Thursday, March 08, 2007
Abortion nominee for the GOP?
There’s a great deal of back-and-forth discussion on what’s become known as the ‘Rudy Deal.’ The idea is that pro-life Republicans will back abortion advocate GOP Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani if he promises to nominate judges like Alito and Roberts.
From the ‘not-a-good-deal’ side comes this cogent essay in the National Catholic Register. You don’t have to agree with the points but it’s well written. Some significant cullings…
But what dooms the deal from the start is the fact that it totally misunderstands what pro-lifers care about in the first place.
…When they ask [pro-lifers] to “be reasonable” and go along with a pro-abortion leader, they assume that there is something unreasonable about the pro-life position to start with.
We’re sorry, but we don’t see what is so unreasonable about the right to life...What looks supremely unreasonable to us is that we should trust a leader who not doesn’t only reject the right to life but even supports partial-birth abortion, which is more infanticide than abortion.
…The power a president exerts over his party’s character is nearly absolute. The party is changed in his image. He picks those who run it and, both directly and indirectly, those who enter it.
…Parents know that, when we make significant exceptions to significant rules, those exceptions themselves become iron-clad rules to our children. It’s the same in a political party. A Republican Party led by Rudy Giuliani would be a party of contempt for the pro-life position, which is to say, contempt for the fundamental right on which all others depend.
This is a lively debate that’s going on inside the GOP right now, and a very substantive one at that, respectfully conducted. One reason I feel any hope for the GOP is that, in general, Republicans still believe that there are such things as ‘right and wrong’ as well as ‘good and evil’ and that government actions and policy can place us on one side or the other, regardless of intentions. The GOP is more likely to stand on principle and pursue an ideal rather than place a finger in the wind or ‘poll-watch’ in an effort to chase political victory.
