The World According to Oatney

Huckabee, Thompson, and being pro-life

In recent weeks, we've heard many of Fred Thompson's Republican Primary opponents try to say that Fred isn't really pro-life. Most notably, the loudest cries have come from former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who has tried to claim that Thompson's position-namely that a strict construction of the federal Constitution requires that the abortion question to be resolved by the States and not the federal government-is not a pro-life one.

If that is true, then we can suppose that Huckabee is a relatively recent convert to the pro-life movement, because he now says abortion is not a State issue, but earlier in the year in an interview with Right Wing News he said this:

It would please me [overturning Roe v. Wade] because I think Roe v. Wade is based on a real stretch of Constitutional application -- that somehow there is a greater privacy issue in the abortion concern -- than there is a human life issue -- and that the federal government should be making that decision as opposed to states making that decision.

So, I've never felt that it was a legitimate manner in which to address this and, first of all, it should be left to the states, the 10th Amendment, but secondly, to somehow believe that the taking of an innocent, unborn human life is about privacy and not about that unborn life is ludicrous.

What Huckabee said in that interview was correct all the way around, and what he stated is the position (almost word-for-word) of the National Right to Life Committee. Since it is obvious that he has since changed his position, is he now saying that he is more pro-life than the folks at National Right to Life? Is he expecting us to believe that when he made this statement, he himself was not as pro-life as he is now?

It is no wonder that Fred Thompson got the endorsement of National Right to Life, he publicly espouses their position on how to deal with abortion at the national level, and he has been consistent about it per his Senate voting record.

Like all pro-lifers (and doubtless just like Governor Huckabee) I look forward to the day when the unborn are protected in law throughout the United States. I have no trouble with the idea of supporting a Right to Life Amendment to the federal Constitution-the Constitution allows itself to be amended. Groups like the National Right to Life Committee have their feet grounded in reality, however.

The sole goal of NRLC is to do whatever it can to limit and to ultimately bring an end to legal abortion. National Right to Life is concerned with doing whatever it can to stop abortion now. To this end, they understand that they have no chance in the short term of actually passing a Right to Life Amendment (just as those on the other side of the issue with a brain know that they have no prayer of passing the pro-aborticide amendment some of the more radical elements of the culture of death in this country are promoting). NRLC supports the Amendment, but that is a very long-term goal. In the here-and-now, National Right to Life emphasizes a State-by-State strategy to change State laws so that these laws respect innocent human life. Overturning Roe v. Wade would make that strategy even more effective than it is now.

Which candidate has consistently voted in support of the positions of the National Right to Life Committee? Fred Thompson.

Labels: Presidential Election

posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 1:04 AM