Posted on 11/08/2007 12:00:05 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
The last best hopes for the pro life movement is to get Roe tossed and then move on to the states, which ironically is what Fred is looking at. It is also good that it seems David Osteen, director of National Right to Life, seems to concur with what Thompson is basically saying.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922280/posts
If he likes Fred I can't see why other Pro life folks can't do the same, David is mired in it much more than most of us.
Congress is lost, the move for a national bill will have to come from bellow, from the states. With a good majority of state legislatures passing pro life bills the congressmen from those states will have to turn around a look again at the national bill.
I am really discouraged though. When I see people yelling about all or nothing on abortion, I realize they have no grasp on the political realities. Indeed those very well intentioned souls are doing more harm than good. This is a political issue despite it’s moral basis. People do not want to be preached too, they need to be sold.
It is time for new tactics, time to stop fighting about who is right and wrong in their approaches and start working towards saving as many babies as we can as quickly as possible.
Fact of the matter is that if Fred were president and the issue went the way he proposes it wouldn’t be up to him, it would be up to the states. While he might vote one way in his state it would not impact me in NC.
What gets me is those here who nanny state everything. They don’t disagree with the tobacco and food nannies, they just don’t like their targets.
Gyrate any way you like, the human rights amendment would impose a blanket, nationwide, requirement that there either be serious criminal penalties for nearly every abortion or no such penalties for other intentional and unjustified homicides. The penalties would have to apply both to abortionists and to the women who resort to them. If a state tried to criminalize performing an abortion but not procuring one, the abortionists would have an equal protection claim. There wouldn’t even be a rational basis for punishing them and letting their customers off.
The rule that the human rights amendment would impose is something no state legislature would vote for and very few Americans would support. The result would be morally repugnant and politically catastrophic. Yet somehow it is a “blunder” for Fred Thompson to argue against such lunacy and in favor of giving states the freedom to work out sensible restrictions on abortion through the normal process of politics.
Before somebody hyperventilates and says that the human rights amendment can’t be lunacy because the sainted Reagan ran on a platform advocating it, let me observe that even Reagan made mistakes. That one was a doozy.
Making a human rights amendment the holy grail of the pro-life movement gave the abortion boosters a huge leg up in the culture wars. Abortion on demand has never been popular, but it was, and is, more popular than a blanket criminal prohibition of all abortions for any reason (other than a threat to the life of the mother) at any stage of pregnancy.
Somehow, I think Fred’s going to be just fine. His views on abortion may alienate a few nutjobs, but they will resonate with most people who vote, both in primaries and in the general election because they make sense.
He's right. Such a law would be so widely ignored it would be pointless. Worse than pointless, because the PRO-aborts would regain power on people's disgust with it.
We pro-lifers should work to
-- Get rid of Roe, something that Fred thinks should be done.
-- End all public contributions to Planned Parenthood and any other abortion advocacy group that should happen to be getting them (and it puzzles me why nobody is talking about this, not even Huckabee)
-- Get Silent Scream broadcast over a major network on Prime Time with a lot of publicity.
-- Turn those who accept money for performing abortions into criminals.
I agree with you. If the GOP tries to get squishy on abortion, they will consign themselves to a permanent minority. When one asks questions like “Would you throw a 16 year old in jail?”, we are throwing out talking points that dodge the more crucial issue. If a 16 year old commits pre-mediatated mass-murder, then why not? Are 16 year olds not capable of understanding that murder is wrong. I’m not saying that they have to have the perspective of a muture Ghandi on the issue, but are they not culpable for such a gross crime? If we answer “no” to this question, then we are no stronger than the weak-minded moonbats over at DU.
LIAR
Can you point me to where Romney has called for criminal punishment of women (even teens) who obtain an abortion?
The MSM is following the template.
the fix is in Giuliani vs Hillary. for those in rio linda, it is Hillary Clinton vs Hillary Clinton in november 2008.
Has Romney called for jailing women who obtain and abortion?
However it seems Jim Bopp has an issue with his own leadership to deal with...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922280/posts
We can't begin to hold all the real criminals we have in our jails but we're supposed to convict moms and pops and daughters. Yeah, that'll play with the American public, youbetcha.
Tell me honestly, can you envision Ronald Reagan coming up with such a proposal? Not on your life.
As a religious zealot and conservative I would be thrilled if Roe vs. Wade were overturned and the decision of whether or not to make abortion lawful was handed over to the states. This would be much more representative in terms of having a government of, by, and for the people. And - it would ensure some states would outlaw the practice. This would be a step forward, not back.
We are putting the cart before the horse!
Abortion is still legal!
Does anyone who is sane think that talking about jailing the mothers and daughters of America for something that is still legal as of now is going to win any converts to our cause?
THIS IS A POLITICAL ISSUE!
I know the moral implications, I know them well, but the reality is just that, it is a matter of votes.
If we keeping acting high and mighty, keep preaching and worse of all keep threatening, WE WILL NEVER abolish abortion.
We have no chance right now at a national bill as it is. This activity will energize the opposition and the local level as well.
People will never vote on a law that would put their mothers and daughters at risk.
After the fact we can debate punishment ONCE we have made it a crime.
Bingo...
That is why they, and us keep losing ground.
It is time for new tactics, time to stop fighting about who is right and wrong in their approaches and start working towards saving as many babies as we can as quickly as possible.You are absolutely right. I remember back in the '80s when Falwell said he would willingly accept a ban on abortions that included an exception for rape and incest and he was asked, "if you think abortion is murder, why would you accept it for babies conceived by rape or incest?"
Falwell's answer was brilliant, and I'll never forget it (though I don't remember the exact words). He said that he felt like a hostage negotiator talking to terrorists holding a plane-load of passengers out on the tarmac. Right now, during the negotiations, he'll accept any freed hostages he can get. Just get as many folks off the plane as possible and try to save the rest later.
That's the same rationale for taking this issue back to the states (where it belongs, constitutionally). Right now we are saving absolutely nobody. Back at the state level we would start saving lives immediately, at first in a small number of states but then in a growing number. We would win by example, and pro-life activists would have a good base of operations to expand from, like a beach-head in re-taking lost territory.
And, it would be constitutional.
The Romney Sleaze Machine pounces on this like it’s proof Fred is a reanimated Margaret Sanger.
Yet when I ask for Romney’s statement that there must be criminalization and jail time, it’s all crickets and tumbleweeds.
Pathetic.
The people who scream “Pass a law now or I won’t support you!” the ones who think they are the only people who are correct on how best to stop abortion, are the very ones who will lose this for us in the end.
These hit pieces from Novak and his fellow travelers among the elite, pronouncing Fred’s demise, were as predictable as they are inaccurate. Support for a Constitutional Amendment is not the sine qua non of purity for the prolife movement. But even if it was not, Fred’s answer was, at once honest, principled, and practical.
It was HONEST because the Amendment has no chance of passage anytime in the next two decades at least. It requires another 25 senators and probably 85 more house members. There are enough state legislatures that are firmly proabortion that it would be denied ratification by the required 38 states if it did pass. Finally, Fred’s answer was honest because the President has NO ROLE whatsoever in the passage or ratification of a Constitutional Amendment.
Second, it was the PRINCIPLED answer. Fred believes in federalism as do all true conservatives. It is the surest way to assure the survival and the success of liberty. Rather than pander on an unpassable Amendment, Fred stuck to his principles. This is what separates him from every other politician in the field and what will lead to his success. People admire principle even if they do not understand, or disagree with, the answer. Some prolifers, who have been feeding on the placebo of a Constitutional Amendment for 30 years, need to have this explained to them. The Constitutional Amendment is a mirage, and any honest and informed prolifer will tell you this. The way to advance the prolife struggle is through: 1)federalist judges; 2) reversal of Roe and the return of the issue to the states; and 3) victory on the issue through the political process.
Finally, Fred’s answer on the issue of jailing young girls was PRACTICAL, even though he did not have time to explain it. If an Amendment did pass defining life as beginning at conception, then it would have an enabling clause that would require Congress to implement it. How would you go about implementing it? Fred appropriately does not trust the Congress to formulate such laws and he does not see how they would be workable or enforceable at the national level. That said, it was a speculative answer, because such an Amendment will not pass for the vastly foreseeable future. It is first and foremost a political struggle that must be won at the state level (Remember, you need 38 states) before you could even consider a Constitutional Amendment. If the prolife movement gets 38 state to ban abortion, you will not need a Constitutional Amendment.
That said, I am glad, on a certain level, for these broadsides against Fred Thompson. The MSM and their allies in the elite punditry are engaged in biting their own tail by lowering expectations for Fred Thompson, who has tremendous grass roots support (as evidence by the huge number of visits to his website). They are unwittingly and unintentionally engaged in magnifying the success he is going to enjoy starting on January 3. The elites do not like Fred. That is a given. We don’t like the elites. We both vote And there are more of us.
Well, look on the bright side. Better to see his blunders now that be “sucker punched” again like we were by “W” in ‘00 and ‘04.
I agree with Lou Dobbs. It’s going to be a great election for a Third Party this go ‘round.
www.unity08.com
Yet when I ask for Romney’s statement that there must be criminalization and jail time, it’s all crickets and tumbleweeds.
Pathetic.
By pathetic, I assume you also mean normal...
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