Posted on 03/06/2007 5:39:37 PM PST by markomalley
They are saying that the next GOP presidential candidate might very well be a pro-abortion Republican who promises not to push that issue and is strong on other issues.
They hope that pro-lifers will “be reasonable,” not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and go along quietly.
We won’t.
Republicans and Democrats in 1980 took radically different approaches to the right to life. Republicans wrote into their party platform that all abortions should be outlawed. Democrats wrote into their party platform that not only should abortion be legal, but families should be forced to pay for others’ abortions through their taxes.
Democratic leaders have been utterly committed to their party platform. But there’s a movement afoot for Republicans to shrug off this plank of the party platform altogether, and give a pro-abortion politician the reins of the party and, they hope, the White House.
In particular, Rudy Giuliani has become a favorite for president of conservative talk-show hosts, and pro-war and tough-on-crime Republicans. He’s also way ahead in polls like Newsweek’s, though it’s anyone guess what such polls mean so early in the process.
The way the pro-Rudy argument goes is this: For the past three decades, social conservatives have had the luxury of insisting on purity in the Republican Party. Their clout was such that any candidate had to undergo a “forced conversion” before running for national office. But 9/11 changed that. Now, extremist Islam and the war on terror are such all-consuming issues, and we can’t be so caught up with abortion anymore.
Since Giuliani is committed to the war on terror and is a great crisis manager with a track record rooting out the gangs of New York, we shouldn’t demand that he be pro-life, but instead we should be willing to make a deal.
Rudy’s deal: He’ll promise not to push the pro-abortion agenda, and he’ll nominate judges in the mold of Samuel Alito and John Roberts. Pro-lifers in the Republican Party in return would support him, but keep insisting that the party stay pro-life, and fight our fiercest pro-life battles at the state level, where they belong.
That seems like a good deal, at first blush. We’re well aware that “forced conversions” to the pro-life fold are far from the ideal. Think of the candidacy of Bob Dole in 1996. And it is true that the fight against judicial tyranny is an immense front in the battle for the right to life. Transforming the courts is a prerequisite to victory elsewhere.
But what dooms the deal from the start is the fact that it totally misunderstands what pro-lifers care about in the first place.
When they ask us to “be reasonable” and go along with a pro-abortion leader, they assume that there is something unreasonable about the pro-life position to start with.
We’re sorry, but we don’t see what is so unreasonable about the right to life. We’ve seen ultrasounds, we’ve named our babies in the womb, we’ve seen women destroyed by abortion. What looks supremely unreasonable to us is that we should trust a leader who not doesn’t only reject the right to life but even supports partial-birth abortion, which is more infanticide than abortion.
We also see the downside of Rudy’s deal. If pro-lifers went along, we’d soon find out that a pro-abortion Republican president would no longer preside over a pro-life party. The power a president exerts over his party’s character is nearly absolute. The party is changed in his image. He picks those who run it and, both directly and indirectly, those who enter it.
Thus, the Republicans in the 1980s became Reaganites. The Democrats in the 1990s took on the pragmatic Clintonite mold. Bush’s GOP is no different, as Ross Douthat points out in “It’s His Party” in the March Atlantic Monthly.
A Republican Party led by a pro-abortion politician would become a pro-abortion party. Parents know that, when we make significant exceptions to significant rules, those exceptions themselves become iron-clad rules to our children. It’s the same in a political party. A Republican Party led by Rudy Giuliani would be a party of contempt for the pro-life position, which is to say, contempt for the fundamental right on which all others depend.
Would a pro-abortion president give us a pro-life Supreme Court justice? Maybe he would in his first term. But we’ve seen in the Democratic Party how quickly and completely contempt for the right to life corrupts. Even if a President Giuliani did the right thing for a short time, it’s likely the party that accepted him would do the wrong thing for a long time.
Would his commitment to the war on terror be worth it? The United States has built the first abortion businesses in both Afghanistan and Iraq, ever. Shamefully, our taxes paid to build and operate a Baghdad abortion clinic that is said to get most of its customers because of the pervasive rape problem in that male-dominated society. And that happened under a pro-life president. What would a pro-abortion president do?
The bottom line: Republicans have made inroads into the Catholic vote for years because of the pro-life issue. If they put a pro-abortion politician up for president, the gains they’ve built for decades will vanish overnight.
You offered: "Since Roe V Wade became law, we've had more Republican presidents than Dem ones, and Roe is still the law of the land. Abortion is also a topic that most Americans have way down on the list of what's of major importance." Do you not see a significant effect in having a Subpreme Court fiat ruling that legalizes the killing of alive unborn children at the simple request of the woman, and the reality that most Americans have lost the ability to comprehend the heinous nature and effects of abortion on demand? How will nominating and then electing a man who has already sold out to the horror as useful actually change directions of this nation?
> First, your screen name makes me laugh. Thank you.
You're more than welcome, and I'm grateful to bring humor. It's much more fun than discord!
> For a Catholic in solidarity with Pope Benedict and
> Mother Angelica, for example, Giuliani is impossible.
So long as a better candidate is available, isn't that so? If the alternatives are actually worse, then the rule is to do the least harm possible, is it not?
As I mentioned in my previous post, I don't object to those who support somebody else or even those who state why they can't support Giuliani, as you just did.
My problem is with those who savage him (or any other candidate), apparently hoping to wound him so badly from within that he can't be a viable candidate. That's the democrats' job.
There is also quite a history of all kinds of other kinds of news services in this country and pushing a Catholic view, on a secular site isn't why this site was founded.
Being snarky, playing with someone else's nic, is considered to be very bad manners here. Doing so, shows just what and who you are....
What are you trying to say nopardons without pinging Jim.
Yes that is the general application.
It seems to me that the point of nopardons' post was that the election of more Republican presidents than Democrat presidents still hasn't moved the ball forward in the abortion struggle.
IOW, how much have presidents actually impacted the issue? Bush did much by making his two Supreme Court appointments. But even if Roe v. Wade were overturned (and I pray it will be), there will still be a huge mountain to climb to restrict abortion in state or federal law.
Amen.
And is it actually Catholic doctrine that, in a situation of two evils, one should strive to do the least harm possible?
Would that it were so.
Amen.
And is it actually Catholic doctrine that, in a situation of two evils, one should strive to do the least harm possible?
Would that it were so.
oops -- mouse fart -- sorry for the dupe post
At this stage in scientific development, 'restricting abortion' is no longer the cogent factor to consider. But hanks for your input. BTW, libertarian values are not going to take over FR or the Republican party this season ... another, later season, maybe.
Right. And I wouldn't put it past you to try to use unconstitutional anti-free speech Marxism to try to shut us down. Go ahead. Take your best shot, Mz McLame!
"And is it actually Catholic doctrine that, in a situation of two evils, one should strive to do the least harm possible? "
Then catholics are wrong. The correct action should be to deny them both with extreme prejudice.
"Restricting abortion" includes any and all legal regulation of abortion, up to making it totally illegal.
But I guess that doesn't do it for the all-or-nothing crowd.
It is possible as a Catholic to make such a moral decision defensibly and deny both if they are equally wrong on the questions of life. But it is permissible to choose between two candidates so that the one who will do the greatest amount of harm does not benefit from one's protest.
Figure this out, connect these sentences, friend: What is an abortion? How does that differ from terminating a pregnancy? Embryo-aged beings in the human species are human beings at their earliest age. You try to marginalize pro-life people by making snide comments like 'all or nothing crowd' but it only shows how little you comprehend the depths of the depravity in this nation regarding the alive unborn. Right To Life is not merely one among many issues, it is a founding principle of this nation. Where in that issue is there room to compromise and yet be defending the right to Life? Can you mark the utilitarian steps along the path?
Thank you for that explanation. It is very helpful.
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