Posted on 06/21/2005 1:35:35 PM PDT by cpforlife.org
Are Republicans bidding farewell to pro-life supporters?
If they are, then many Catholics will be bidding farewell to the Republican Party.
More Catholics voted for Republicans in the last election than ever before — and they did it even despite Catholic voters’ opposition to the Iraq war. Abortion was the biggest reason why.
A Gallup Poll conducted just before the November elections found that 19% of likely voters say the abortion issue directs which candidates they are willing to support. A big majority of those voters chose President Bush — so much so that Gallup said it gave the president a 7% advantage among all voters, and the presidency.
In the Democratic Party’s platform, conventions and party leadership, any opposition to abortion is strictly forbidden. Pro-lifers have largely given up on them, and hoped the Republican Party’s official pro-life stance would make it a more natural home for them.
But the GOP is starting to look less like home.
When Democrats controlled the Senate, President Clinton’s judicial appointees sailed through despite their out-of-the-mainstream support for abortion. With little objection from the GOP, America got Supreme Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the federal judges who routinely overturn the pro-life measures states manage to enact.
But with Republicans in charge, Democrats wouldn’t allow the most reliably pro-life appointees to even get a vote — and Republicans were too afraid to give them the vote the constitution guarantees them. Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler wrote to U.S. senators Jan. 6, urging them to resist pressure to impose a pro-abortion litmus test on federal judicial nominees. Cardinal Keeler, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, objected to the judiciary’s virtual “Catholics need not apply” policy. To no avail.
America’s pro-life majority elected a Republican president and Republican Senate. Will these people be able to successfully seat a pro-life Supreme Court justice for us in return? That remains to be seen. But the GOP doesn’t seem as willing to fight as hard for pro-lifers as pro-lifers fought for them.
Look at what happened in the House.
The Republican-controlled body voted to spend money from American taxpayers’ paychecks to pay for unethical research that isn’t promising enough to attract private investors. Embryonic stem-cell research has been hyped as cure-all miracle research. But a review of the facts reveals it for what it is: the creation of human beings for the sake of science experiments that have so far produced only tumors in patients.
Adult stem-cell research, on the other hand, has produced amazing treatments for medical conditions. But no one is asking for taxpayer money to spend on it. Pharmaceutical companies are more than happy to invest in it themselves, because it works.
Formerly pro-life members of Congress are using pro-abortion arguments to explain their betrayal. They say these children are unwanted anyway, or that they aren’t fully human — even after being visited on Capitol Hill by “unwanted” embryos slated for death who were adopted, allowed to grow up, and now walk, talk, play and, some day, will vote.
If pro-lifers are starting to feel out of place in the Republican Party, the feeling might grow in 2008.
The party’s dream candidates for President — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar — are not pro-life.
Some party watchers say not to lose hope.
“I don’t think there is anything happening in the party per se on this issue. We are a pro-life party and will remain so,” Republican campaign strategist Bill Dal Col, who managed Steve Forbes’ 2000 presidential campaign, told the Washington Times.
The answer, says Steve Ertelt of Lifesite, is for pro-life advocates to work overtime to make sure the party knows what pro-lifers expect.
There is a long list of possible pro-life Republican presidential candidates, he said, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist; pro-life Senators Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; and former Virginia Governor George Allen.
A pro-abortion Republican can’t win the next presidential election. The religious supporters that the GOP counts on won’t vote for the opponent, certainly — they simply won’t vote at all.
As Americans, our House and Senate leaders should support pro-life positions because if they vote the wrong way, they’ll end human beings’ lives.
As politicians, they should support pro-life positions because, if they vote the wrong way, they’ll end their political careers.
While the pro-life plank is definitely a huge factor for much of our success, I wouldn't call it the "main reason". I think the main reason is that we are the party that advocates individual responsibility.
Actually, the Line Item Veto was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court during the Clinton administration (the one time Clinton was actually right, and they overrule him, typical)
The most talked about by whom?
Katie Couric? Dan Rather? Al Franken?
CNN, Washington Compost, New York Times, Gallup, AP/Ipsos, and the other usual suspects. They're going to push people like Hagel, McLame, and Guiliani simply because if they can't have a Democrat, they'll take the next best thing. The truth is right now no one knows who the nominee is going to be so tearing ourselves up over it is pointless and stupid.
Oh and to NATIVEDAUGHTER, Arnold cannot run for President so there is no point in even bringing him up.
Not at all! Abortion is premeditated murder, plain and simple. I just get really pissed off when people vote for pro-life democrats and then show up as delegates at Republican conventions. There is a pro-life democrat on the Olympic Peninsula that keeps getting reelected in a Republican district because he is pro-life. The man is a socialist.
Read the article again, Barney. It blames Republicans for voting to fund embryonic stem-cell funding. It wasn't Democrat "obstruction" that caused Republicans to vote to waste money on research that private investors won't fund.
When the National GOP STOPS supporting liberal Republicans, then they will have a legitimate reason for not being criticized....THERE ARE NO EXCUSES NOW for the GOP's failure to shape social policy at home....
Nope. FOS means "in desperate need of Ex-Lax."
Luckily I'm Catholic, so I don't have to worry about "dissident church members". Excommunication is a practice that needs to come back in vogue.
They whine like RATS, though.
Ronald Reagan was the most pro-life President in American history...W doesn't even come close...I see you 're still being the Party shill...
Perennial whiners/chicken-littles/agitators are happier when we are making absolutely NO forward progress. They have a functional inability to reassess when we have setbacks and figure out a new way to the goal. Politics is not a strait line, even if policy is.
Here at home we've labeled some of the "usual suspects" FRhome-wreckers.
I don't like being held hostage by the 5 rinos either.
But I would rather get five more elected so their votes become less valuable.
Those "liberal" Republicans are the only Republicans who can be elected in some of those Northeastern liberal states and districts.
And, they vote with the rest of the GOP 90% of the time.
If you limit the GOP to conservatives only, you'll lose every national presidential election and be a permanent minority in Congress.
"I've often wondered what would have happened if the pro-life movement had invested HALF of the time and money into advertising and education campaigns that they have into political efforts"
Nicely said, [golf clap], I really don't see Roe V Wade ever being overturned and even if it is abortion will remain legal in most states. If we really want to do something about abortion as much time, energy and money need to go to preventing abortion as trying to change legislation.
And by prevent abortion I mean more than standing outside clinics handing out religous tracts and yelling murderer to women entering.
Political naifs having a temper tantrum when they don't get everything they want, NOW! They don't understand, or refuse to accept, the reality of how politics works.
Sure, but you'd maintain your ideological purity. [rolls eyes]
Huh can you show me the partial birth abortion ban Ronald Reagan signed?
Why did they have to hold their noses when Bush is pro-life? With Dole, it is quite possible that it was the pro-lifers not holding their noses and pulling the R lever that was responsible for Clinton getting reelected.
This from somebody that held his nose (literally) and voted for Ellen Craswell for governor (Washington), even though I disagreed with most of her politics. (that was rather funny actually: I held my nose and voted for Craswell. The guy next to me saw me holding my nose and said "Craswell?" I sighed, and said "yep." We both had a laugh at that).
LOL! Ronald Reagan talked a good pro-life line, but he nominated Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court, and they've been the swing votes against much pro-life legislation.
And Reagan himself never pushed any pro-life legislation. Had it not been for Henry Hyde, there would have been NO pro-life legislation passed in Reagan's eight years in office.
Bush has signed more pro-life bills than Reagan ever did, and that's in one term.
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