What Made You Change Politically?

[Person Man]

The short of it was that I just learned that a lot of people who were all about "mom, baseball and apple pie" we're just one bad day away from a felony. I cringe when I hear a lot of younger guys get on the soap box but that's the way I learned.  I think from some of the descriptions of these people, one of you said that "you met the conservative version of opebo".

Beyond that, I have always thought that tradition is always a good guide but that life would have no purpose if that's all there was.  

[Person Man]

What you describe would literally require a perfect storm: 1) a Republican President, 2) a Republican Congress that would be able to overcome any potential filibuster especially since this would require a dramatic shift in the balance of the Court, 3) Supreme Court Justices willing actually willing to overturn or at least significantly modify Roe v. Wade (consider even John Roberts has said the decision to be "settled law"), 4)Pro-choice justices being willing to retire considering the circumstances, and 5) actual enforcement of any pro-life legislation (and such legislation would have to be ones that could and would significantly reduce the number of abortions not just invasive mandatory ultra-sound laws).

I daresay it is more realistic and plausible that the number of abortions would be reduced through the various socioeconomic policies of Democratic administrations (ie heavy social spending, increased guarantees to parental leave, expanded access to daycare, wider access to birth control) then hoping for such a Republican perfect storm. Considering it did not happen during the Reagan-Bush Sr. years or the administration of Bush Jr. when the Religious Right was far more robust than it is to-day the chances of it happening in any future Republican administrations are virtually nonexistant.

I agree that such a circumstance is unlikely, but as a staunchly pro-life person, I do consider abortion to be a form of murder.  Even if I considered unborn children as 1/2 a life, that would still be approximately 500,000 murders per year.  Even at 1/10 of a life, that's 50,000 per year.  Simply the calculations alone make the issue extremely important.  As such, even a small expected value of say 10% would accrue 50,000 lives saved per year.   So while a "perfect storm" is unlikely, it's absolutely essential in order to save countless lives.  

I see where you are coming from, because I was and remain a staunchly pro-life person (if you see any of comments on threads relating to abortion)-indeed this was what kept me a Republican as long as it did.

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Most likely the Republican Party, in such a situation, would prefer to focus on the economic aspects of their agenda as has been the case in previous administrations. If the Republicans were so concerned about abortion, why was not a Right to Life Amendment actively pushed by the Bush administration around 2005-06? We saw instead they preferred to push a nationwide gay marriage ban and Social Security 'reform", since the former was more popular than an abortion ban at the time thus being able to attract both core evangelical voters and more moderate voters with some conservative tendencies. And the field of probable 2016 GOP nominees-Christie, Walker, Paul-suggest a field far less concerned with social issues than Bush was. Were a conservative Justice to retire from the SC, I can see him being replaced with someone equally conservative but if a liberal justice (or Anthony Kennedy) were to retire than only a comparatively centrist justice (such as John Roberts) would be politically possible. As I indicated above, on the federal courts Republican judges have been just as prone to strike down these state laws on abortion-consider Eric Leroy Yeakel who struck down Texas's abortion restrictions for example. Additionally, the fact is while I do not wish to sound like an abortion apologist, the overwhelming majority of abortions (88-92%) happen in the first trimaster and most that happen in latter stages are due to health complications.

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OTOH, several European countries such as Germany have lower abortion rates than the United States does overall despite there being far less of a strong pro-life movement. I suspect that in the United States, abortion rates are skewed by many people going to states with greater abortion availability for abortions and also possibly by underreporting of illegal abortions/use of abortion pills.

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Many people here in past elections would have had no problem voting for say Henry Clay or Winfield Scott over the more explicitly anti-slavery candidates of the Liberty and Free Soil parties, even those candidates "condoned" slavery in the same sense pro-choice politicians condone abortion to-day.

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Several Republican senators (ie Lamar Alexander and Kit Bond) voted for the confirmation of one or both of Justices Kagan and Sotomayor. The margin is even more overwhelming if we look at Justice Ginsburg's confirmation.

Those are good points, MB. I think it takes away the credibility of the personhood movement to not be part of a consistent life ethic (I would consider UHC and supporting non-fossil fuels as part of "protecting life", but not welfare or education). It makes it seem that their opposition to abortion isn't really about violence against fetal life but about something else (a legitimate other interest is prosecution of abortion to prevent  adultery (whether actual cheating on your spouse or the very broad definition of simply having sex with someone you are not married to), not so much of a legitimate interest would be encouraging social immobility to preempt economic competition). Outside of politics, this is probably why I have a favorable opinion of the Catholic Church and not so much for independent Fundamentalist, whether or not Evangelical, ones.

[Person Man]

When Newt declared the contract on America.

So right after you rid yourself of the big hair days, the brain started working, eh? 

Something like that

lol