I swore that I wasn’t going to pound too hard on this, but dammit — could we show just a tiny bit of backbone for once?
To wit, former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe has stuck to his proverbial guns on whether or not parents should have a say in the education of their children. McAuliffe has stuck to his guns on repealing right to work. The man has even stuck to his guns on the Northam position on post-birth abortions for crying out loud. McAuliffe is even playing footsie with defunding the police, refusing to commit either way as to where he stands for fear of further offending his progressive left wing.
Pro-life Virginians can’t even get a stand up commitment on defunding Planned Parenthood for fear of offending so-called moderates who are voting Democratic anyway.
I’m sorry.
That one still sticks in the ribs.
And it hasn’t passed by unnoticed by the Washington Post. Yes, I realize that the election is close and that Dems are looking for anything to dampen Republican enthusiasm for the ticket.
Quite frankly, this does dampen my enthusiasm.
To be very honest about it, one cannot quite blame Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin for being pro-abortion up to 20 weeks. After all, it’s not as if pro-life leadership in Virginia is pressuring the candidate to be any stronger. In fact, they seem to be falling over themselves to be more pro-regulation rather than pro-life:
“Abortion isn’t a top issue for Virginia voters,” said Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia, one of the state’s leading conservative organizations and a longtime advocate for tightening restrictions on abortion. “McAuliffe is desperate to talk about anything other than jobs and the economy, so he’s focusing on a side issue.”
“We need to be realistic,” said Olivia Gans Turner, president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, an antiabortion group. “Terry McAuliffe seems to think abortion is the key issue that motivates women voters. It’s not.”
<headdesk>
When pro-life lobbyists lead with “abortion isn’t a top issue” and “we need to be realistic” — that is one more reminder why Virginia is in sore need of a serious pro-life organization willing to actually be pro-life rather than the pro-regulation arm of the abortion industry.
Morton Blackwell observes that nothing in politics is moved unless it is pushed.
The Democrats argue that one should never apologize and never let them see you sweat — not once have they backtracked on Northam’s position on post-birth abortion, not once have they backtracked on Critical Race Theory (CRT), gender ideology in the classroom, collective bargaining for teachers, tearing down and bulldozing history, wrecking the economy, mandates of all shapes and sizes, or interposing themselves between parents and their children.
Yet we seem to want to make apologies constantly in the face of adversity, as if moderation in the face of tyranny was any sort of virtue.
So here’s what I want to see.
If the Democrats can defund the police, then Republicans can defund Planned Parenthood. If they can defund people who save lives, we can save lives by defunding the nation’s #1 abortion chain.
Of course, it is the duty and responsibility of pro-life Virginians to create the climate where we are as willing to defend life as others are willing to say — tear down statues — which at present we have plenty of others willing to preside, but not lead on questions of life and death other than in the margins and the hallways of the GAB.
Enough.
Kristan Hawkins with Students for Life hammered the truth of the matter home:
Youngkin has made only “a tepid commitment to protect preborn life,” offering “lackluster policy designed to accomplish almost nothing,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, a Fredericksburg-based group, said in a Washington Post op-ed. Abortion, she said, remains “a litmus test for a candidate’s willingness to fight for the weak and defenseless.”
Hawkins isn’t alone in that opinion, folks. If a message has to be sent, then so be it — but pro-life Catholics and evangelicals who were told to pound sand in May 2021 aren’t terribly eager to get up off the couch to trade neoliberalism for neoconservatism.
Politicians are going to do what they are allowed. After all — and this is the more serious grievance I have here — why should politicians be any more pro-life than the movement itself? Of course, 1 in 6 Americans are pro-life without compromise or apology — and they expect leadership to make more gestured to our values.
For those with eyes to see and ears to hear — and enough said.