Successful Tea Party Movement Must Include Pro-Life Issues, Not Just Economy

LifeNews.com Note: Tom Glessner is a pro-life attorney who is the president of NIFLA, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates. NIFLA is an organization with more than 1,200 affiliated pregnancy centers that provides legal, medical and practical help for pregnancy centers across the country.

Political change is blowing in the wind but it is not the change promised by Barack Obama when he ran for the presidency. For sure, Obama has brought political change to the nation, but his transformational policies have meant bigger government, higher taxes, federal subsidies of abortion on demand, and greater governmental control over the lives of American citizens.

Hundreds of thousands of citizens across the nation have raised their voices to protest Obama’s policies of change. They are crying out for a different change that will honor the integrity of each individual and create an atmosphere where true liberty in all spheres of life – economic, cultural, and spiritual- reigns. Political pollsters are now predicting a huge seismic shift in the political landscape this November. The recent Glenn Beck sponsored rally in Washington D.C., attended by thousands upon thousands of grass roots activists, indicates that this public outcry of protest is real and powerful.

The Tea Party movement is comprised of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents from all walks of life. The political ruling elite, the corporate world, and the media have completely failed to comprehend this populist movement dismissing it as marginal, extreme and even racist. However, this movement is not composed of ignorant and bigoted individuals, as suggested by the political class. Rather, it is an authentic grassroots movement of thoughtful and patriotic people demanding real change from an out-of-touch political establishment.

The Tea Party movement, for the most part, centers its protest on economic issues and concern about the loss of freedom that an ever-growing federal government brings. These concerns are valid and appropriate. Most leaders of this movement also believe in the sanctity of life and the need to halt the wholesale destruction of innocent human life through abortion and other life related issues such as embryonic stem cell research. However, many in the Tea Party movement have made it clear that while they are sympathetic with the pro-life cause, the abortion issue is not formally part of the Tea Party agenda.

Economic issues are a vital concern; as is the growing size of the federal government and its overreaching into the lives of ordinary citizens. The overwhelming burden of excess regulation and taxation upon businesses and individuals is alarming. In the same manner, however, the killing of 1.25 million unborn children annually from abortion must be a grave concern. Accordingly, a failure by the Tea Party to incorporate the serious pro-life concerns of millions of Americans into its agenda will be fatal to achieving success.

Perhaps, the Tea Party should take a lesson from the old fashioned three-legged milking stool. When I was a child I visited my aunt and uncle on their dairy farm and was intrigued watching my uncle milk the cows while sitting on a three-legged stool. I asked him why he used such a funny chair to milk the cows. He explained that a four-legged chair can be unbalanced if one of its legs is a different length than the others and it could even tip over if you leaned backwards. A three-legged stool, on the other hand, balances evenly and won't tip over even if one of its legs is longer

We should learn something from the old-fashioned milking stool. There are three legs to a successful agenda that will change America for the better. Each leg is critical and the current grassroots movement for change in America will collapse if any of these legs is ignored. These legs are:

1) Revival of the Economy: This leg requires the establishment a strong robust economy that creates full employment and does not burden small businesses with taxes and oppressive regulations that hinder job development. Limited government and reduced taxation are at the core and are necessary to bring the nation out of the serious economic recession/depression in which we find ourselves.

2) Maintaining a Strong National Defense and Protecting Homeland Security: This leg requires a serious commitment by the government to win the war on terror and protect our country’s border from those who would illegally enter and do us harm.

3) Protecting the Family Unit and Restoring the Right to Life for All: The social issues – protecting the sanctity of marriage and restoring the right to life – are issues of equal importance. Millions of Americans, including myself, have placed these issues at the top of the priority list for the next generation of political leaders to seriously address.

To date, while it appears that most Tea Party leaders verbally support all three legs of this “milk stool” some, such as Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, assert that the social issues (and specifically abortion and the right to life) must take a back seat to the other two legs, which are seen as more important.

A further example of this viewpoint was shown in a recent interview of Sarah Palin with Sean Hannity of Fox News. Gov. Sarah Palin, a committed pro-life leader, was asked to name the top five issues facing the country today and the deaths of 1.25 million unborn annually from abortion was not on her list. If, indeed, this is the approach a new Congress takes after the November mid-term elections, then the agenda of the Tea Party movement will fail.

America must be forewarned. A nation that fails to protect the lives of its most vulnerable members has set a course for itself that will lead to its eventual destruction from within. The killing of future generations through the act of abortion has already taken a toll on the demographical future of the nation and the Western world. Unless this trend is stopped then, notwithstanding the impact of the Tea Party movement, our culture and nation will have effectively committed suicide.

The invention of the three-legged milking stool was truly ingenious. Will the current populist movement for change understand this and formally incorporate the life issues into its agenda? Time will tell and the future of America hangs in the balance.

You successfully refuted not a single one of my statements. Don't just type "that's false", show me why it is false.

FYI: Reagan was the most anti-abortion POTUS we have ever had. Much to the dismay of many on the Right he had published, during his campaign against Mondale, his book, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation. Excellent book by the way.
Yet, because zealots across the country insisted on behaving like the Taliban not much progress was made in curtailing abortions. They wanted abortion to end, right there, right then, right now.
I've got news for you people, it isn't going to end like that. As horrifying as abortion is it is "legal". Until you change peoples' minds, and hearts, that fact remains. And if abortion were declared illegal tomorrow, abortions would yet occur.
But that wouldn't matter to some pro-life zealots, as they are only interested in patting each other on the back, boasting, "WE did it! WE made abortion illegal!"
~pan camera to pregnant woman walking into illegal abortion clinic~ Which would happen, as it does right now. Abortion is "illegal" in Ireland, yet an Irish woman certainly can get abortion. All she has to do is take the ferry over to Great Britain.
But never mind that. It is "illegal" and that is all that counts, right?

“Keeping the term ‘pro-life’ from officially being sanctioned by the various tea parties...”

...is a lie, if their members are opposed to baby-killing.

“I have attended enough GOP events to know that abortion is not high on the list of a lot of people’s agenda(s).”

Another reason that the Stupid Party needs to join the Whigs on the ash-heap of history.

“As a matter of fact I recall one such event, for Eric Cantor, in which a smartly attired man told me, “you f*cking people need to shut the hell up abortion!” I calmly replied, “Not gonna happen.”

You should have beaten the tar out of him, then thrown him in the gutter — vewy woughly.

Samual Adams said this: “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.”

Killing babies is neither wise nor virtuous. We will never again be a good people, never again will the blessings of liberty be secured to ourselves and our posterity, until no man remains in office who countenances baby-killing.

And as long as we continue to elect men—and women, but that’s another issue—who will stand up in front of God and everybody to vote “aye” on baby-killing, we will never—never, never, never—have good government.

“Every single person elected to the U.S. House and Senate can be pro-life and that wouldn’t change the current status of abortion. If I’m wrong please show me where.”

Congress could, if they had the desire and the testicles, pass a law removing baby-killing from the Supreme Court’s purview.

Yet, because zealots across the country insisted on behaving like the Taliban not much progress was made in curtailing abortions.

I'm curious, what disparaging term did people like you use before the word "Taliban" was well known.

They wanted abortion to end, right there, right then, right now. I've got news for you people, it isn't going to end like that. As horrifying as abortion is it is "legal". Until you change peoples' minds, and hearts, that fact remains.

There you go using terms like "you people" again.

A baby is aborted EVERY 24 SECONDS in America, why shouldn't it end immediately.

And if abortion were declared illegal tomorrow, abortions would yet occur.

Murder was declared illegal several thousand years ago and murders yet occur. The notion that something should be legal because it's going to be done no matter what is truly absurd.

~pan camera to pregnant woman walking into illegal abortion clinic~ Which would happen, as it does right now. Abortion is "illegal" in Ireland, yet an Irish woman certainly can get abortion. All she has to do is take the ferry over to Great Britain. But never mind that. It is "illegal" and that is all that counts, right?

I thank God that people like you were marginallized a century and a half ago, otherwise we would still have slavery.

I don't know your age. I am in my mid-60s. Your home page identifies you as affiliated with Young America's Foundation which is still run by my contemporaries in the 1960s-1970s Young Americans for Freedom organization which was the vanguard of the New Right. We are not as young as we used to be and I would bet we are older than you. Few YAF leaders of the 1970s would tolerate separating pro-life issues from "fiscal conservatism." Only David Boaz of Cato comes immediately to mind.

In 1969 at a National YAF convention at St. Louis, we had resolved the issue that libertarianism was not going to be allowed as a substitute for actual conservatism., John Sainsbury ran as a Randian for YAF National Chairman. He and his ticket were slaughtered by the ticket of J. Alan MacKay. The libertarians who lost went off and got involved with SIL (Students for Individual Liberty) and were often explicitly pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality and pro-moral degeneracy in general.

The issues have not changed and libertarians are no more likely to replace actual conservatism now than they were likely to replace it 41 years ago.

You also claim affiliation with Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum. Do you imagine she would agree with you that these pesky social issues be de-emphasized in favor of "fiscal conservatism???" Not bloody likely.

Bank robbery is criminally outlawed in most places and yet bank robberies persist in occurring in most places. Likewise, the murder of full grown adults. Likewise, larceny in general. What of it? The perfect is the enemy of the good. Nothing new there.

You may count on the fact that treating pro-lifers and actual conservatives (social and military and cultural conservatives) like buck-toothed banjo players from the movie Deliverance is not going to be a fruitful pathway to cause them to crawl under a rock and stop discomforting the libertines by defending the innocent lives of the babies. It doesn't work for leftists and it won't work for money-obsessive types who imagine themselves on the right. We are not going to degenerate as a movement into Tory Party Lite. We will have Reagan Democrats whether the Demonrats or the libertarians like it or not.

The eras of Eisenhower and Gerald Ford are permanently over and we ain't going back to moral indifference.

If you had been alive during the 1930s and 1940s, would you have favored an end to the Holocaust of Jews "right there, right then, right now" or would you have preferred that FDR continue to ignore the Holocaust lest anti-Semites be alienated? Maybe a gradual program would have been preferred by the libertarians in which a few lives were saved, but not enough to notice, over seven or eight decades??? Whoever forbid that we should ever take actual moral stands! Right?

In the actual event, however belatedly, we did not wait to change hearts and minds before acting against the Holocaust. We cared enough to send Patton (our very best) to liberate Auschwitz. He determined to put two Jewish US Army officers in charge of that liberation. One was future general Creighton Abrams to rub the Nazis' collective nose in it.

If we elect a unanimously pro-life House and Senate, leave the strategizing to the actual pro-lifers (those who really WANT to end abortion). We call that a veto-proof majority and it would mean the end of abortion being legal. Banks will still be robbed, property stolen, adult citizens murdered and "doctors" will still perform some abortions on the pool tables in their rec rooms as in the age before Roe vs. Wade. If caught, they will lose their licenses. It will be possible and customary to use civil law and injunctions and equitable remedies to visit immediate poverty and lifetime financial ruin upon those who profit from abortion and to jail the perps without jury trials for contempt of court after injunctions are obtained. Six months at a time, life in prison on the installment plan.

Your posts suggest the absence of a solitary pro-life cell in your brain.

The conservative movement is a much grander thing than you imagine and encompasses a lot more things and a lot more important issues than protecting your income and your portfolio.

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