Posted on 01/25/2004 3:50:46 PM PST by MegaSilver
ROSWELL (New Mexico) - US President George W. Bush, courting the right-wing election year vote, delivered a warm message of support to anti-abortion protesters gathered in Washington and urged them to back his bid for a second term.
'During the past three years we've made real progress towards building a culture of life in America,' he said in a telephone call beamed to the marchers. 'But we all know there is still more to do.'
The annual demonstration, which converged on the US Supreme Court on Thursday, this year marked the 31st anniversary of the court's 1973 Roe vs Wade decision which made abortion legal in the United States.
Mr Bush recalled his controversial decision two years ago to restrict government funds from embryonic stem-cell research and his support for a ban on a procedure that its critics call 'partial-birth abortion'. He vowed to pursue 'without delay' law banning human cloning.
'Human life is a creation, not a commodity, and should not be used as research material for reckless experiments,' he said during a brief stop here to tout his re-election agenda.
He also reminded his cheering listeners that he had called in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday for a doubling of federal monies for abstinence-only sexual education programmes.
The abortion issue is a hot potato in any election campaign, with candidates trying to court both sides of a question.
'There has been very little shift in opinion over the last 20 to 25 years,' said Mr Tom Smith, director of the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, the largest survey on social trends in America.
'Most people do not have an absolute position on abortion. A little less than 10 per cent are absolutely pro-life, 30 per cent are absolutely pro-choice.'
But in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or involving a serious genetic defect in the foetus, or which would put the mother's health in danger, he said 80 to 90 per cent of people would support abortion.
Abortion, said Washington political analyst Allen Lichtman, is 'clearly one of those issues that stands with race as the great American dilemma'.
Mr Bush, he said, is indisputably against abortion.
'Bush may try to fudge the issue...but he's clearly pro-life,' he said. 'If Bush gets re-elected and the Republicans make big gains in the Senate, and two judges step down, there's the possibility that two more votes in the Supreme Court could overturn Roe vs Wade.' -- AFP
Isn't that the cannibals in the Time Machine?
Actually, race and abortion are inextricably bound since those with skin colors of darker shades abort their children at much higher rates.
We just got back from the March for Life in DC and here's an enlightening story.
While I was parking the car, my wife engaged a black AFL/CIO union rep in debate on abortion. His position was one that I hear often. Why is it my business if people want to abort their babies?
My answer was that I have the same interest in dissuading people from killing their babies as I have in people owning other people. It is morally wrong and should be unacceptable in America and they bot have COnstitutional bases.
My answer didn't impress him much and he got rambunctious but I like rambunctious and replied in kind.
After a bit he told me that he was a single father who had raised his children by himself with the help of the Almighty. I asked if he thought that God would favor or disfavor abortion. He thought about that and said nothing. So I pressed on and I asked him if he knew that black babies were killed at rates 3 to 4 times higher than white babies. This time his jaw dropped but he still didn't say anything.
I reccomended that he contact Althea King, MLK's niece and ask her if I was telling the truth. He said he would. I doubt it but you never know.
Then he segued into the rich white republican thing but being from a family of steamfitters and once having been a heavy equipment operator with a union card he didn't get to far with that line of reasoning.
In fact, he decided it was time to go. We shook hands, wished him the best, told him we hoped he would look a bit more deeply into the issue and said our goodbyes.
Confontation had morphed into respect and a bit of doubt on his side. And so it goes, one mind at a time.
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