I asked my mother, a Catholic and a pseudo-conservative-union-democrat, this same question a couple of years ago.
She responded, "Well what have the republicans done to stop abortion?"
Admittedly, the republicans have done disappointingly little. The partial-birth abortion ban was something, but was a politically safe thing to support. Abortion doesn't even seem to be a campaign issue this year.
My brother-in-law is a priest and a liberal-democrat. I asked him the same question. His response: "Well, I consider 'pro-life' to encompass a whole set of life issues." Which, of course, is dilusional and dilutes the fact that abortion is murder.
Because the democrats blatently support abortion, it is difficult to be a democrat-Catholic. The ones that I know have to do a lot of mental twisting to make the two belief systems compatable. However the lack of action from the republicans (and a growing pro-abortion element in the GOP) significantly weakens the argument and helps with the moral anguish of the democrat-Catholics.
Dear kidd,
Until Roe is overturned or otherwise nullified, politics can only achieve so much on the issue of abortion. The political branches of our government, at both the federal and state levels, are prevented by Roe/Doe from doing more than nibbling around the edges of abortion.
And the Republican Party has done that. Especially at state levels, the Republicans have been very active in passing parental notification laws, informed consent laws, conscience clauses, attempts at partial birth abortion bans, preventing government funding of abortions, etc. At the federal level, Republicans have worked for decades to prevent government funding of abortion, prevention of abortions being provided by the military to personnel overseas, etc.
And frankly, on all of the above issues, most Democrats have been on the wrong side on most days.
But until Roe goes, we aren't able to strike at the root of the abortion issue.
The most important thing that Republicans can do in the long-term is to try to change the composition of the Supreme Court, so that some day, Roe will be made null.
The current President Bush has likely done a good job on that front, to date. If we're able to preserve a Republican Senate, it's likely that "justice" Stevens will go before the end of Mr. Bush's term, and we may just be able to get a fifth Roe-must-go vote on the Court.
After that, the entire battle changes.
sitetest