Posted on 09/22/2002 4:24:36 PM PDT by madprof98
There's the probability of war in Iraq. Public education is wrestling with failure. Government spending, especially at the state and federal levels, is once again veering out of control. And vigilance is required, lest Congress snatch back the little tax relief it has "temporarily" granted.
Terrorism. The economy. Homeland security. All require our attention.
But on the right and left of the Republican and the Democratic parties, nothing is more riveting, more compelling, more consuming, than abortion.
In Georgia, right-to-lifers apply a litmus test to Republicans that virtually guarantees complying candidates will lose in the general election.
On the national level, special-interest groups such as the National Abortion Rights Action League have taken the Democratic Party hostage, virtually guaranteeing that access to the federal judiciary will be denied to those who fail the litmus test compliant Democrats allow them to impose.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, for example, is a national institution on loan to single-issue ideologues. The 10 Democrats who control the committee vote as one in rejecting judicial candidates who are not blindly obedient to the agenda of out-of-the-mainstream special-interest groups.
Democrats, like Republicans, have a serious internal problem with abortion ideologues. In Georgia, right-to-lifers insisted that candidates it endorsed swear to a single exception: life of the mother.
Reasonable people, including conservatives who generally side with them, agree that women who were violated should not be forced to bear the eternal reminder of their victimization. The real threat to the values right-to-lifers hold is not the rape-and-incest loophole, anyway. It's "health" of the mother, an exception that eviscerates any proposed limitations. So in actual and political terms, right-to-lifers in Georgia are fighting the wrong battle, which is their prerogative.
Both parties, frankly, need some spine in dealing with abortion fanatics. In the U.S. Senate, the nomination of a superbly qualified jurist, Priscilla Owen, a justice on the Texas Supreme Court, was defeated 10-9 by the single-agenda extremists.
The only basis for opposing her was that in interpreting a vague law passed by the Texas Legislature on parental notification, she had given hint that she was not rigidly attuned to pro-choice religion.
Judiciary Committee Democrats were therefore instructed to deny her access to the full Senate, where her nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would have been approved.
A replay occurred last week involving law professor Michael McConnell of Utah, a nominee to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. McConnell, 47, is considered by his peers to be a brilliant legal thinker.
Despite conservative views on abortion, he told the committee, which has yet to vote, "I will conscientiously enforce the law, including laws and precedents I don't agree with," specifically agreeing to uphold Roe v. Wade.
In his view, though, "If the courts would get out of the business of regulating abortion, most legislatures would pass laws reflecting the moderate views of the great majority."
So we have zealots on the right convinced that the tiniest exception will start the hordes marching to abortion clinics and zealots on the left convinced that anybody who disagrees with them should be trashed, lest Roe v. Wade be compromised. Fanatics the both.
And all the while deserving judicial nominees and the "moderate views of the great majority" are kept hostage.
Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
THAT is the truth behind the Democratic party platform.
Vote the RATs out!
We have been warned.
If having more concern for the lives of unborn babies than the right of women to "CHOSE" to kill their unborn babies is obssesive, then color me obsessive. I don't think it's obsessive in the least. I enjoy life. I want others to enjoy life. I want as many others to enjoy life as possible. I don't want to deprive anybody of life if it can be at all avoided. Don't bother with the death penalty argument, murderers need to be killed in order to protect society. Not so with babies, after all what have they done to deserve death? The chance to live is a great opportunity that I wouldn't want anybody to miss out on. Life is GREAT!
"Abortion Clinics?" Oh, you mean the buildings where they kill unborn babies for profit, right?
If an intoxicated driver is at fault in an accident and someone pregnant loses their baby, is it not prosecuted as murder?
It is stated the same way in the Old Testament.
The man to blame for an accident resulting in a miscarriage,
is to be stoned to death.
On the other hand, I have some problem with the headline as it has been written. While many candidates will never receive the official endorsement of "right-to-life" groups without agreeing to their single exception position, I still think that many pro-life candidates can win nomination and election in the Republican party holding the more reasonable mother's life and rape exception position. Undoubtedly, the single exception camp has great influence in the Republican Party, but it doesn't steer the Republican party to the extent that the pro-abortion people steer the Democrat party.
WFTR
Bill
Yes, but that small percentage have manipulated the system to the great detriment of the majority. The two extremes have collectively done more harm to this country than all of the terrorists have ever dreamed of.
'Pod
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