Posted on 11/20/2011 5:15:41 PM PST by xzins
A day after Michele Bachmann’s campaign attacks Newt Gingrich’s record on abortion, the Gingrich campaign e-mails this account of Gingrich’s record:
Newt Gingrich has consistently upheld a pro-life standard. He had a consistent pro-life voting record throughout his twenty years in Congress, including his four years as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Gingrich pledges to uphold this consistent pro-life standard as president. Gingrich’s consistent pro-life standard is reflected by the following:
1. 98.6% Lifetime Pro-Life Rating from the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC). For the 20 years that Gingrich served in Congress (1979-1999), Gingrich supported the pro-life position in 70 out of 71 votes. (In the one instance that he did not take the NRLC position, it was because the NRLC opposed an early 1995 version of welfare reform because it changed certain welfare payments for mothers with children; NRLC did not oppose the final version of Gingrich’s welfare reform passed in 1996)
2. Supported the Hyde Amendment. Gingrich consistently voted for the Hyde amendment and other bans on government funding of abortions.
3. Partial Birth Abortion Ban. During Gingrich’s tenure as Speaker, the House of Representatives twice passed legislation banning partial birth abortions. President Clinton vetoed this legislation both times. Finally, a partial birth abortion ban was signed into law in 2003. The legislative effort to ban partial birth abortions had a very positive impact increasing pro-life support in the United States.
4. Signed the Susan B. Anthony List Pro-Life Leadership Presidential Pledge. In June 2011, Gingrich signed the SBA List Pro-Life Leadership Presidential pledge in which Gingrich pledges to the American people that if elected President he will (i) only nominate judges to the Supreme Court and federal judiciary who are committed to restraint and applying the original meaning of the Constitution, and not legislating from the bench (ii) select pro-life appointees for relevant executive branch positions, (iii) advance pro-life legislation to permanently end all taxpayer funding of abortion in all domestic and international spending programs, (iv) defund Planned Parenthood; and (v) advance and sign into law a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion.
5. Pledges to Sign Two Pro-life Executive Orders on the first day of a Gingrich Administration.
i. “Mexico City Policy” of Respect for Life. Reauthorize President Ronald Reagan’s policy – also known as the “Mexico City Policy”— to stop the federal funding of any non-governmental agencies or charities that perform or promote abortions in foreign countries.
ii. Respect the Beliefs and Integrity of Healthcare Workers. No American working in a medical environment should be forced to perform any action or procedure that he or she finds morally or ethically objectionable. This protection should include, but not be limited to, abortion and sterilization procedures. Existing conscience clause protections need to be strengthened.
It doesn’t matter. Arianna’s been buying her way into power for decades. She pretended to be a conservative for years, back before her husband was running for Senate. Ideology has always been the least of her concerns.
Have lost all my respect for Bachmann. She went after Perry like a shrill and now after Newt. She needs to do her homework as this makes her looks like a fool or a liar.
Shes a stooge, but I’m glad she did this because we now know his position. Not only that he’s walked the walked unlike Romney.
Michelle, it’s time to pack it up and gohome. YOu’re way out of your league here. The presidency is for the person who is most capable to lead us. And you’re not it I’m afraid.
REally? So, I guess if we can’t get Congress to stop partial birth abortions, because the idiots on the left can’t agree that baby at nine months is a living human being we try stopping the infanticide based on pain. Sure this is a poor excuse, but opposing this is the height of immorality, arrogance and stupidity. This is reality you speak of fantasy.
Well said, but you’re speaking to a moron....
I think the bottom line here, let’s be honest, is that you’re not supporting Newt under any circumstance...The man’s record on this issue is clear, very clear. BAchman takes a swipe at him from left field, and it sticks with people like you.
Like I said, there is the reality that abortions are legal in America, in all fifty states, virtually on demand, even in the last trimester...
5. Pledges to Sign Two Pro-life Executive Orders on the first day of a Gingrich Administration.
BTW, has your candidate agreed to do this? I think not...
This is the part that puzzles me, EV. How is (1)fighting to uphold those principles AND (2) simultaneously fighting to save every life you can in the meantime "giving up..principles"?
It seems to me that NOT fighting to save every life possible IS giving up those principles.
The reality is that the courts have decided those principles are NOT in our law when it comes to the unborn. It is necessary to fight to have that changed.
However, not fighting to save lives is definitely ignoring those principles.
Were station leaders on the underground railroad prior to the Civil War giving up on the principle of "all men are created equal" when they helped an escaped slave on his way to safety in the north or in Canada?
I would say they could fight to (1) abolish slavery per the principle of equality, and (2) help slaves escape to freedom. The second confirmed the first....that they really believed in the principle.
Not to fight now for every single life calls into question whether that person really believes in the principle.
(1) was he "giving up the republic's most important principles"??
(2) did that action in any way prevent or impeded the adoption of the thirteenth amendment?
With respect to the slavery analogy, I think that EV’s position is comparable to that of William Lloyd Garrison, who chose to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk for decades in support of total abolition, but when confronted with the question of whether or not to do anything concrete to help the slaves, chose to continue talking.
For the life of me, I don’t see how working at saving lives now AND working to change the current law is a violation of principle.
The legislation in question doesn't save any lives. It's a lie. And, while not saving any lives, it destroys the cornerstone moral, constitutional and legal principles that argue against child-killing. It defines the child in the womb as a person, and then allows certain disfavored classes of persons to be killed, contrary to the explicit, imperative requirements of the U.S. Constitution, and of all of the state constitutions.
By the way, part of the reason it doesn't save any lives is that the GOP is shot through with judicial supremacists like yourself. Doesn't matter much what you legislate when you've bought into the lie that judges have jurisdiction to make laws, veto laws and amend constitutions by fiat. You're no longer living in a constitutional republic under the rule of law. You've helped create a judicial oligarchy instead.
Alan Keys said it best when he pointed out the positions are identical. Slavery and unborn rights are equivalent.
In both the state is incorrectly declaring who is not a human being, sidestepping the principle that all men are created equal. All men deserve life and may not be deprived of it by another. The state may not claim who and who is not a human being, life begins at conception.
And yet, all those who worked to defeat slavery in an incremental way were not allies of the slaveholders.
I don't recall signing up on their membership list. :>)
I agree.
Now explain why saving lives now is violating principle.
I have knocked heads with EV on this issue several times before.
He is a party of one here on FR, and apparently derives great personal satisfaction from his position on that snow-white pedestal of self-defined moral purity.
It's pointless to argue with him.
I just keep trying to get my mind around the logic that says saving lives now is a violation of principle, and I keep coming up with bupkis.
I was sort of hoping, he’d say something clear and profound.
But he didn’t.
What could be more clear and profound than the words of the founders of this free republic?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...”
— The Declaration of Independence
“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.”
— The Preamble, or Statement of Purpose, of the United States Constitution
“No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.”
— The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
“No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
— The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
If you think your rights are secure when you, along with our entire political and legal elite, have abandoned the cornerstone American principle of the equal protection of the God-given, unalienable rights of ALL, you are deluded.
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