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The Campaign Spectator
Pro-Choice? I Don’t Think So
Under Obama, Democrats have never been more rabidly pro-abortion.
In 2003, as part of his campaign for a Senate seat from Illinois that would set him up for his presidential run, Barack Obama fielded questions. “I am pro-choice,” he said, so a local reporter prodded, “In all situations, including the late-term thing?” Obama pushed past that explosive question, and repeated himself: “I am pro-choice. I believe that women make responsible choices and they know better than anybody the tragedy of a difficult pregnancy and I don’t think that it’s the government’s role to meddle in that choice.”
Conservative critics play up the supposed radicalism of Obama, but in this respect, he is a boringly and ghoulishly conventional modern Democrat. Obama has consistently stood against any legal limitations to abortion. He has gone so far as to oppose legislation while he was in the Illinois state house that would have extended legal protections to fetuses accidentally born during abortions — or, as most of us would call them, live babies.
Obama the legislator earned a 100 percent voting record on the issue. As president, he has expanded government-mandated and controlled healthcare that pays for the morning-after pill and that leaves the door open to a later abortion funding mandate. This has horrified the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, among many other groups. Opponent Mitt Romney has charged that it amounts to a bureaucratic war on religion. Nonplussed, Obama and his supporters have fired back that Romney and fellow Republicans are pursuing a war against women by supporting some curbs on abortion.
Some of the war on women rhetoric is truly funny for its utter disconnect with reality. Future historians, I nominate this piece of rubbish from the venerable leftist British magazine the New Statesman for taking the cake. The cover story of the latest issue warns us that “Romney has said he would be happy to sign a law making all abortion illegal in all circumstances, including cases of rape and incest and when the procedure is necessary to protect a mother’s health. If that were to happen, Mexico and Canada (perhaps the UK, too) would become medical refugee destinations for those who can afford the air fare. American women who travel abroad to abort can expect to be arrested for murder on their return.”
Of course Romney, a late and halting convert to the pro-life position, has said and would do no such thing. He would decline to do so not just because it would be political death but because that heavy-handed approach is anathema to the type of politics Republicans pursue on almost every other issue. On matters domestic, Republicans profess support for lower taxes, less fettered markets, fewer burdensome regulations, school reforms that favor the rights of parents. They are, in other words, a truly pro-choice party.
Indeed, the rhetoric of choice sounds odd when coming from most Democrats, who favor more stringent government intervention and regulation in nearly every sphere of life. As a party, Democrats are not pro-choice on what light bulbs you should be allowed to use, spending public school funds to enroll children in private or charter schools or how much water your toilet ought to be able to flush down in one go. But on abortion, they’re suddenly staunch civil libertarians.
This contradiction is a product of a historical mismatch. In 1973, when Roe v. Wade was handed down making abortion-on-demand the law of the land, more Democrats than Republicans polled as pro-life. But Republicans were the party that protested many heavy-handed judicial decisions. The rising liberal wing of the Democratic Party tended instead to genuflect to them, and so people resorted into different parties over the next 40 years. Nancy Pelosi fanned the flames of this old faith in 2005 when she declared that when the Supreme Court has handed down a ruling, it’s “almost as if God has spoken.” If that pronouncement had come out of a Republican’s mouth, Democrats would be quick to accuse her of theocracy. But such is the state of our confusing and contradictory politics in the Year of Our [Censored] 2012.
About the Author
Jeremy Lott is editor of RealClearPolicy.com, RealClearBooks.com and RealClearReligion.org and associate editor of RealClearScience.com.
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Quartermaster| 11.6.12 @ 6:35AM
Pro-choice is just euphemism for pro-abortion.
Darin| 11.6.12 @ 6:48AM
Pro choice is akin to child sacrifice. It's no different than ancient cultures sacrificing their children to the pagan god Molech. Abortion supports - I welcome your efforts to refute this. But before you do, remember that the end result is a dead human.
Alan Third Party Voter Brooks | 11.6.12 @ 7:45AM
Abortion is small issue: the world was the same before abortion-- but if existential threats disappeared life would be different. You pick small issues because there can be more certainty.
Guns, gays, God, are also small issues: guns are good for rural dwellers, but if someone really wants to get you, they'll get you.. and guns wont help much. Dozens of guns at Dealey Plaza didn't protect JFK; Hinckley was even able to get a few feet from Reagan.
Your opposition to gays actually helps the gay movement- and I sincerely thank you for the unintended outcome.
God? well, no problem with God-- long as I can worship the black lesbian god, you can worship the Great Honky In The Sky.
Alan Third Party Voter Brooks | 11.6.12 @ 7:50AM
*You pick small issues because there can be more certainty*
Easier to get a cat to pose for a sketch than a whale.
jothepro| 11.6.12 @ 8:03AM
Alan, You are a small minded twit..
Darin| 11.6.12 @ 8:33AM
"Abortion is a small issue." Tell that to the 50 million dead children since 1973. Over 3,400 killed EVERY DAY in the past 40 years. And you consider it a "small issue."
Your argument against guns applies to locking your house or car. If someone wnats to get in, they will. So I'm sure you NEVER lock your doors.
I could go on, but I won't. You're not open to reason, and I have better things to do.
Harry the Horrible| 11.6.12 @ 9:22AM
No, it is not.
Ever wonder why Social Security is all but bankrupt? Perhaps because we butchered the generations that might have helped fill the coffers? There are lots of other effects of the mass slaughter of innocents, but the world is NOT the same.
Alan Third Party Voter Brooks | 11.6.12 @ 9:37AM
"No, it is not.
Ever wonder why Social Security is all but bankrupt?"
Don't you want SS to go belly-up? many Rightists do; 'course you don't have to answer for them, yet a bona fide free market guy (not merely a libertopian) would tend to want SS to go south-- unless he's got a big stake in it.
Harry the Horrible| 11.6.12 @ 10:10AM
Absolutely irrelevant, moron.
Revenue and growth has been destroyed by the slaughter of children. Semi-literate illegal aliens can't replace the loss.
Darin| 11.6.12 @ 10:12AM
Social Security cannot survive as it currently works. It's a ponzi scheme ready to implode. It's already paying out more than it brings in, and the "lock box" is a bunch of IOUs.
Suggestion for changes. Raise age to 67 and gradually increase to 72 (increase age by 1 year every 3 years). Phase out SS disability and other things that have been tacked on over the years. Anyone 50 or older now sees no change to either SS taxes or benefits. Going down in age in 3 or 5-year increments, SS taxes decrease and benefits decrease (e.g., pay 90% of current tax, receive 85% of current benefit). This continues until you reach people aged 18 who pay 10% of SS tax and receive no benefit (sorry, but someone is going to get hosed on this). In 2050 (or however it works out), SS tax is eliminated. While the draw-down is inprogress, the amount of the SS tax reduced is required to be invested in a IRA or other investment vehicle. After SS tax is gone in 2050, people are responsible for their own retirement.
Tom Kyba| 11.6.12 @ 11:01AM
Straw man.
Aristocat| 11.6.12 @ 6:56AM
Democrat Party Platform: Abortion up to the day of birth and sodomy every day.
fmm| 11.6.12 @ 12:34PM
The dems definition of pro-choice is that you are free to follow their choice.
Darin| 11.6.12 @ 6:46AM
It boils down to a simple question. At what point does a human being have a right to life? The pro choice crowd has never answered this and never will (at least not honestly). From the moment of conception, a unique human being is created. He/she is genetically distinct from their mother or father. Whether he/she is conscious/self-aware as we understand it is debatable (I can't prove they are, but you can't prove they are NOT).
Abortion treats the unborn child as property, to be granted the right to life or condemned to death at the whim of the mother. It's far worse than slavery because it ends a life.
fmm| 11.6.12 @ 12:40PM
That abortion is far worse than slavery is a given but it does not matter to its supporters since there will be no chance for reparations and no one will be making a living off keeping anyone on the plantation.
Appleby| 11.6.12 @ 7:33AM
Canada has absaolutely no limitation on abortion -- it is legal until the child is fully delivered and takes its first breath. And millions of "medical tourists" come here from countries where sex-selection abortions are illegal to murder their baby girls in safety and comfort. Canada awarded the man who made this possible: Henry Morgantaler, the Order of Canada for his single handed leadership in this regard. Google him and find out for yourself. If you want to live in a country where girls don't even have the right to life, it's right up north of you. If you're not a baby girl, this is liberal paradise.
bison cookie| 11.6.12 @ 7:41AM
NO MORE YEARS – TOP 20 REASONS WHY A REGIME CHANGE IS IMPERATIVE. Here are the Top 20 reasons a regime change is imperative, now: 1. $5 Trillion in New Debt – By the end of FY 2012, Obama had added $5.3 trillion to the National Debt – almost one-third of the total ($16 trillion). He rolled up more debt in three years than the first 41 presidents … READ MORE: http://bwcentral.org/2012/11/n.....mperative/
bison cookie| 11.6.12 @ 7:42AM
NO MORE YEARS – TOP 20 REASONS WHY A REGIME CHANGE IS IMPERATIVE. Here are the Top 20 reasons a regime change is imperative, now: 1. $5 Trillion in New Debt – By the end of FY 2012, Obama had added $5.3 trillion to the National Debt – almost one-third of the total ($16 trillion). He rolled up more debt in three years than the first 41 presidents … READ MORE: http://bwcentral.org/2012/11/n.....mperative/
Seapuss| 11.6.12 @ 8:38AM
"As a party, Democrats are not pro-choice on what light bulbs you should be allowed to use, spending public school funds to enroll children in private or charter schools or how much water your toilet ought to be able to flush down in one go. But on abortion, they're suddenly staunch civil libertarians."
Wrong. Democrats don't have any libertarian bones in their bodies. All you have to know about Democrats is that they are all equality worshipers. "Pro-Choice" is just a marketing slogan. Their goal is equality, and they'll throw liberty—life and property too—under the bus whenever equality is on the line.
At their core, Democrats believe that women require access to abortion in order to be equal to men, economically, politically, and socially. The whole equality angle is spelled out here by a self-profess liberal:
http://faculty.mckendree.edu/b.....uality.htm
The author gets confused at first about "rights" and "liberties", but then exposes liberalism's hang-up with abortion. It's all about gender equality. Even the life of an unborn child must fall to equality. Remember, Democrats/liberals are all equality worshippers.
If Democrats were truly libertarian when it comes to abortion, they'd throw a fit about China's one-child policy and that country's practice of forced abortions. But when's the last time you heard Nancy Pelosi or Planned Parenthood complain about China?
Von Mises Jr| 11.6.12 @ 9:36AM
Abortion under our Constitution is a States issue. It was politicized by Roe v. Wade that actually created the toxic atmosphere we have today that affects our entire politics.
If you look at it as a continuum, our Constitution makes this issue a state legislative concern. The other end of the spectrum is China's "One Child Policy."
So what ObamaCare has effectively done is move us to a government IPAB "Death Panel" that has the power to implement the Chi-coms signature achievement: kill your non-approved child in the womb.
fmm| 11.6.12 @ 12:47PM
Actually, abortion is a moral issue. Stating that either the Federal or state governments have anything to say about it is supporting a losing position. Moral, God fearing people would never embrace such monstrous activities.
nathan| 11.6.12 @ 1:23PM
Sir: You and I have had this discussion before, and I respectfully and I mean that, disagree. This is not a state legislative concern. This is a Fifth Amendment due process issue. Once again Madison wrote, "no PERSON (emphasis mine) shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property . . . . without due process." Again, Madison does not say "American" he says "PERSON". Since as someone else pointed out the entity inside the woman has a DNA pattern distinct from either parent, it is clearly a separate entity from both. The issue then is when does it become a "person" in terms of Fifth Amendment rights. At first breath, sure. At viability, not much argument. The real debate is how far back from viability do we convey "personhood" on that entity? I'm sorry, we don't know enough about medical science or genetics to know when that happens but where RIGHTS are concerned and given what happened last century and given what happens in the world today, we simply must err on the side ALWAYS even here if there is a 1/10,000 chance of that entity being a "person" at conception of granting Fifth Amendment rights to it. Which means that how it's conceived is irrelevant to ITS rights.
Now kind sir. If you have a better argument on the FACTS, do it. Better interpretation of Madison, let's hear it. Insults, try to keep to yourself please?
cicero| 11.6.12 @ 3:08PM
Nature has constructed them "man and "woman". Each with a difference, and a purpose. The man is there to provide protection, sustenance, and other matters peculiar to his talents and abilities. The woman is there to provide the ability to give birth, nurture, and other matters peculiar to her abilities. Pretty fundamental.
We now have a society where (too many of) the men refuse to work to provide sustenance, but live off of the women; and not only fail to protect, but actually prey on the women and the children. We now have a society where the women rfefuse to give birth to children, and chant for the right to murder them in the womb, but shun nurturing then if born, and turn the care and feeding of their children over to the state. Great country, this America.
Four more years?
Butch| 11.6.12 @ 8:05PM
I guess in concentrating on making a living, we let this country descend toward perdition, eh cicero? Actually, I fought it every step of the way, throughout my life. I've just been outnumbered. We'll see tomorrow if there's any chance left.
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