Open battles are brewing in light of expected Republican victories. Dems are sitting back hoping they will fight to the death and they can walk in and claim the day. The issue is is abortion. I am glad it is the issue because it does not need to be ignored. Yes, we are all thinking about the financial condition of our country....many are hurting financially, out of work and yes it is on the forefront of our minds when you are unemployed. But does that mean the issue of life and death does not matter. I always remember that things that seemed so important quickly fell by the wayside once the diagnosis of cancer with a bad prognosis was given. Then everything else is so unimportant and the only thing important is life and pending death. So why brush off the life issue.....because it is not our pending death but of someone we have not developed a relationship with, that's why. We are by nature selfish beings. Abortion is all about life and death...and the purists cannot get over the fact that an innocent and defenseless human being is being dismembered with no trial, no representation and no voice...
The pro abortion side always lead with the rape and incest argument to draw attention away from the one being put to death for the crime of the father to attention to the plight of the victimized woman. I looked up Guttmacher Institute statistics and of course even they cite the incidence of abortion for rape and incest at less than 1.5% and the largest response was 74% at aborting because the baby would dramatically change my life. So let's stop with the rape/incest lead argument but of course it is their best argument. Would they want to lead with let's get rid of the sucker because my life is more important then her/his life... not really!
Jill Stanek devoted her last weekly column to this issue ... that smelling victory the Republicans are urging others to concentrate on the economic issue and remain mum on the social issues. Backlash caused them to reconsider quickly and they responded by announcing they would include the social issues led by abortion in their 2010 contract with America.
This led to a bevy of articles by R's who say that we need to remain "big tent" on the life issue including this article in Salon.com by John Avlon, a pro choice R...who argues
... if rank-and-file Republicans are intimidated into accepting this new normal—opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest—it will not only alienate more centrists and abandon libertarians, it will reignite the culture wars, undercutting the still solidifying national consensus around safe, legal, and rare.
Nonetheless, this new group of candidates campaigning under the Tea Party banner is trying to quietly move the Republican Party significantly to the right on social issues. Encouraged by the conservative feminist presence of Sarah Palin, there is a new absolutism on abortion, one that places ideology over individuals, and drives out a diversity of opinion. Backers of big government and a cradle-to-grave welfare state might logically support the position of forcing women to bring unwanted children into the world. But for alleged advocates of a smaller government, it is both a philosophical and practical contradiction, driven more by faith than reason.
He worked for Rudy Giuliani as a speechwriter, sounds more like Bill Clinton with that safe, legal and rare (wink, wink) stuff.
Alas, even Bernie Goldberg weighs in with his desire to get elected first and then let's pull these issues out of the bag kind of like an added benefit after the election.He espouses the Buckley rule that we should back the most conservative candidate electable..
Jim DeMint, the conservative Republican senator form South Carolina – who backed O’Donnell – once said that, “I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.” Me too, Jim, but in the real world, the Democrats would shove whatever left-wing programs they want down those 30 conservative throats – and there wouldn’t be a damn thing DeMint and his 29 conservative pals could do about it.
I understand his theory but nothing makes the grassroots madder than donating money and time to a candidate and then have them get elected to vote against strongly held principles. There seems to be a principle going on that once elected and inside the beltway....they lean left....so if they start in the center....do they ever go to the right? I can't think of any incidence....they go left. The money and lobbying influence looms larger on the pro abortion side and as POTUS likes to say...they have a large megaphone.
Even some pro life blogs are chiming in with the view that the tea party would lose attraction if they openly embraced the pro life platform.
"The Tea Party is very smart to ignore the pro-life issue but eventually get the result of getting pro-life candidates elected anyway."
So is this open debate helpful or hurtful? I say anything that keeps the life issue front and center is good. What do you think? Where do you fall on this issue of purists vs. realists?
No comments:
Post a Comment