Pro-lifers have been helping low income mothers for decades
Hatchet
By Lucas Roebuck
The Washington Post pushed an interesting thesis in a front page article Tuesday. Under the headline "Some Abortion Foes Shifting Focus from Ban to Reduction," Jacqueline Salmon posits that as a result of an devastatingly unfavorable 2008 election, some Pro-Lifers are "setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance programs for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions."
Playing off rhetoric from the Obama campaign, the article is emblematic of the idea that somehow helping poor pregnant women is a compromise or "common ground" between the pro-life and pro-choice positions. This "compromise" is a vicious and remarkably clever attempt to destroy the pro-life movement for good.
It's vicious because it implies that the pro-life movement has not focused on assistance programs over the years — when that has already been the real focus of the pro-life movement for decades.
The heart of the grassroots pro-life movement has always been about helping needy expectant mothers in crisis pregnancy centers. Just do a Google search for "Crisis Pregnancy Center" and you'll find hundreds, if not thousands, of local efforts to help women in troubled situation make positive choices — and provide them with resources once that choice is made.
The election of Barack Obama didn't suddenly give pro-lifers the idea that they can help poor pregnant women with financial aid and emotional support to help them decide to keep the baby. I hadn't even heard of Obama when I first heard Wayne Mays, Arkansas Right to Life President, explain how important it is for right-to-life organizations to "love them both," that the mother was just as valuable as the unborn child. Although the Washington Post doesn't know this, Mays is the typical pro-life activist: He raises money for crisis pregnancy centers and marches in pro-life political events. For Mays and hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers, fighting for a political ban and helping mothers in need are not mutually exclusive ways of fighting abortion. They are both part of an integrated strategy that is as old as the pro-life movement.
Pro-lifers should support any and every plan and program that will reduce abortions. Many of those are social programs. Some are run by the government. Some are run by private organizations. But should the pro-lifers give up on the political fight?
Even if perpetual failure on the this front is certain, how can those who believe abortion is murder be silent in the political arena?
However well intentioned Obama himself may be, pro-choice forces know that silencing the pro-life voices of descent in the court of public opinion is the best way to assure that legal abortion on demand for any reason at any stage will never be challenged.
The "common ground" case is a brilliant distraction from the real issue: Is abortion murder or not? While theology and science both inform us on this issue, the abortion question can only be answered politically — the same way most moral questions are answered. Recreational drug use? Non-consensual sex? Prostitution? Gambling? Slavery? Our political system answers them all. Governs them all. Gives rules on them all.
And sometimes the political answers change. Prohibition comes to mind. Our culture changes and our elected officials change with it. This is why the political element of the pro-life movement is so critical. Right now, our culture is divided or undecided on the morality of abortion. If no one calling abortion what it is — murder — to the political and cultural establishments, then society will fully accept abortion as morally acceptable.
If pro-lifers give up on their political efforts now, they will not reduce abortions. Instead, more people who were undecided and the culture at large will see abortion as morally acceptable. And if abortion on demand is becomes as morally acceptable as pro-choice advocates would have it be (politically, this is where Obama is), why would not many more people then choose to have abortions of convenience?
Which brings us to the greatest red herring of the abortion debate. By trying to get pro-life people to focuses merely on the underprivileged women who get abortions, the women who use abortion — the killing of the most innocent human life — as birth control for convenience get political cover for their irresponsible and selfish actions.
The Post article cites ambiguous research with this mind-twisting math: "A study ... found that the abortion rate among women living below the poverty line is more than four times that of women above 300 percent of the poverty level." Three hundred percent of poverty level for a family of four is roughly $120,000. How many Americans live above poverty and below 300 percent poverty? What percentage of the abortions in America were between the poverty level and 299 percent of poverty level? The article doesn't say.
Some interpretations of recent data released by the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute ("Advancing sexual and reproductive health worldwide") show that its likely 70 percent of abortions are performed for reasons of convenience (i.e. not for health reasons or "inadequate finances"). Even if that figure is off by ten or 20 percent, more than half of abortions are abortions of convenience — tens of millions of innocents killed since Roe v. Wade legalized the practice.
All Obama's compromise and "common ground" does is get the nation to ignore half of the slaughter.
##30##
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
McCain was a bad candidate
Social Conservatives are not to blame for 2008 GOP losses
Hatchet
By Lucas Roebuck
The Republicans will now begin soul searching in earnest, as the party plots its way to a competitive 2010. But first, we will have to endure the blame game why the GOP was shamefully routed by the Democrats for a second election cycle.
The conservative elites, those who populate the think tanks and the Manhattan offices of publications like National Review and The Wall Street Journal, are primarily fiscal conservatives (free market, limited government ) and social libertarians. They have already been trying to blame social conservatives for 2008 losses. Some Manhattan conservatives have even suggested the GOP “ cut off” the religious right.
The real reason why the GOP lost the White House had nothing to do with ideology. Sen. John McCain was just a bad candidate. The moderate Republicans and Washington game-players he surrounded himself with were undisciplined and off message. As much as McCain was a real American hero, he was a lackluster candidate, unable to articulate economic policy at a time when the country, by luck or providence, was thinking about the economy.
Ultimately, presidential elections are about the candidates, not parties. Look at the past several decades. Sen. John Kerry was an elite, out of touch, married-into-money windsurfer who overplayed (and perhaps lied about ) his war record. In 2000, George W. Bush came across as a common man —the sort of guy you’d want to have drinks with — while Vice President Al Gore was robotic. If Gore was a little more exciting, he probably could have turned around Florida. In 1996, Sen. Bob Dole was clearly a boring alternative to Bill Clinton. And in 1992, Clinton was saxophone cool compared to a wimpy President George Bush Sr. Before that, President Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr. won commanding victories against the uninspired likes of Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis. The 10 percent of swing voters care more about the man than the message. Hence the charismatic Sen. Barack Obama’s road to victory was assured when the Republicans nominated the stereotypical old, white guy.
I wonder even if war were closer to the top of our minds if John McCain would have swung the 8 million vote margin.
Of course, McCain’s original, core supporters don’t want to admit that McCain should have never been the GOP nominee. His quest for the White House should have ended in 2000 when the social conservatives rejected him in favor of Bush.
So, in 2008, the McCain camp pandered to the social conservatives, hoping that McCain would be carried into the White House on the strength of the evangelical voters who put Bush there in 2004 and 2008. One might even say that the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as VP was not a blatant pander to women as much as it was to evangelicals and other social conservatives. So McCain fell short, and the fingers are being pointed at social conservatives. They carried Bush; why did they drop the ball with McCain?
The GOP made the mistake of also trying to run a culture war election without having a culture warrior at the top of the ticket. If Obama was out of touch with the American people, McCain was equally as disconnected. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee was the candidate to run if you wanted to show the Democrat’s disconnect from the God-n-guns crowd and love of the Wall Street elite.
Those who are arguing that the GOP lost the middle because of Bush’s favoring social conservative policies on gay marriage and abortion are also wrong. Bush, and his party, lost favor because the voters believed the media narrative that the second Iraq war was a vain conceit — and the perception that Republicans were complicit allies of greedy Wall Street barons who caused the financial meltdown.
Take California, for instance. Obama carried that state by a healthy margin, yet more of those voters agreed with Bush’s homosexual marriage position than Obama’s, evidenced by the passage of the anti-homosexual marriage Proposition 8. In fact, 30 states, including Florida, have passed similar statutes. Obviously the country is still center-right when it comes to social issues.
Reagan was famous for bringing together the three legs of the metaphorical stool of the conservative movement: fiscal conservatives, social conservatives and military hawks. It’s clear that voters rejected the GOP’s track record over the last eight years on fiscal conservatism and neo-con military policy, not social conservatism.
Social conservatism is the only real hope the GOP has to make inroads to minority voters. Again, in California — where black support for Obama was well over 90 percent — black support for Proposition 8 was 70 percent. Hispanics also heavily favored Proposition 8. Whites, on the other hand, opposed it. The best chance the GOP has to reach black and Hispanic votes in the future is to show how the Democrats don’t share the moral values as they do.
If the conservative elites and McCain sympathizers successfully drive a wedge between fiscal and social conservatives, the GOP will be a minority party for a long, long time. The reality is, however, that the conservative elites and their moderate Republican allies will never be able to marginalize social conservatives, nor should they if they want to win elections.
As they have been since the 1980s, social conservatives will remain the voting strength of the GOP.
Lucas Roebuck is a former managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times and Siloam Springs Herald-Leader.
Hatchet
By Lucas Roebuck
The Republicans will now begin soul searching in earnest, as the party plots its way to a competitive 2010. But first, we will have to endure the blame game why the GOP was shamefully routed by the Democrats for a second election cycle.
The conservative elites, those who populate the think tanks and the Manhattan offices of publications like National Review and The Wall Street Journal, are primarily fiscal conservatives (free market, limited government ) and social libertarians. They have already been trying to blame social conservatives for 2008 losses. Some Manhattan conservatives have even suggested the GOP “ cut off” the religious right.
The real reason why the GOP lost the White House had nothing to do with ideology. Sen. John McCain was just a bad candidate. The moderate Republicans and Washington game-players he surrounded himself with were undisciplined and off message. As much as McCain was a real American hero, he was a lackluster candidate, unable to articulate economic policy at a time when the country, by luck or providence, was thinking about the economy.
Ultimately, presidential elections are about the candidates, not parties. Look at the past several decades. Sen. John Kerry was an elite, out of touch, married-into-money windsurfer who overplayed (and perhaps lied about ) his war record. In 2000, George W. Bush came across as a common man —the sort of guy you’d want to have drinks with — while Vice President Al Gore was robotic. If Gore was a little more exciting, he probably could have turned around Florida. In 1996, Sen. Bob Dole was clearly a boring alternative to Bill Clinton. And in 1992, Clinton was saxophone cool compared to a wimpy President George Bush Sr. Before that, President Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr. won commanding victories against the uninspired likes of Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis. The 10 percent of swing voters care more about the man than the message. Hence the charismatic Sen. Barack Obama’s road to victory was assured when the Republicans nominated the stereotypical old, white guy.
I wonder even if war were closer to the top of our minds if John McCain would have swung the 8 million vote margin.
Of course, McCain’s original, core supporters don’t want to admit that McCain should have never been the GOP nominee. His quest for the White House should have ended in 2000 when the social conservatives rejected him in favor of Bush.
So, in 2008, the McCain camp pandered to the social conservatives, hoping that McCain would be carried into the White House on the strength of the evangelical voters who put Bush there in 2004 and 2008. One might even say that the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as VP was not a blatant pander to women as much as it was to evangelicals and other social conservatives. So McCain fell short, and the fingers are being pointed at social conservatives. They carried Bush; why did they drop the ball with McCain?
The GOP made the mistake of also trying to run a culture war election without having a culture warrior at the top of the ticket. If Obama was out of touch with the American people, McCain was equally as disconnected. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee was the candidate to run if you wanted to show the Democrat’s disconnect from the God-n-guns crowd and love of the Wall Street elite.
Those who are arguing that the GOP lost the middle because of Bush’s favoring social conservative policies on gay marriage and abortion are also wrong. Bush, and his party, lost favor because the voters believed the media narrative that the second Iraq war was a vain conceit — and the perception that Republicans were complicit allies of greedy Wall Street barons who caused the financial meltdown.
Take California, for instance. Obama carried that state by a healthy margin, yet more of those voters agreed with Bush’s homosexual marriage position than Obama’s, evidenced by the passage of the anti-homosexual marriage Proposition 8. In fact, 30 states, including Florida, have passed similar statutes. Obviously the country is still center-right when it comes to social issues.
Reagan was famous for bringing together the three legs of the metaphorical stool of the conservative movement: fiscal conservatives, social conservatives and military hawks. It’s clear that voters rejected the GOP’s track record over the last eight years on fiscal conservatism and neo-con military policy, not social conservatism.
Social conservatism is the only real hope the GOP has to make inroads to minority voters. Again, in California — where black support for Obama was well over 90 percent — black support for Proposition 8 was 70 percent. Hispanics also heavily favored Proposition 8. Whites, on the other hand, opposed it. The best chance the GOP has to reach black and Hispanic votes in the future is to show how the Democrats don’t share the moral values as they do.
If the conservative elites and McCain sympathizers successfully drive a wedge between fiscal and social conservatives, the GOP will be a minority party for a long, long time. The reality is, however, that the conservative elites and their moderate Republican allies will never be able to marginalize social conservatives, nor should they if they want to win elections.
As they have been since the 1980s, social conservatives will remain the voting strength of the GOP.
Lucas Roebuck is a former managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times and Siloam Springs Herald-Leader.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Dear President-elect Obama
If you're serious about listening to those who disagree with you, try this
Hatchet
By Lucas Roebuck
Dear President-elect Obama: Let me join the chorus of well-wishers at your election, and recognize the symbolic and real significance of a black man being elected to America’s highest office. Even though I am a conservative, evangelical Christian (and a Republican to boot ), on Inauguration Day you will be my president. Rather than give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt, I’d like to say you have my high hopes that your deeds in office will match your campaign rhetoric.
I am under no delusion that you will not act quickly with a Democratic Congress to bring about a new New Deal, pulling our country toward the economic left, an idea often described as socialism. Elections have consequences, and if Americans voted for you not understanding the probability of this outcome, their ignorance is hard to explain. I won’t like the fundamentals of your economic policy, but honestly, the minority party will have little power to slow your will in this matter.
In your acceptance speech on Tuesday night, you did say that you especially needed to listen to those who disagreed with you. If you really want to bridge the political divide, I believe you can (yes, we can !) by making some critical compromises as a show of good faith. So listen: Here are seven political steps you can make to help heal the divide.
Do not sign the Freedom of Choice Act. There are tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans who have serious moral reservations about unlimited, unchecked access to abortion. Many, like myself, feel abortion is the moral equivalent of murder. Obviously, Roe v. Wade will not be challenged by the Supreme Court justices you will appoint. This act will basically provide unlimited access to abortion on demand from coast to coast. Why pour salt in the wounds of pro-lifers if you can stack the court with pro-Roe judges ?
Do not re-enact the Fairness Doctrine, or anything like it. With your talk of a national civilian security force and clamping down on free speech via the so-called “ Fairness Doctrine, ” many conservatives are wondering if these tools could give you an almost fascist control of free speech. You have said that reviving the Fairness Doctrine was not on your radar during the campaign. Some of your allies, however, are already pushing it. The government should not regulate political speech — you know of the First Amendment. Prove the conspiracy theorists wrong and stay away from this falsely named attempt to control radio.
Keep Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. Gates, who has enabled the successful surge in Iraq, understands winning strategies to success in the war on terror. He is not a neo-con, but a realist. He was approved by Democrats in Congress to replace the failed policies of Donald Rumsfeld. By keeping Gates, you are showing that while you want to emphasize diplomacy, you recognize the positive efforts of our armed forces, and are willing to use force if necessary.
Appoint a pro-Israel politician as ambassador to the United Nations. The background noise put out by some of your supporters and surrogates is that you will not continue America’s long friendship with Israel. Many suspect that you will be overly sympathetic to the anti-Israeli sentiment popular in the Arab world. On the campaign train, you said this was bunk. Prove it by sending a known friend of Israel to represent America in the United Nations. I’d recommend Joe Lieberman.
Don’t support homosexual marriage de facto. Don’t sign a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. In my heart, Mr. President-elect, I believe that you really do support gay marriage, even though on the campaign trail you said you didn’t; your opposition to Proposition 8 suggests otherwise. Prove me wrong. Many states, by direct vote — the purest form of the will of the people — have said no to gay marriage, including progressive California and Florida. If Congress sends you a repeal of DOMA, veto it. DOMA allows each state to have their own laws regarding gay marriage, and doesn’t force states to adopt the position of other states. Let each state decide.
Take on John McCain’s campaign to eliminate earmarks. You said that you wanted John McCain to help you lead Washington to positive change. McCain has been outstanding on the elimination of earmarks that tempt lawmakers into abuses of power and corruption. McCain said he would make legislators who introduce pork into the budget (in ) famous with his veto pen. I can’t think of any reason for you not to do the same.
Be gracious, and make sure your people are gracious, to President George W. Bush. You rose to power on the back of Bush-bashers, but that battle is over. While you may disagree with the polices of Bush and blame them for much of our troubles, there is plenty of blame to go around Washington, and some of it even falls on you. If polls are to be believed, around 20 percent of us believe Bush has done well for our country in trying times — a minority, yes, but that’s about 60 million people. You have won the prize now, so you can afford to be gracious — even generous — to Bush as he completes his service to our country.
Obviously, your major economic reform will not be derailed. But your goodwill in these other things can set a tone of unity and will bring along a lot of people like me to support your administration. You will diffuse partisan tension. If you adhere to lesser, partisan dictates in these areas by pressing your political advantage and bludgeoning us all to kowtow to every detail of your political will, you guarantee that the partisan ugliness will continue.
Then your promise of hope will ring hollow, and nothing will change.
Lucas Roebuck is a former managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times and Siloam Springs Herald-Leader.
Hatchet
By Lucas Roebuck
Dear President-elect Obama: Let me join the chorus of well-wishers at your election, and recognize the symbolic and real significance of a black man being elected to America’s highest office. Even though I am a conservative, evangelical Christian (and a Republican to boot ), on Inauguration Day you will be my president. Rather than give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt, I’d like to say you have my high hopes that your deeds in office will match your campaign rhetoric.
I am under no delusion that you will not act quickly with a Democratic Congress to bring about a new New Deal, pulling our country toward the economic left, an idea often described as socialism. Elections have consequences, and if Americans voted for you not understanding the probability of this outcome, their ignorance is hard to explain. I won’t like the fundamentals of your economic policy, but honestly, the minority party will have little power to slow your will in this matter.
In your acceptance speech on Tuesday night, you did say that you especially needed to listen to those who disagreed with you. If you really want to bridge the political divide, I believe you can (yes, we can !) by making some critical compromises as a show of good faith. So listen: Here are seven political steps you can make to help heal the divide.
Do not sign the Freedom of Choice Act. There are tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans who have serious moral reservations about unlimited, unchecked access to abortion. Many, like myself, feel abortion is the moral equivalent of murder. Obviously, Roe v. Wade will not be challenged by the Supreme Court justices you will appoint. This act will basically provide unlimited access to abortion on demand from coast to coast. Why pour salt in the wounds of pro-lifers if you can stack the court with pro-Roe judges ?
Do not re-enact the Fairness Doctrine, or anything like it. With your talk of a national civilian security force and clamping down on free speech via the so-called “ Fairness Doctrine, ” many conservatives are wondering if these tools could give you an almost fascist control of free speech. You have said that reviving the Fairness Doctrine was not on your radar during the campaign. Some of your allies, however, are already pushing it. The government should not regulate political speech — you know of the First Amendment. Prove the conspiracy theorists wrong and stay away from this falsely named attempt to control radio.
Keep Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. Gates, who has enabled the successful surge in Iraq, understands winning strategies to success in the war on terror. He is not a neo-con, but a realist. He was approved by Democrats in Congress to replace the failed policies of Donald Rumsfeld. By keeping Gates, you are showing that while you want to emphasize diplomacy, you recognize the positive efforts of our armed forces, and are willing to use force if necessary.
Appoint a pro-Israel politician as ambassador to the United Nations. The background noise put out by some of your supporters and surrogates is that you will not continue America’s long friendship with Israel. Many suspect that you will be overly sympathetic to the anti-Israeli sentiment popular in the Arab world. On the campaign train, you said this was bunk. Prove it by sending a known friend of Israel to represent America in the United Nations. I’d recommend Joe Lieberman.
Don’t support homosexual marriage de facto. Don’t sign a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. In my heart, Mr. President-elect, I believe that you really do support gay marriage, even though on the campaign trail you said you didn’t; your opposition to Proposition 8 suggests otherwise. Prove me wrong. Many states, by direct vote — the purest form of the will of the people — have said no to gay marriage, including progressive California and Florida. If Congress sends you a repeal of DOMA, veto it. DOMA allows each state to have their own laws regarding gay marriage, and doesn’t force states to adopt the position of other states. Let each state decide.
Take on John McCain’s campaign to eliminate earmarks. You said that you wanted John McCain to help you lead Washington to positive change. McCain has been outstanding on the elimination of earmarks that tempt lawmakers into abuses of power and corruption. McCain said he would make legislators who introduce pork into the budget (in ) famous with his veto pen. I can’t think of any reason for you not to do the same.
Be gracious, and make sure your people are gracious, to President George W. Bush. You rose to power on the back of Bush-bashers, but that battle is over. While you may disagree with the polices of Bush and blame them for much of our troubles, there is plenty of blame to go around Washington, and some of it even falls on you. If polls are to be believed, around 20 percent of us believe Bush has done well for our country in trying times — a minority, yes, but that’s about 60 million people. You have won the prize now, so you can afford to be gracious — even generous — to Bush as he completes his service to our country.
Obviously, your major economic reform will not be derailed. But your goodwill in these other things can set a tone of unity and will bring along a lot of people like me to support your administration. You will diffuse partisan tension. If you adhere to lesser, partisan dictates in these areas by pressing your political advantage and bludgeoning us all to kowtow to every detail of your political will, you guarantee that the partisan ugliness will continue.
Then your promise of hope will ring hollow, and nothing will change.
Lucas Roebuck is a former managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times and Siloam Springs Herald-Leader.
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