Finally!

I reply to reader “Mike the Analyst”, who has been waiting patiently for a reply ever since he wrote me back in the Pleistocene to say:

Sorry about the long message. I’m a Catholic revert and a big fan of your blog and was excited to meet you when you visited my church (Holy Trinity, Gainesville, VA). Lots of great stuff on your blog, but I manifestly disagree with you that the GOP is not truly a friend of pro-lifers and “uses” us to get elected without having to provide any results. (BTW, I’m not a blind follower of the GOP – I get annoyed at some of their crap sometimes myself. I just think you’re giving them a bad rap.)

I understand your frustration with the fact that the GOP for a time held the White House and both houses of Congress without deep-sixing Roe v. Wade, but I would like to put forth the following argument to show that saying the GOP did nothing is unfair, and incorrect. . Given the realities of how our government works, let’s look at what happened in the timeframe that you said the GOP should have wiped away abortion after being in charge:

2000 –
Bush wins the Presidency in one of the closest races ever. The GOP loses two seats but still controls the House 221-212, and controls the Senate only due to the fact that Cheney is VP (with 50 seats on each side). But that only lasts from January 2001 until May 2001.

2001-
Supreme Court at this time consists of following justices:
Those who would be inclined to overturn Roe: Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas (all appointed by GOP Presidents).
Liberal justices Breyer and Ginsberg were appointed by Clinton (before the Dems lost the Senate), while Stevens and Souter were appointed by Ford and Bush Sr. but needed to be confirmed by Dem Senates.
So-called swing justices O’Connor and Kennedy, appointed by Reagan.
Note that both Souter and Kennedy were feared by liberals to be foes of Roe until they proved themselves otherwise. So at this stage the court was 6 to 3 in favor of Roe.

At this time, can the Court overturn Roe? No. Can the Congress pass major pro-life legistation, or a pro-life amendment? Too many Dems in the Senate can filibuster any major changes. Despite this situation:
Bush re-enacts Mexico City Policy by Executive Order two days after inauguration.
Bush nominates and gets pro-life Attorney General John Ashcroft
Bush announces Embryonic Stem Cell policy with government funds for only limited research. This policy will be under attach many times in the next years (including support from Republicans, granted) – but Bush vetoes a number of bills that try to expand this policy.

In May, Jim Jeffords decides to leave GOP and be independent. GOP loses Senate 51-49. After September 11, foreign policy takes a whole new focus on the political agenda.

2002/2003-
Supreme Court still at 6-3 favoring Roe. Mid term elections allow for GOP to take back Senate (by 51-49) and increase hold on House (229-204). Bush enters new year with GOP Congress, but Supreme Court cannot overturn Roe.
Partial Birth Abortion ban passes Congress. In the House, the final legislation was supported in 2003 by 218 Republicans and 63 Democrats. It was opposed by 4 Republicans, 137 Democrats, and 1 independent. Twelve members were absent, 7 Republicans and 5 Democrats. In the Senate the bill was supported by 47 Republicans and 17 Democrats. It was opposed by 3 Republicans, 30 Democrats, and 1 independent. Unlike previous bans passed in the Clinton administration, the President signed this one into law.

2004-
Bush wins re-election. GOP increases seats in Senate (55-45, but not filibuster-proof) and House (232-202).

2005-
Justice O’Connor resigns, providing the first opening in the Supreme Court in over 10 years. Then Justice Rehnquist passes away. Bush nominates for Chief Justice John Roberts who could be inclined to overturn Roe. Roberts is confirmed by a margin of 78–22. All Republicans and the one Independent voted for Roberts; the Democrats split evenly, 22–22.

Later Samuel Alito is nominated by Bush to replace O’Connor. Alito is viewed a definite pro-life vote on the court and is confirmed by a vote of 58-42, with four Democratic senators voting FOR confirmation and ONLY one Republican and an Independent voting against. However, this only puts the anti-Roe count on the Court as 4 to 5.

2006/2007-
Democrats sweep midterms. They take back Senate (51-49) and take over House (233-202). No major pro-life legislation comes from Congress at this point. Court cannot overturn Roe v. Wade. However
Barbara Boxer tries to eliminate Mexico City Policy in an amendment. It is passed by the Dem-controlled Senate 53-41, but is vetoed by Bush.
Supreme Court vote 5-4 to uphold Partial Birth Abortion ban as Kennedy (for this issue) joins the anti-Roe justices. Alito replacing O’Connor is key as O’Connor struck down a ban in a 2000 decision.

2008-
Obama becomes President. *Some* people believe that a President McCain wouldn’t have been much better than Obama for Pro-Life issues. However, in his effort to reassure us that Elections Have Meaning, the One proceeds to:
rescind Mexico City Policy in 3 days after inauguration
widen Federal funding of Embryonic Stem Cell research policy
get Congress to pass universal health care that pays for abortions (without a single Republican vote)
nominate folks like Sotomayor and Kagen to the Court, thus cementing the anti-Roe count at no better than 4 to 5; and worse if Thomas or Scalia are to retire.

Does not the above summary illustrate that the GOP is vastly more active in the pro-life cause? I believe I’ve presented the important facts and they mostly favor the GOP. Of course we know that Senators Snowe, Collins, Chaffee, Stevens, et al were reliable anti-life votes from the Republican side. And yes, a President McCain may have also expanded Embryonic Stem Cell funding. But the pure numbers plainly make the case that the large majority of the GOP lawmakers put there BY THE VOTERS voted pro-life whenever they could.

And what else could they do? What legislation could have been passed that would have reduced abortions? What bill would have withstood a Dem Senate filibuster in the 4.33 years out of eight the GOP actually *did* have a majority?

Look, please vote against a GOP candidate because you believe he/she supports torture. Or vote against the GOP because you think they help the “evil” corporations. But to say they only are only MARGINALLY better than Democrats on Life issues and give “lip service” to prolifers is inaccurate, unfair and ultimately politically naive. If we want to relegate abortion to the trashbin of history like slavery; and want to do it like in the UK (through political experience of William Wilberforce) rather than how we did in the US (a bloody Civil War) then we need to support those who are politically viable – that’s my view. You may vote for your quixotic third party candidates, but I believe that my imperfect GOP pro-life candidates have shown they have a better chance of eliminating abortion in this country.

I am curious to your response. I hope this was reasonable and civil. Keep up the good work – I’ll continue to be a faithful blog follower.

Hi Mike! Again, my apologies for being so slow! And my apologies in advance for this being an inadequate reply.

My beef with the GOP is not that they did not overturn Roe. They’ve never given any indication that they are even interested in trying, so I’ve never been disappointed that they haven’t. Nor have I said the GOP has done nothing. Rather, I say the GOP has done the absolute bare minimum possible, so as to keep prolifers on the GOP reservation, while maintainin the US at sub-Carthaginian levels of regard for human life. I’m glad of the Mexico City policy. I’m glad of the Born Alive act. I’m glad of the ban on partial birth abortion. Every baby saved is a gain.

It’s just the other 1.4 million that bothers me. And the fact that it’s GOP justices like Blackmun, Kennedy, Souter, and O’Connor who have done such a bang up job of making sure those numbers stay steady or increase.

Bush had a chance to make a dent. His first choice was Harriet Miers, a blithering toady whose only qualification was, like Elena Kagan, the convicion that the President was essentially a monarch. His second choices were two guys who are widely *hoped* by prolifers to be covertly prolife, yet whose actual statements are to the effect that Roe is “settled law”. Message: Bush don’t care. Nor does the Congress that approved them.

Meanwhile, under Bush/Cheney the prolife movement has been *profoundly* corrupted into the Neocon cheer section for torture and war crimes, thus effectively rendering incredible its entire message. Yes, there are prolifers who still get that consequentialism is evil, even when our team does it. But the stats consistently show that conservative Catholics and Evangelicals support torture in much higher percentages than the general population. And, of course, their gung ho enthusiasm for Bush/Cheney’s catastrophic war and “deficits don’t matter” economy is what gave us the Dem midterms and the election of Barack Obama. At every turn, the reply was “We *have* to vote for Bush, no matter what he does, because someday he will do something about abortion.” Prolifers ended up moving backward dramatically *and* becoming torture supporters in the process, selling their souls to defend a creep like Dick Cheney, who could not possibly care less about them except insofar as he can use them as human sheilds to guard his “legacy”. The nadir of all this was watching Raymond Arroyo prostitute EWTN in his smirking and smarmy interview with torture apologist Marc Thiessen, thereby teaching Catholics around the world the lie that torture is perfectly compatible with a prolife Catholic position.

So yeah: I think the prolife alliance with the GOP has been catastrophic for the prolife movement. And I think that if the GOP does well this autumn, it will continue, like a virus, to re-write the DNA of the prolife movement in order to transform it into a dutiful servant of a neocon project whose love of war and neglect of the unborn has brought death and ruin abroad and at home. The only problem is, Obama is worse.

Which is why I vote for doomed quixotic Third Party candidates who don’t ask me to support grave intrinsic evil.

Others, of course, are entitled to their own opinion.