Just the other day, I saw a bumper sticker that read, "If it's not a baby, then you're not pregnant!" Second the motion.
Notwithstanding bumper stickers and yard signs, it appears that the days of fierce prolife versus prochoice battles may well be becoming a political drama of the past.
Though Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a prolife voting record, the Arizona Senator has kept his prolife credentials something of a whisper, for the most part throughout his campaign. It was only as recently as the second week of October 2008, about 3 weeks to the November 4 th presidential elections, that Gov. Sarah Palin was allowed to make prolife rhetoric forefront on the campaign stump. Of course, this fires up the conservative base of the Republican Party like few other issues can do, perhaps second only to national security and patriotism. But does it make McCain secretly nervous that Palin could be driving away the moderate swing voters that the McCain-Palin ticket desperately needs to win this thing?
On the Democrat side, prochoice candidate Barack Obama has all but gotten a free ride, without his having to explain his strongly pro-abortion record, thanks to the domineering effect of the global economic downturn. Believe it or not, people are talking more about gas tank and retirement accounts than about the life of the unborn.
When the cultural debate of abortion stays on the backburner, it frustrates prolife warriors like the conservative Evangelicals to whom "right to life" is credo worth dying for. To fathom what a proverbial slap in the face Evangelical prolifers have received this time around, one has only to take a peek at the vacancies in federal courts that have yet to be filled.
The website uscourts.gov lists a total of 35 Federal judicial vacancies with 26 nominees pending. One nominee, Thomas Alvin Farr, has been waiting for 20 months dating back to January 2007. According to Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), 15 judicial nominees were confirmed by Congress during the last 2 years of Bill Clinton's presidency. In contrast, only 8 judicial nominees have been confirmed during the last 2 years of President Bush. Mr. Sekulow admits that his side is running out of time, given the time it takes for the process of moving each of the President's judicial nominee from the Judicial Committee to the floor of the Senate for an up or down vote
In the current political climate, for the prolife battle to be won in the courts, prolifers will need nothing short of a perfect storm, what amounts to a political miracle. The following pieces must all be lined up just right on the canvas of national politics and current events: (1) There must be a prolife president in the White House. (2) There must be a filibuster-proof majority in the House of Representatives as well as in the Senate. (3) America's prolife voters must become passionate and fully engaged, calling and lobbying their representatives and senators with floods of calls and emails, accompanied by street marches adorned with "Stop Abortion Now" signs. (4) In the news, there must be no major story on national security, like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, or wherever else hell may next break loose. (5) Economic conditions must return to normal, meaning low fuel and food prices, a complete fix of the financial and housing crises on Wall Street, and confidence restored to the free market system. (6) Finally, the news media must give significant and extensive coverage to the story of judicial nomination, while highlighting the prolife-prochoice debate, as was once the case.
Have I already said the chance of having all those factors lining up just right is slim to nil? Not that miracles don't happen, but the current reality is this: President Bush has nominated prolife judges, but the Judicial Committee has tabled the names of those nominees, with no political pressure or threat to bring those nominees to the floor for a vote. To the dismay and utter frustration of devoted prolifers, the liberals on the Judicial Committee have litmus-tested President Bush's nominees along a strict line that has the "right to life" side screaming foul: It seems like a nominee is toast if (1) that nominee is prolife and (2) he or she attends church regularly.
At a time in our nation when the number of abortions is on the decline, where do the Congresspersons on the Judicial Committee find the guts to stick it to prolifers in such bulldog fashion? How come these lawmakers care little about a backlash from their constituents? Don't they know they could be voted out of office?
Not in the current political and economic environment, and prochoice politicians know it.
But prolifers must bear some of the blame for this giving of the finger by prochoice politicians and their supporters. You see, for the last 12 years or so, the Evangelical wing of the Prolife Movement has squandered the good will of the American people? How? Evangelical prolifers have repeatedly made the prolife agenda a partisan political issue. They have converted "right to life" into a Republican versus Democrat issue, so much so that being Republican has become synonymous with being prolife, while being Democrat equals prochoice or pro-abortion. Whether they meant to or not is not the point. That is the reality.
In their zeal to fight for the unborn, many Evangelicals have placed the weight of God solely and squarely behind the Republican Party. They've behaved as though Jesus Christ were a card-carrying, registered Republican. Evangelical pastors endorse political candidates and rally their church members to vote accordingly.
Worse, some prolifers have used in-your-face and militant tactics, including harrassment of abortionists, bombing of abortion clinics and graphic depictions of abortion on billboards. Though mainstream prolifers usually condemn these radical elements, the damage has already been done, as they have turned public opinion against the prolife cause.
Because the leadership of the Evangelical community has overly politicized abortion, the general public now regards prolifers with partisan suspicion. The average voter sees support for a prolife judge as a win for Republicans over Democrats. As long as this remains the dominant climate, it is unlikely that prolifers will make much progress in the political arena as they did in in the past.
This does not mean that the Prolife Movement is dead or doomed. It only means that the movement's battle is no longer winnable politically, at least not for now. Meanwhile, prolifers must garner and focus their resources on the services that surround "right to life" pregnant centers. Rather than throw their faith and fate into the crafty hands of so-called prolife politicians who consistently over-promise and under-deliver, prolifers need to target young women with their message of love and compassion for the unborn. By doing so, the "right to life" struggle will become a moral and spiritual battle for the hearts of Americans, not a rallying cry in the politically charged Culture War that is bound to be partisan and thereby make the prolife cause just one more political football to be tossed around and ultimately thrown away. May be the victory for the unborn might not depend on the appointment of prolife judges by a prolife president, but in the hearts of women who bear the fruit of the womb. It will take the changed hearts of women and mothers-to-be to one day move even the hearts of liberal judges with mercy for the silent cries of the most vulnerable of our race, the innocent unborn.
