This week the Republican Party officially adopted the anti-abortion plank into the party platform. This plank calls for the passing of a constitutional amendment which would do away with a woman's right to abortion -- even in cases of rape, incest and health safety concerns.
In addition, the party leadership appointed Representative Henry Hyde of Illinois, a staunch anti-abortion Republican, to chair the party platform commission. These moves are intended to shore up any perceived softening by the Dole campaign with religious conservatives within the party.
In addition, Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition has been under intense heat this past week after hinting that he and his followers might be willing to accept a constitutional amendment that allowed abortions in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother. It seems his followers are less willing to negotiate on this issue than he expected and he consequently restated his position to reflect this.
Without question, the issue of abortion has splintered the Republican Party like no other in its history. There are a multiplicity of concerns and viewpoints involved, but they can be roughly put into three categories: conservatives, pragmatists and libertarians. I acknowledge now that the positions I put forward here are for use only as a comparative tool and are not exact or exhaustive.
Conservatives urge that abortion in America is a crime -- morally and otherwise. It robs the life from a potential citizen whose potentiality entitles it to some legal consideration. Because it is immoral to take life, the law must forbid the practice altogether.
Pragmatists see the issue in different terms. Whether they agree with abortion or not, they realize others do not and they therefore urge that the party shape the platform to represent as many concerns as possible. In other words, say whatever it takes to placate the members. The rule is: devise, not divide.
Then there are the rest. Often unaware where they fit in the party, possibly because they are the unacknowledged within the party, I shall call them libertarians here because they believe that limited government is the ideal model of government, even if that means some people making moral mistakes. Truth and morality being individually decided standards, they prefer that government take no position and err on the side of minding its own business -- to put it roughly.
So as election-year politics go into high gear, the party braces for what will surely be 'interesting.' It has taken a stand and is preparing for the showdown. But this does not inform many of us that are in that last group as to what we should do. It appears our ideology has been neglected again, recalling the 1992 convention, and that we are expected to vote for Bob Dole based on either habit, fear of four more years for you-know-who, or simply due to faith. Well, I think I have an alternative.
At least as regards the issue of abortion, the problem has been for Republican Party officials that they are trying to make consonance where only conflict resides. As the party of less government, we must embrace the concept universally and respect our forefathers' intentions. The first portion of my suggestion, then, is that we review those guiding ideals which set this whole experiment into motion.
They understood that government cannot dispel all evil, nor should it try, because evil manifests itself in different forms for different people. Therefore, the guiding philosophy was not utopian, where an authority curtailed your failures and thus your attempts so that you might live 'better.'
It was supposed that each man should be allowed to find his own version of truth, since in the end it is only each man who must live with it.
Collectivist trends aimed at making men better such as this one have been seen before. It seems those who live by the collective measure of 'good' soon find their individual ideas of 'bad' ceasing to matter. Indeed, benevolent despotism is tyranny still. Our nation's founders realized that in a democracy, change is the status quo. They thus ensured that those who consent one day find opportunity to disagree the next. Under collectivist utopian regimes, the first consent is often the last.
Finally, it was understood government was not the promoter of life, nor was it the guarantor of life, but rather it was only the protector of liberty.
We must endeavor to remember that freedom means choice -- even what some deem to be bad choices. Encroachments made for whatever reason are encroachments nonetheless, and because men's lives are so short, temporal usurpations cannot be allowed.
I understand the argument that future generations are at stake. In fact, I agree. However, I suggest that life without liberties is only existence. Certainly we all can see that tomorrow's citizens cannot expect to live freely so long as their very existence depends upon the confining laws of today. Bottom line: If bridled for birth, then bridled for life.
Returning to election year politics and the plight of the libertarian Republican, I regretfully suggest abandonment of the party. Four more years of Clinton are better than a compromise which whittles even deeper into the foundation of this country. A vote for the opposition would signal to the party that lip service is the tired trademark of Democrats and one intolerable to those attracted to the party.
Further, a departure now implies the days of passive consumer politics ended with -- well, 1996. Finally, and most importantly, a temporary shift in the party will serve as the needed demand to bring back to the Grand Old Party that which was jettisoned previously -- moderation and restraint.
