Posted on 11/04/2007 1:38:41 PM PST by Canticle_of_Deborah
Fred Thompson told Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that he DOES NOT support a Human Life amendment. That position is part of the GOP platform. Here’s what the 2004 GOP platform says:
"We must keep our pledge to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence. That is why we say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make it clear that the 14th Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions." Here’s what Thompson said about it lifted from today’s Meet The Press transcript:
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about an issue very important in your party’s primary process, and that’s abortion.
MR. THOMPSON: Mm-hmm.
MR. RUSSERT: This is the 2004 Republican Party platform, and here it is: “We say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution,” “we endorse legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions.” Could you run as a candidate on that platform, promising a human life amendment banning all abortions?
MR. THOMPSON: No.
MR. RUSSERT: You would not?
--snip--
(Excerpt) Read more at cbn.com ...
You are wrong. The 14th amendment guarantees all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States protection of the law, nor can any state take a life without due process. Failure to ban murder would legalize killing without due process. States cannot sanction murder, but they do have jurisdiction over the punsihment, so long as it is enforced equally.
I would argue moreso...
Oh yes votes...those are NEVER important.
You equate punishment with abolishment. Not the same thing. Abolishment is an absolute state having nothing to do with the imposed punishment for doing some wrong. Even murder has not been abolished, despite universal illegalization of it in the US.
Moreover, there ARE federal crimes which carry the death penalty, including murder. Lastly, the States are not allowed to define murder differently for various persons within their jurisdiction, or to punish them differently for the same crime (i.e. women can kill their children, but men cannot or whites can kill blacks, but not vice-versa), so the Federal govt. has a role that way as well.
Which of these three "Crimes" does abortion fall under as defined by the Constitution?
a) Treason
b) Piracy
c) Counterfeiting
d)why none of those, that means it should be up to the states
Actually, I write off anyone who uses the term “theocrat” to describe social conservatives as being a cultural Marxist. The reason leftists such as Hillary, Schumer, Obama, etc. are so viciously opposed to social conservatism is that it’s about the only thing left standing in the way of the expanding leviathan nanny state.
But what about libertarians? Aren’t they standing in the way of the socialist nanny state? Yes, but since there aren’t that many of them they’ll just be rolled over once the social conservatives are marginalized.
The tactic is very simple, and should be obvious to everyone. Convince the libertarians that social conservatism is an insidious threat to personal liberty. Why, it’s an effort to set up a theocracy! It’s no different than the Taliban! So the libertarians fall for it, largely because they think with their libido instead of their brains. The libertarians join the hardcore leftists in denouncing laws against abortion, homosexuality, and so forth.
The leftists then point to their libertarian allies and say, “See? Even many conservatives are horrified at what the religious right is advocating!” They assert that what we need are more “Barry Goldwater conservatives” who embrace abortion, gay rights, secularism, and “tolerance”. Over time, social conservatives are politically marginalized. The left then high fives itself, spits in the face of their libertarian allies, and rolls over them to enact expanded nanny state and socialist legislation. They can easily do that because with social conservatives crushed, there are enough libertarians to accomplish a damn thing. In addition, a society awash in social liberalism, secularism, “tolerance”, etc. will by definition be a society of weaklings screaming for nanny statism.
Does anyone think it’s a coincidence that the Great Society and the sexual revolution occurred contemporaneously? Of course not. They feul one another.
Typo correction: “there are enough libertarians....” should be “there aren’t enough libertarians....” (4th paragraph)
Thanks for that. I think I can safely assume that is no longer Kennedy’s position?
That earliest post was deleted, I assume because it was a blatant lie.
John Hawkins of Right wing News, Duncan Hunter supporter, says:
“Anyone who has ever read RWN knows that I am adamantly pro-life. It’s a very big issue for me and I have to admit that I would not mind seeing a Constitutional Amendment passed that banned abortion except in the case of the mother’s life being endangered.
“However, as I’ve written before, that’s simply not going to happen,
...Republicans can’t ban abortion outright because of Roe v. Wade. We could try for a constitutional amendment to get around that, but it would be futile, because they couldn’t get enough support for it. Until Roe v. Wade is overturned (and we’d need to replace at least one more judge after Alito gets on the court to do it), we’re stuck.”
“That’s why I don’t find Thompson’s position on this issue to be troubling. To the contrary, it’s actually a little reassuring in a roundabout way (Pay close attention to this next paragraph or you’ll get confused).”
“Let me tell you why: since we can’t get a constitutional ban on abortion passed, we lose nothing if Thompson gets elected and doesn’t support it. That being said, it would have been politically advantageous for him, with social conservatives, to say that he supports the Amendment. The fact that he isn’t supporting it is another strong indication that he means what he says about Federalism. That’s great news for people who are pro-life, because it means he will likely keep his promise to appoint an originalist judge who respects the Federalist principles in the Constitution and any such judge would certainly vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
“Granted, if Thompson said he supported the Constitutional Amendment, it would also be another indicator he was going to appoint a judge who would overturn Roe v. Wade, but still — any candidate who really believes in Federalism will move the ball forward for those of us who are conservatives — and not just on pro-life issues.”
Romney advisor Jim Bopp, a leading pro-life lawyer who serves as the top attorney for National Right to Life and other pro-life groups, who wrote the amendment that appears in the Republican Party platform, said Romney "views the Human Life Amendment as an aspirational goal, which we hope and pray we eventually can achieve."
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The bottomline is that Romney said he'd sign an amendment. From the statements he made on MTP, one could assume that Fred may not sign it given his talk about free will and choice. Yet, we don't really know, do we?
He fails to understand this is a civil rights issue and denying the preborn of their rights and trying to pass it off as a mere states-rights issues makes him unqualified in my book now.
Even Bopp says the drive to end abortion is seen as a two-step process: First, overturn Roe v. Wade, which would return abortion law to the states; and second, create consensus for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion.
However, you have a disconnect when it comes to the next step -- after Roe v. Wade is overturned. It certainly behooves the pro-life movement to elect a president who agrees to work towards passing an amendment in the first place -- even if it is seemingly futile at present. Fred's statements imply that he will not use his presidential position to further that cause. Romney will.
In fact, Fred has a laissez faire attitude regarding social issues in general as evidenced by his "so be it" statement regarding gay marriage as well. We don't have to settle for indifference when we can have commitment to the cause.
Having said that, even prominent pro-life leaders like Jim Bopp realize that the pro-life community should be sophisticated and savvy enough to understand how a pro-life politician has to advocate for the possible, and must not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
I am definetly leaning towards Romney at this point.
SubGeniusX wrote: “I would argue moreso...”
You could argue big government “conservatives” are more dangerous than Marxists, but it would be ridiculous to do so. The Marxists literally killed tens of millions of people in the 20th Century. Bush and other big government “conservatives” may not govern as you’d like, but it’s absurd to say they are more dangerous than Marxists.
Correct in full. Judges have nothing to do with the constitutional process of amending the constitution. "Agenda determination" is not a constitutional role.
Fred is not saying that it's wrong to do, or is not a Federalist option. He just knows that it's next to impossible to get a Human Life Amendment passed. It is much more likely that Roe V. Wade will be overturned and the citizens will finally have a chance to severely restrict the procedure. In the past, when they've tried to do so, they kept running up against the Supremes holding Roe as precedent.
**FRED is still Pro-Life...despite the twisted position the headline puts him in!**
Totally agree!
Makes me wonder if a Romney or Giuliani person wrote the article????
I think by his actions of the Emacipation Proclamation he decided to change his mind about it.
I’ve been reading all of these, just as you have. I’m talking about the individual voters doing a disappearing act.
Pro-Life bump
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