The “fire from Heaven” group is precisely why we have never been able to convince the majority of voters - many of whom do have misgivings about the huge, unlimited abortion rate in this country - to be able to have a rational discussion about it that might really result in changes and save babies.
The image given is one of a self-righteous older Southern rural-state preacher, living in a world totally different from that of most Americans, who thinks he has a special relationship with God on the basis of his virtue and who is opposed to abortion not because he particularly likes people, but because it makes him “righteous.” And as soon as these people invoke their own “righteousness,” they are sacrosanct and no matter what they do, their followers won’t abandon them. They remind me of all the poor folks who were sending big bucks to disgraced radio preachers, still insisting on their virtue even when they had been found with a bevy of prostitutes or a callboy; it’s definitely the Elmer Gantry syndrome.
And it does enormous damage not only to the GOP, but to the anti-abortion cause.
As I just posted in the other thread, conservatives can take back this country and win the majorities we need in the Senate and other elected offices if we simply locate and run articulate and smart conservative candidates like we have now done here in Wisconsin, ie. Scott Walker, Paul Ryan and Ron Johnson.
If we keep putting up dope candidates like Akin, we will lose because soccer moms in the suburbs won’t vote for them. Just because Akin is 100 percent conservative doesn’t mean he’s a good candidate TO WIN ELECTION. The sooner people realize this concept, the better we will all be.
And if people want to keep whining that somehow it isn’t fair that the Dems can run their own set if dopes like Biden and Sheila Jackson Lee and still win races, I have no sympathy. That’s the way the rules are. Dem dopes are able to be elected. It is what is is.
But the sooner we recognize that we must adhere to a higher standard with guys like Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan, that’s the day we start to win more of these races.
I have long thought that for the Pro-Life movement to succeed in changing hearts and minds on a scale big enough to realistically overturn RvW or to a minimum drastically lower unlimited access to, government support of and payment for and the overall number of abortions, it has to, as a larger movement, move away from a fire and brimstone and purely religiously centered argument and move to a or at least embrace and engage with a more secular and scientific POV; one that is based on human rights and perhaps even as a feminist issue much like the org. “Feminists for Life” does.
There are even some pro-life atheists (like me ; ) )
Confessions of a Pro-Life Atheist, Why I Fight Abortion
“As a materialist, I think it has been demonstrated that an embryo is a separate body and entity, and not merely (as some really did used to argue) a growth on or in the female body. There used to be feminists who would say that it was more like an appendix or even-this was seriously maintained-a tumor. That nonsense seems to have stopped. Of the considerations that have stopped it, one is the fascinating and moving view provided by the sonogram, and another is the survival of ‘premature’ babies of feather-like weight, who have achieved ‘viability’ outside the womb. … The words ‘unborn child,’ even when used in a politicized manner, describe a material reality.” -Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great (pp. 220-21)
But when pro-lifers evoke words like “Baal” and “Satan” they turn a good number of non-religious or nominally religious people off who might be persuaded to see what abortion really is – the killing of an individual human being.
When pro-lifers like Akin say stupid things like “legitimate rape” and unscientifically supported ideas like “women have a way of shutting this down”, they turn a lot of people off. When pro-lifers take an extreme position on the use of all or any forms of birth control or say that women who have ectopic pregnancies shouldn’t be saved even as their pregnancy can’t continue, won’t result in a live birth and will almost certainly kill the mother, they turn a lot of people off. When pro-lifers oppose a woman who has been violently raped from receiving emergency contraception or tell them they should just suck it up, Praise God for their rape, smile and be happy and raise their baby on their own, they turn a lot of people off.
This is IMO not a winning position for either the pro-life movement or the GOP.
Brilliantly stated.
And the “self-righteous older Southern rural-state
preacher” is the precise counterpart to the self-righteous
younger Urban secularist, which is why this non-debate
“debate” never stood a chance of illuminating the issue.
No one should anticipate any “rational discussion” when attention is only paid to those whose business it is to polarize, confuse, and bewitch the issue.