Turns out the New Republican Jesus (Fred Thompson, I mean, not Gen. Petraeus) once worked as an abortion-rights lobbyist. So...what next?
[HT: The Kuominator. The Kuomintang. The Kuotable. The Tu Kuoque.]
Fredo, don't ever take sides against the Family
Monday July 23, 2007
Categories: Republicans
Filed Under: abortion, Fred Thompson
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Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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What's clear, though, is people don't support overturning Roe v. Wade which is the sole priority of the pro-life movement and the GOP elite. Once people understand what restrictions currently exist, support for the status quo--the Democrats position--is well above 60%.
When voters are given the opportunity to vote on abortion restrictions--like in South Dakota in 2006--they support abortion rights especially when faced with the pro-life/GOP position of a complete ban or criminalization.
"we'll keep changing hearts and minds."
What's interesting is that despite over 30 years of abortion rights, there doesn't appear to be much evidence that hearts and minds have been changed. The pro-life movement has very high negatives--as does the abortion issue in general--and while abortions have decreased and opposition to abortion increased, there's not indication the pro-life movement has had any effect on that.
The pro-life movement reminds me a bit of PETA: they have their hearts in the right place, but their tactics and emotional hysteria make them seem like kooks to the more moderate public.
What's next? More GOP sexual hypocrisy. Thompson, Giuliani, and Gingrich are all Bill Clinton types at heart: ambitious, intelligent, and sexual men. They have to pretend (to put it politely) that they have nothing down there in order to appeal to the so-called "family values" voters. Sorry, but it's just not true. Abortion is the issue the GOP wants to focus on, but sex itself keeps rearing its ugly head...and as the pressure intensifies, more embarrassments will inevitably emerge.
Osvaldo Mandias writes: "More of the public identify as pro-life than pro-choice."
That would depend on stretching the definition of these categories. "Pro-life" and "pro-choice" are not mutually exclusive positions. Similarly, many recognize that pregnancy is a *process* and see much less of a problem with early-term abortions than those that are later term. People that would ban all abortion, even with an exception that factors risk to the mother, remain in the minority.
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