ARTICLES

Note of Caution

Remember Bob Dole and Bush, Sr.

By James Hitchcock

News item: "The Republican convention met in -------- last week, and pro-lifers fended off demands that the party drop the anti-abortion plank from its platform. However, the chair of he Platform Committee, ----------, said the platform does not reflect the views of all Republicans. The party's nominee for president, ----------, said he does not think platforms are important and does not agree with the platform's uncompromising anti- abortion position."

This year the blanks in the above story should of course be filled in by: Philadelphia, Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, and Governor George W. Bush of Texas.

I offer this advice to lazy reporters: Keep this story in your computer and save yourself from having to write it new every four years. It has become a ritualized quadrennial event.

There is no doubt that, when Republican leaders dismiss the platform as insignificant, they have in mind the pro-life plank. Like his father and Senator Robert Dole before him, Governor Bush is officially pro-life, while obviously the issue makes him uncomfortable. My suspicion is that, like other elites in American life, leading Republicans are simply pro-abortion and are annoyed at having to pander (as they see it) to pro-lifers.

But these leaders are presumably familiar with political realities. Polls show about l2 per cent of voters for whom abortion determines their vote, and of those a clear majority are pro-life. Thus on the face of it a pro-life national candidate gains rather than loses. Somehow, however, the Republican elite has the unshakable belief that the country is against them on the issue.

Not mentioning abortion is part of Bush's plan to avoid seeming "negative," since the voters are tired of rancorous politics. But it is worth recalling that both President George Bush and Senator Dole were handily defeated when they too shied away from issues they deemed too controversial.

Still, Governor Bush is light years ahead of Vice-President Albert Gore so as far as the abortion issue is concerned. Having once been pro-life, Gore now tries twice as hard to show that he is the opposite. One strong reason to support Bush is his promise that he would sign a bill banning partial-birth abortions.

Gore never misses an opportunity to promise that he will only appoint federal judges who are pro-abortion, even as Bush denies that he will have a "litmus test" for appointing pro-life judge. One of the numerous double standards which prevail in the media is the fact that enlightened opinion regards Gore's position as legitimate, while it condemns any Republican effort to shape the courts through new judges.

Alas!, there are good reasons for taking Bush at his word. His father appointed several good justices to the Supreme Court, but he also appointed David Souter, now the most reliably pro-abortion member of the Court.

After pro-lifers won this year's platform battle, pro-abortion Republicans told the media that they had been given assurances by Bush's aides that he is really on their side. Ordinarily, to accuse a politician of lying is to imply that he is not fit for office. But this year, once again, pro-lifers are in the uncomfortable position of hoping that their candidate isn't telling the truth.

Re-printed from Catholic World News © Copyright Domus Enterprises 2000.

TOP