I tend to agree with saving every savable child while NEVER compromising to allow any of them to be slaughtered and "never giving up the fight." I can vote for imperfect legislation but only while telling the pro-abort enemy that I make no deals and, like Wilberforce, I shall return again and again demanding complete abolition of abortion, and never morally countenance a single innocent death or ayone who condones such deaths in a grisly game of Let's Make a Deal.
Your uncharitable temper tantrum against Eternal Vigilance is unwarranted.
As to "taking the fight to the states," forty-three years of largely unrestrained baby murders (60+ million and counting) are going to make that a bit of an impractical path. Seemingly quite constitutional, given the Tenth Amendment but the far more practical answer is actually contained in the Herod Blackmun decision on Roe vs. Wade. The evil old bastard noted at the outset of his murderous screed that, IF the unborn were to be viewed as "persons," then the states would have every right, if not an obligation, to outlaw abortion under the Fourteenth Amendment. "Personhood" is thus the key.
As a pro-life criminal defense trial lawyer, I used to disagree but I have changed my mind. BTW, I used to use your argument as to saving every possible life even if all were not saved. I would still use that argument as follows:
A young idealistic fireman who has spared absolutely no effort in perfecting his craft, including testifying before municipal boards and his state's legislature for improvements in the fire code that would save lives, is called to the scene of a serious apartment house fire. The building has three equal-sized portions. One wing is totally engulfed when he arrives. No one who has not already escaped can possibly be alive in that wing. The other wing is very mildly involved and is still quite survivable by prompt evacuation. The central portion is more heavily involved than the safer portion but requires immediate attention or more lives will be lost.
Throwing his hands up in disgust and going home complaining about the idiots who did not listen to his pleas for fire safety is simply NOT a moral alternative. People who are threatened with death and grievous injury are depending on him and his colleagues and they cannot morally abandon their responsibilities even though they risk death to do their duty. He stays and does his very best but some folks subsequently die of smoke inhalation or being burned to death or whatever. We aren't perfect but we can try to do our best.
You are bashing EV for his virtues and not for his sins. At least here on FR, I likely know him better than you do. He s raising a gold standard of pro-life and of constitutionalism. Someone must do that. Judy Brown and the American Life League do likewise.
EV is not responsible for a single death of an unborn that I know of. That is on Herod Blackmun and SCOTUS (then known as Black and White and the Seven Shades of Grey although Democrat Whizzer White and William Rehnquist dissented) and each and every gutless other SCOTUS "justice," and each and every inferior federal and state court judge who hide behind stare decisis because they value their careers and having their posteriors smooched by every lawyer and litigant: Yes, your Honor! No, Your Honor! Whatever you say, Your Honor! and every gutless politician who also values his/her "career" over the lives of 60+ million dead babies and counting.
EV is certainly NOT a "sick, twisted, holier than thou freak" or whatever profanity you gave up for Lent. EV is not Catholic. I am and so, likely, are you if you actually give up anything for Lent. Would you call Pope John Paul I, Pope St. John Pal II, or Pope Benedict XVI any of those names. None of them were noted for rationalizing baby-killing of any baby just because the challenge of stopping the killing is just so damn hard!
All of life is not just playing Let's Make a Deal! If you vote for a bill that criminalizes all abortions after the first trimester (regardless of court opinions because this is between you and God) but the bill specifies that all first trimester abortions are peachy keen, do you really apply those terms (sick, twisted...) to someone who votes no on the basis that he has no moral authority to approve the killing of any innocent person? I don't think I would like to argue that case before God Who lovingly created each and every child for His purposes. That argument is a non-starter with eternal consequences that are literally damn harder.
Does that make me a "sick, twisted, holier than thou freak?" If so, I guess guilty, guilty, guilty! I will admit that, unlike EV, I might vote for such a bill but I would at least admit to myself and to God that to do so is gravely sinful and a material co-operation with abortion, whatever rationalizations may be applied.
I would certainly not revile those more moral than I when they criticize my moral failings.
We can talk another time, if you are up to it about your claim that "we" have spent 44 years "fighting the fight." I know I have "given at the office and at a lot of courthouses" but other than letters to the editor and internet exchanges, what have YOU done personally in that fight?
As always, I deeply appreciate your friendship and kind words.
Re the burning building analogy:
Morally and constitutionally the statutes under discussion here would be as if they passed a “law” granting a license to all arsonists to go ahead and start fires and kill everyone in the buildings they are hired to burn as long as they do the dirty deed before Labor Day.
And oh, before Labor Day all the fire escapes must be padlocked, by “law.”
Have you seen the latest outrage of the regulationists? Several “pro-life” legislators in Utah, with the support of the “pro-life” governor, are now proposing that the victims, the innocent babies, be anesthetized before they are murdered.
The only “logical” next step into a Brave New World for the propagators of “fetal pain” legislation, right?
Abominable. Detestable. Morally bankrupt.
God have mercy.
I will read your post in more detail later.
For now, I am annoyed that you referred to my anger as a temper tantrum, when the anger was the result of being subject to a massively condescending attitude.
Any response I make right now will be tainted with that annoyance.