Pro-Life on Life Support

Over the last few weeks, as I have watched Harry Reid behave like an absolute donkey's rear in the fight over Bush's judicial nominees, the thought came to me that I was witnessing the final nail being pounded into the coffin of the pro-life Democrat. Reid has been the latest in a long line of prominent Democrats like Jesse Jackson, Richard Gephardt, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton, who began their careers as pro-life Democrats, but promptly switched positions upon entering the national stage. The message to pro-life voters is clear: you absolutely, positively, cannot trust a Democrat to remain pro-life. But then, as I came to that conclusion, it occurred to me that I'd been viewing this wrong all along - what I'd been witnessing was not the final nail in the coffin of the pro-life Democrat, but rather just another nail being pounded in the coffin of the pro-life cause as a whole. Let me explain. I will begin by making a confession that will probably at the very least get my posting privileges at RedState suspended for a week: in the last election, I voted Democrat. Oh, I voted for GWB, and in the U. S. Senate, I voted Republican, but in the Congressional race in my district, I voted for Democrat Marion Berry. Fiscally, Berry is a tax-and-spend pork-barrel liberal of the worst order. But what's important about Berry is that on social issues, he's reliably conservative, and he's an especially staunch defender of pro-life causes. Now, his Republican opponent ran on a platform that was just as pro-life as Berry's, and more fiscally conservative to boot. But I intentionally voted to send Berry to Washington to fight for pro-life causes because he's a Democrat. The reason for this is simple: when a particular constituency group gets swallowed whole-hog by one party, the issues that are important to them begin to die the slow death of expediency, as the party gradually realizes that their vote can be taken for granted. For instance, the labor unions long ago found themselves swallowed whole-hog by the Democrats, which worked well for a time. However, when the first bill that they really, really, really opposed came down the pipe (NAFTA), they jumped up and down, and hollered and screamed for the Democrats in Congress to kill the bill by any means necessary. And then, when that failed, they raved and ranted at Clinton to veto the bill. Throughout the whole process, the Democrat party leadership, in a cynical attempt to capture middle-of-the-road voters, looked down their nose at the unions and sneered, "What are you gonna do? Vote Republican?" And passed NAFTA right in the face of their loyal base. Folks, we are already facing the prospect that the party apparatus in 2008 will look down their nose at us and sneer, "What are you gonna do? Vote Hillary?" as they seek to power grab the middle with a McCain or Giuliani candidacy. It is the nature of politics that once a group can be reliably counted on to vote with a single party, their issues become marginalized as the party seeks to dominate the shrinking center. And so, while the death of the pro-life Democrat is marginally bad news for the Democrat party, it's really bad news for the pro-life cause. What does this mean for us, politically? First, it means that we will never again have this good of a chance Roe. It needs to get done within the next 3. 5 years, and we need to adopt a sense of urgency about this. Whatever it takes to get it done must be done. The upcoming fight over SCOTUS nominations must be understood for the life-and-death fight that it is, and as a precursor to that, the message must be sent to the Republicans in the Senate that a demonstrated inability to get the right kinds of judges through will not be tolerated. I sincerely believe that if Roe falls and the issue is reverted to the states, it will become safe for Democrats to be pro-life again. This is the only way that the GOP will feel as though they have to work for our vote, and it is the only way that our cause can survive in the long-term. But I reiterate the point that it needs to be done in the next four years, because as our cause increasingly becomes one-party, it increasingly becomes marginalized. Second, if we fail to see Roe overturned in the next four years, we must be prepared to send a clear shot across the bow in 2008. If we send the message that we are willing to vote for a Giuliani Republican just to see a Hillary defeated, we may as well pack up our bags and move straight to the back row of the Republican party, and assume the position of just another special interest group that the party can take for granted. This must not be allowed to happen. If four years of Hillary is the price that must be paid for the long-term preservation of the cause, then we must be prepared to pay it, or else we ourselves will be guilty of driving the very last nail in the coffin of the pro-life cause.