Pro lifers, republicans are laughing AT you

Last week marked the 40^th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. The landmark 7-2 ruling said that the a right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14^th Amendment extended to a woman’s decision to have an abortion, and has that right until viability.

And the fight has gone on ever since.

I’m comfortably in the keep abortion safe, legal and rare camp. And while I genuinely admire their passion, I have to admit to being entirely uncomfortable with the unearned sanctimony of the pro life crowd. These people live lives surrounded by shades of gray, but can only see black and white. These are the people who in one breath will tell you that all life is sacred, and in the next vote for a person who would deny needy children and mothers food. They are pro life . . . until the child is born.

 

The republican party has provided a comfortable niche for the anti choice crowd, and has given them plenty of lip service — from it’s anti abortion party platform, to Speaker of the House John Boehner’s recentannouncement that republicans will soon put an end to abortion.

Yeah. Like that’ll happen.

If the republicans were even remotely serious about ending abortion, they would have done so during the disastrous term of George W. Bush. For six years republicans controlled the House, Senate and White House. And during that time they never introduced a single piece of legislation that would curb abortion, let alone ban it.

Their lack of action was intentional, because the only thing about abortion that republicans are truly dedicated to is using it as a campaign issue in order to collect from the saps in the anti abortion movement. And that’s what Boehner’s latest announcement is all about. Desperate to keep control of the House in the 2014 mid-term election after republican ideas were so clearly rejected in last November’s election, republicans are desperate to raise massive amounts of cash to assure they retain control of the house. And that's the only reason for Boehner's pledge.

Abortion may well be the only wedge issue the republicans have left. From marriage to the military to the Boy Scouts for crissake, the gay rights movement is steam roller no number of Family Research Councils will be able to stop. The closet (and out of the closet) racism of the conservative movement was trampled by minority voters in November, not to mention the African American re-elected president in a landslide. And 20 dead Connecticut first-graders, not to mention the complete lunacy of its leadership, spells doom for the National Rifle Association as we know it.

God, guns and gays no longer work to benefit republicans. Abortion doesn’t either, but that won’t stop the pro lifers from being sucked in.

Speaking of Guns.

As a Catholic I have always been annoyed that the church has been so loud in its opposition to abortion, but quite when it came to guns. The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn. seems to have brought that to an end. Bishops and other clergy is now speaking out, and this New York Timespiece sums it up nicely.