Posted on 11/18/2007 6:55:13 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Make no mistake about it - when the nation's largest pro-life group endorsed Fred Thompson on Tuesday its goal was to shake up the Republican contest for the presidency. The National Right to Life's endorsement is the gold standard coveted by those Republicans seeking the White House because it bestows a legitimacy and authenticity on the candidate who receives it as the standard-bearer for those who want to end abortion on demand.
The Thompson endorsement not only signals how the organization representing 3,000 pro-life groups has grown up, but it shows just how close the country is to seeing Roe vs. Wade ended. In recent days former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who for some was the most logical choice to receive the NRTL endorsement, had become increasingly critical of Thompson's position on abortion.
Thompson, who had a 100 percent pro-life record in the Senate, said he favored ending Roe vs. Wade because in his estimation, it was wrongly decided. When asked, he said that he did not favor pursuing a federal constitutional amendment banning abortion because it was largely impractical. Thompson is a federalist and for him, ending Roe is the next step. Roe took abortion out of the democratic process and to end it would take it away from the Supreme Court and return abortion policymaking to the states.
In response, Huckabee said Thompson was soft on abortion for not supporting the constitutional amendment banning the procedure, an amendment that has been part of the Republican Party platform since 1980. The thought was that Huckabee's criticism and forceful advocacy for a "life" amendment would be a marker for those primary voters who care deeply about ending abortion and would show the NRTL that he - not Thompson, not Romney, not McCain - was the most pro-life candidate.
It didn't work. The endorsement of Thompson over the other pro-life candidates is a reflection of where the movement is in 2007 and how much the country has changed.
Throughout the 1980s, NRTL's advocacy for a constitutional amendment banning abortion was a necessary step for drawing the line in the sand. Even then, the thought of receiving the supermajorities in the U.S. Senate and the state legislatures would discourage the fiercest pro-life advocates.
But in the late 1980s and 1990s the movement began to get smart, politically. The movement refocused its efforts and began to take on abortion incrementally. It started with pushing for parental notification laws, arguing that if a 14-year old girl needed her parent's permission to take an aspirin at school, she most certainly needed their permission to receive an abortion.
During that time, the country came to terms with infanticide by way of partial-birth abortion. State after state began banning the gruesome procedure. By 1997, around 70 to 80 percent of the American public opposed it. Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women, NARAL and other so-called abortion rights groups were in retreat, left defending unpopular policies because they didn't want any restrictions placed on abortion.
But the country's leadership wasn't in line with its citizens. President Bill Clinton vetoed a federal ban on partial-birth abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down state partial-birth abortion laws and other limits on abortion. These events signaled that abortion on demand had taken the country somewhere a majority of Americans didn't want it to go.
In 2000, George W. Bush was elected. He'd promised to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of those on the court who effectively disagreed with Roe.
Some of the common-sense limits on abortion became law. A ban on partial-birth abortion stood, states passed legislation on parental consent and informed consent, and when there were vacancies on the high court, Bush appointed solid conservative jurists.
So now in 2007, it is widely believed that the country is one or two retirements away from being able to determine the Supreme Court's next step on Roe. This is something the NRTL realized and its leadership said it thinks Fred Thompson gives the country the best opportunity to see abortion on demand ended.
The real problem is that his position is anathema to the most important part of the pro-life plank: The assertion of the personhood of the unborn, and their protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Your problem is obfuscation.
The goal of every conservative since the inception of Roe has been to get it overturned in order to send the issue back to the states.
The demand for conservative orthodoxy via 14th Amendment protections and the HLA are mere attempts to paint Federalist Republicans as abortionists. It won't fly, and it's a transparent tactic.
You aren't a Republican, and your desire here is to divide Republicans.
Fred Thompson or Hillary Clinton...who's your choice "EternalVigilance?"
Do you believe that the woman, who is the victim of the rape, be forced to carry the trauma and stigma of that rape?
That’s because the MSM has already decided its a race between Rudy and Romney- which is why you see nothing about the other candidates.
His choice is Keyes.
Ok so 23 years...
Nothing, adhered to or not.
So again I ask, do we keep going with failure?
That’s my phrase, damn it! Each time you use it, you must send me $5.00.
Do they keep losing? It's my impression that we're closer to overturning Roe v. Wade than we've ever been before. Hasn't it been almost taboo in the past for many GOP presidential candidates to openly say they will work to overturn Roe v. Wade? A partial birth abortion prohibition is supported by big majorities, has been signed into law and is now in the courts. Just on an anecdotal level, there seems to be much more opposition to abortion than there used to be.
I could be totally off, and you may have stats that show that we're going the wrong direction. But it's been my impression that we're making progress.
Have you ever heard the saying, "You're an anti-Republican phony?"
The HLA has become nothing more than an excuse for cynical, unprincipled politicians to do nothing.
Every sworn officer of the United States takes an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. And the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments already protect the lives of innocent persons.
Do you believe, as the Reagan pro-life plank asserts, that babies in the womb are PERSONS? Even Justice Blackmun, in the majority decision in Roe, admitted that if they were, they are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Make the pro-aborts get their own constitutional amendment if they want to eliminate the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments - and repeal the Preamble which describes the very purpose of the document.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Rest assured, the practice of abortion violates EVERY clause of the above paragraph.
Posterity, or, to describe it more clearly for those in Rio Linda, those not yet born, have the same right to the Blessings of Liberty that you do.
I've worked for the Republican Party, and for Republican candidates, for many years, often at great personal cost.
But, if the Republican Party abandons the moral principles it was founded on, you will be correct, I will become "anti-Republican."
But, Lord willing, I will never be a phony.
Good question. The "leaders" at NRTL have had the helm that whole time. Draw your own conclusions from that. I know I have.
If that is true, which is debatable, why do you want to, at the very point of "success," give away the primary moral, legal, scientific and intellectual argument for why abortion is wrong in the first place?
The "partial birth abortion ban" was little more than a phony sop to pro-lifers, one that won't save a single baby.
And, as Scalia and Thomas pointed out in the majority decision upholding that ban, the very language Kennedy used in writing that majority opinion more deeply entrenched the falsehoods inherent in Roe.
The court basically descended into a situation where it was describing how it is "legal" to destroy the life of a child. Disgusting.
That’s it I guess but...if Fred wants to win he better get out there soon and do his thing.
There you go with your damned logic, again. Don't you realize we just want to castigate old Grandpa Fred Thompson, not get a conservative elected president who will pick justices like Thomas and Roberts and Alito?! If ol' Fred from Klantucky won't swear up and down to be for HLA, even though it's a pipe dream, well, we don't want him!
I guess not...that’s probably because I am really just tired of it all. The hate, the backstabbing, the attacks on Romney’s religion ... just about everything. However, like I said earlier if Fred wants to win he better get out there and show me along with others what he’s about.
OK...maybe that’s it.
Indeed I have been one to think we DON’T need the HLA because we already have it.
The definitions seemed to be something the courts have tied up. Roe V Wade going away would go a long way towards that. It is dramatically more realistic than the HLA for the very issue you state, the politicians will do nothing in general.
So what has the better chance?
Well, that’s awfully arrogant if you ask me. I like fred but no one should take that stance. hilllereee has and look how UGLY it makes her.
I guess we just don’t watch enough TV. We never watch the news or tv talk shows. Just Rush.
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