case of abstinence.
If unwanted pregnancies are avoidable, then the issue of abortion on demand should require that the person requesting an abortion prove that they got pregnant in spite of taking reasonable steps to avoid pregnancy. Without due diligence to avoid pregnancy, abortion becomes a contraceptive method. A stance that is morally repugnant and callous, as it demeans human life in an era when technological advancements allow us greater opportunities to value life all the more.
As for women who state that abortions are a woman's right over her reproductive system, if such women don't demonstrate due diligence in taking care of their reproductive systems so as to prevent pregnancy, they don't deserve the right to dictate the life or death of an unborn child.
(Rape victims and third world women are a different issue, and are irrelevant to most of the abortion requests in our country.)
Ah,but it wouldn' t stop abortion.
You see, for thirty years we have taught society that having sex outside marriage, even for young teens, is "normal"...and we have made men think that they don't have to be responsible for the children they beget.
And we have taught girls to be promiscuous.
So get rid of abortion, and they will still abort.
You need to change the hearts first.
Legally, abortion needs to be made shameful and restricted, with adoption made honorable instead of society disapproving of women who give up their kids to a home where they can be cared for.
And you need preachers to teach people to cherish womenliness, the gift of life, rather than to see women as half baked inferior men.
This doesn't mean "barefoot and pregnant" or women "obeying" a rigid dictator of a husband, but a woman who is strong and cherishes her husband and children as gifts of God, and men who see women as partners, and who treat them with respect..
Uh ... because the Supreme Court won't let us?
30+ years of legal abortion to set the stage for illegal invasion. Doing the jobs that dead babies won't do!
A big problem has been the old media, which is demonically pro-abortion.
A lot of times pro-life candidates aren't attacked on pro-life issues but on some stupid thing they said on a bad day 10 years ago, or having a short lunch with a person who is later found to be unsavory, or on an obscure vote on an unpopular issue unrelated to abortion.
All on which a pro-abort would get a pass.
See how the media treats Ted Kennedy v Rick Santorum for an example.
With the new media things are evening out a little and pro-lifers are getting bolder.
Wouldn't it be nice if more preaching and writing about abortion would be done by Catholic and other clergy then we would not have to rely on Government action. Could throw in shacking up as well.
Should the day come and we see the GOP drop the pro-life plank from the party platform, the GOP will no longer be a major force in US politics. That day could be just around the corner.
Why do you say that?
In 2000 and 2004, there was political scuttlebutt floating around the GOP convention that the platform committee was considering dropping the pro-life plank, possibly removing the call for a right to life amendment to the Constitution and application of the 14th amendment to the unborn. Any of these decisions would be a huge blow to the pro-life movement. IMHO, dropping the pro-life plank completely would end the GOP being a viable choice for social conservatives and pro-lifers.
Thanks I didn't know that and you are right-gotta run,God bless.
In Maryland Gov. Ehlrich pushed millions into Stem Cell Research - I'm sitting on the side lines - somewhat hoping that he loses in Oct.
I just can't get excited about his platform. I can't bring myself to work at the Grassroot level. And I know that my average grassroot efforts are tremendously helpful.
Too bad, soo sad.
I resolve it this way - I will live well into my 90's so I have plenty of elections in which to vote.
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