Pro-Life Stalwart Bownback to Support Radically Pro-Abort Sebelius?
Patrick Archbold reports at "Brownback Turns His Back - On Unborn":
During last year's primaries, many Catholics and pro-lifers supported Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. This was in large part due to his prominent and vocal support for the pro-life cause. That is why the following absolutely boggles the mind.My Comments:
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Our friend Leticia Velasquez is beside herself due to this pro-life hero's deplorable about face and provide likely (but pathetic) answer to the looming question, why?It hurts to have pro-life heroes in Congress. Only a month after my group KIDS gave the Senator a pro-life award for his work on the "Prenatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act" he does this; striking a mortal blow to pro-life opposition to Gov Sibelius's nomination.Governor Sebelius is everything that is wrong about politicians and in particular Catholic politicians and her nomination ought to be vigorously opposed. The Sen. Brownback we thought we knew would know that. If he did this for the sake of political expediency, he has more to answer to than just the voters. Remember Senator, what profiteth a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?
What are you thinking, Sen Brownback? Do you want her out of your way so you can become governor or Kansas? Isn't there any way to do this without selling out your pro-life ideals and your newfound Catholic faith?
[Read the whole thing]
I was a big Brownback backer during the primaries. This is more than disappointing and discouraging to pro-lifers like myself.
Labels: Brownback, Culture of Death, Pro-Life, Voting Your Values, What the ****?
posted by Pro Ecclesia 11:24 PM
32 comments
32 Comments:
Gee, "God's senator" turns out to be just another weaselly pol who played the pro-lifers like a fiddle.
That's never happened before.
Whatever. Interesting that you're harder on Brownback than you are on the pro-abort monster Sebelius and the most pro-abort President in history who appointed her.
Oh, that's right. You don't give a s**t about abortion; just scoring points against Republicans, conservatives, and/or pro-lifers.
Wrong, I do care about reducing the number of abortions.
Here's a study you won't find at "Rapture Ready":
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2009/02/23/index.html
Here's a quote from the link:
"By providing millions of young and low-income women access to voluntary contraceptive services, the national family planning program prevents 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, including almost 400,000 teen pregnancies, each year. These pregnancies would result in 860,000 unintended births, 810,000 abortions and 270,000 miscarriages, according to a new Guttmacher Institute report.
Absent publicly funded family planning services, the U.S. abortion rate would be nearly two-thirds higher than it currently is, and nearly twice as high among poor women."
I call BS. Your "reducing the number of abortions" gives the game away. You care about electing Democrats and advancing their agenda. You'll claim that those policies "reduce the number of abortions" even though there is absolutely no proof of that.
Abortion is an evil - like slavery - that should be abolished. "Reducing the 'need' for abortions" is like arguing for reducing the "need" for the spread of slavery.
Yeah, guttmacher is always a reliable source when it comes to abortion. /sarc
Craig and his ilk are little more than patsies for the pro-abort Dems. As long as welfare payments go up they don't care how many of the unborn die. Great priorities there.
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Jay, I agree with you, in principle, but slavery and abortion are so radically different that simply outlawing abortion is not going to solve the problem the way that outlawing slavery did. A lady can go to a sympathetic doctor and have an abortion with no one finding out. It is hard to have a team of slaves without someone catching wind of the fact.
That is my primary reason for thinking that outlawing abortion, while necessary, should not be the only focus. I think that the focus for Republicans right now should be focusing on abortion reduction, because fighting to get abortion illegal is a battle they are not going to win in the short term. I think pro-life conservatives have to face up to the reality that we have a pro-choice Congress and a pro-choice president, and as such abortion is going nowhere in the next 4-8 years. As such, they should oppose abortion and be vocal about the fact that they want it outlawed, but at the same time should be working with Democrats to reduce the number of abortions.
I don't know why Sam Brownback supports Sebelius, but perhaps it is because she is not "radically pro-abortion." I, personally, do not trust websites that give bullet points about the legislation that she signed, whether they claim she is pro-life or pro-choice. I would have to see the actual legislation before I could make a judgment. Maybe Brownback has judged that she is not as radically pro-choice as people make her out to be. I don't know if that is the case or not, but I think that people need to quit jumping to conclusions so quickly. We need calm rationality, not panicky hip fire. Give him a chance to explain himself.
Guttmacher's numbers on abortion reduction are the numbers everyone quotes - on both the pro-life and pro-abort sides of the equation.
That said, I question their assertions on the correlation of the availability of publicly funded birth control and abortion reduction.
Goreds,
I dont disagree with you about pro-lifers needing to work to reduce abortion in the short term, but I don't believe the policies that the current President and Congress are pushing will achieve that (and will, in fact, achieve just the opposite result).
And I agree that Brownback has earned the benefit of the doubt (although I think this one's going to be hard to expain and suspicions about his own political ambitions for the KS governor's mansion will be difficult to quell).
But rest assured that Sebelius is as radical a pro-abort politician as there is. The fact that she's Catholic only makes it worse.
The Washigton Post reorted in September, 2008 that "U.S. Abortion Rate at 30-Year Low"
link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/23/AR2008092300626.html
Title X was established in 1970 and sponsored by Representatives James Scheuer (D-NY) and George Bush (R-TX) and Senators Joseph Tydings (D-MD) and Charles Percy (R-IL).
Since you "question their assertions on the correlation of the availability of publicly funded birth control and abortion reduction", what would you attribute it to?
Well, let's see. Throughout the 1970s, unplanned pregnancies, abortion and STDs skyrocketed. During the early 1980s, however, abortion at least began to decrease.
And what happened in 1980-81 that might explain, at least in part, the sudden and continuous decline in the rate of abortion after it had precipitously increased throughout the 1970s? Perhaps a pro-life message that suddenly had the moral authority of a bully pulpit from which to change hearts and minds, maybe? An effort to chip away around the margins at Roe v. Wade and the appointment of judges who were sympathetic to such efforts, do you think? It could all just be a coincidence ... or not. I'm not saying there's a direct correlation to the election of Reagan, or that Reagan's election was the turning point; but if we're going to have partisan politics take credit for decreases in abortion, it certainly appears to be at least as plausible if not a better explanation than the "Democrat policies and federally funded birth control lead to fewer abortions" nonsense.
Yet, I think there's actually something substantive to what happened with the the electoral results of 1980 at all levels of state and federal government. Let's start with the passage of an increasing number of incremental restrictions on abortion access by legislatures controlled by pro-life politicians to abortion. Another aspect was the development of a more pro-life-friendly Supreme Court as a result of the inclusion on its bench of justices appointed during the Republican presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
In 1980 the Supreme Court upheld the Hyde amendment, and federally funded abortions went from 300,000 a year to nearly zero. With its decisions in Webster (1989) and Casey (1992), the Court began to uphold other abortion laws previously invalidated under Roe. States passed hundreds of modest but effective laws: bans on use of public funds and facilities; informed consent laws; parental involvement when minors seek abortion; etc. Dr. Michael New's research has shown that these laws significantly reduce abortions.
Most of the stuff in my last comment is my own, but in the interest of time, I lifted portions of the last 2 paragraphs from 2 different sources for which I should provide some attribution:
Tom McFeely at National Catholic Register
"What Reduces Abortions?" by Richard M. Doerflinger, Associate Director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
All the negative comments about the two Kansas Senators who support Gov. Sebelius are entirely misguided.
Christian leaders across the country have signed petitions in support of Gov. Sebelius for HHS Secretary:
http://faithinpubliclife.org/content/press/2009/03/top_christian_leaders_welcome.html
Senator Brownback has been among the most courageous voices against abortion. It's not as if though Obama was going to pick a pro lifer, right? Is anyone really surprised by the pick? The fact of the matter is that Obama won, and he is appointing someone who knows Kansas, and who cares about Kansas. Why is it such a mystery why he supports her?
People are so quick to point to political ambition as a reason for "selling one's soul", but the pro-life movement needs to not cannibalize our most talented and ambitious allies in Congress and the state governments for being so called "traitors". You would think he was holding fundraisers with Tiller! He's supporting a woman from his state who has reduced abortions in Kansas, and the pro life movement wants to pretend like Sam Brownback hasn't been a great ally?
So lets back off Brownback and Roberts a bit, okay? They're both allies and they have shown so many times in the past. Getting worked up about this and attacking our own is the worst thing conservatives need right now.
From what I can tell, no one commenting here is "cannibalizing" either Brownback or Roberts. I have expressed disappointment, but have also stated that Sen. Brownback has earned the benefit of the doubt.
The only attack on Brownback came from someone likely to attack him anyway because he has an "R" next to his name.
You choose to believe an assistant poli sci professor who flogs for the FRC and the Heritage Foundation and I choose to believe the CDC and Guttmacher.
We'll see if his prediction of a minumum increase of 125,000 abortions a year comes true.
Also, the abortion rate remained the same (1.5 million/year) throughout the Reagan years, despite the appointment of all those "pro-life" judges.
No, you choose to believe what you're already predisposed to believe. You're just looking for citations to back that up. And, in fact, the whole abortion reduction meme is just an afterthought to you ... an effort to try to dupe pro-lifers and Catholics to back leftist policies they otherwise wouldn't by trying to paint them as "pro-life".
And the fact is, abortions increased dramatically after the enactment of Title X.
Jay, I'm torn on this one. Instinctively, I recoil from the news that Brownback is "supporting" Sebelius' nomination. However, I think it's a foregone conclusion that Obama will appoint a pro-abort to the position of HHS secretary. That's just one of the consequences of elections. Brownback's declaration of "support" was made with a clear statement of his profound policy disagreements with Sebelius.
Additionally, I've always thought of these Senate confirmation hearings as being somewhat like the SCOTUS proceedings. If the nominee is technically qualified, the Senate is bound to confirm him regardless of ideological/philosophical disagreements. Am I wrong on that?
Living in Kansas, I have found myself hoping that Obama takes Sebelius "off our hands". Now, we'll have her more conservative Lt. Gov for the next 2 years, and Sebelius probably won't be running for US Senate, as she had planned to do after concluding this her last term as Governor.
So, all things being equal, I'd rather have an actively bad Governor swept away to be HHS Secretary than a spectator like Daschle, who was merely a bad guy sitting on the sidelines before his nomination.
You have accused me twice of not caring about abortions.
That is categorically false.
I am merely chuckling at the fact that your intelligent design believing Senator is being duplicitous to further his political ends and you having the nerve to act surprised.
And seeing as Roe v Wade didn't happen until 1973 (3 years after Title X was enacted), I guess LEGAL abortions would indeed have gone up in the 70's.
Title X funds have never been allowed to be used to provide abortions, only education and contraception.
Abortion was already legal in many places throughout the country by 1973. Roe made it constitutionally mandatory fo states to allow abortion where it wasn't already available
But, by your argument, with Title X in place, the huge jump in abortions shouldn't have happened. Yet, for another 8 years abortion continued to rise higher and higher each year before leveling off in 1981 and steadily falling thereafter. How then, do you argue that Title X brought about the reduction in abortion that began 8 years after Roe and 11 years after Title X was enacted?
And I'm not surprised by much of anything politicians do, even Sen. Brownback. In fact, I took Sen. Brownback to task about a year ago for not coming out more strongly against torture during one of the GOP debates. I was disappointed in him then, and I'm disappointed in him now. Can't say that I'm surprised, however, that a politician would act like ... well ... a politician, and do things that might be in what he sees as his own political best interests.
As I said, neither the number nor the rate of abortions went down at all during the Reagan years.
I just found a study posted on beliefnet by the "Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good" last August:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/progressiverevival/2008/08/beyond-roe-new-study-shows-abo.html
It even cites Dr. New's study in the conclusion:
"For all Americans, and particularly faithful Catholics who view abortion as a tragedy, understanding how social and economic support for women and families can reduce the number of abortions is paramount.
This study is an attempt to estimate how socioeconomic factors and state abortion laws affect the abortion rate. We have found the following measures to be associated with reductions in the abortion rate in the 1990s: lower poverty, increased male employment, and economic assistance to low-income families. For example, states that spent $100 more per person showed a 20% decrease in abortion. To put this dollar figure in context, $100 per person is about $30 billion dollars, which is equivalent to the amount tax payers spent on only 12 weeks of funding for the Iraq war in 2007.
This study also examines the effect of state abortion laws on the abortion rate. While this study finds that state laws such as informed- and parental-consent have not had a significant effect on abortion rates, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good continues to support such measures as part of a comprehensive plan to reduce the rate of abortion in the United States."
I just found a study posted on beliefnet by the "Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good" last August:
Sorry, I am having trouble stopping myself from laughing. Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good - yeah, there's a good non-partisan group on which to rely for information.
Once again, though, this is all a subterfuge on which left-wing "Catholics" get to pretend that abortion is really important to them, even while they continue to support pro-abortion politicians that will continue to keep the abortion holocaust going. Wow, boys, you really are doing a lot. At this rate, we might get to only like half a million abortions sometime in the next couple of thousand years. Progress. Hope. Change.
Whatever makes you sleep at night.
If Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good is a vast left-wing conspiracy of phony Catholics, explain to me how Italy, a country that is 90% Roman Catholic, tolerates legalized abortion.
Are they a bunch of CINO's as well?
Catholic News Agency: Catholics in Alliance "Abortion Reduction" Study Found to be Faulty - Social Welfare Policies Have Little Effect on Abortion
I see Craig still has no qualms about Ms. "I Love George Tiller."
Oh, and does the Guttmacher survey bracket by forms of birth control, specifically those which are proven abortifacients, either by design or otherwise (IUDs, the Pill)? As opposed to barrier method forms which aren't? To the extent abortifacient methods are part of the "birth control" touted in the survey, they haven't reduced abortion at all.
Yes, DM, the report does account for use of RU-486.
While total number of abortions is down, the use of RU-486 and similar drugs is on the rise.
If Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good is a vast left-wing conspiracy of phony Catholics, explain to me how Italy, a country that is 90% Roman Catholic, tolerates legalized abortion.
Can someone please explain how the second part of the sentence follows the first? That might be the most non-sensical non sequiter I have ever read in my entire life.
But to answer your question, Italy like France, is a nation where 90% of the population are nominal Catholics, but of that population, I doubt even a quarter are actively practicing the faith. In France, in fact, I don't even think it reached much beyond 10 percent. So, yes, Italy is a nation of CINOs.
It figures that a study touted on beliefnet is erroneous.
It seems all assistant poli sci professors should stay out of the abortion debate.
I see, only American Catholics that are militant anti-abortion supporters are the "real" Catholics.
Sam Brownback is dead to me.
Thanks for sharing my pain, I remember championing Browback with you in the primaries.
His recent excuse that her approval is 'inevitable' is weak. Who would have believed that mere tax evasion would topple Tom Daschle, since it didn't harm Tim Geitner?
We did it before, we can do it again, DOWN with Sibelius!
craig a/k/a "Any friend of Tiller's is a friend of mine":
"Yes, DM, the report does account for use of RU-486.
While total number of abortions is down, the use of RU-486 and similar drugs is on the rise."
RU-486 is induced abortion, so abortion is increasing to the extent that human pesticide is being used. But you didn't answer my question about the other abortion-inducing forms of birth control (though IUDs are abortion-inducing as well). Silence = "no, the study doesn't." Thank you!
Again: To the extent abortifacient "birth control" accounts for the "reduction" of abortion, it hasn't reduced anything.
Oh please, polemics like "Brownback is dead to me" is just stupid.
Brownback has made more politically inconvenient votes than any other Senator in defense of life.
I appreciate your sentiment Jay, it is just that SO many pro lifers have proclaimed that Brownback is all of a sudden a pro abort.
There is no scenario that Brownback could have run against Sebelius in 2010, so all the talk about political ambition is moot. Brownback knew that Sebelius going to Washington was going to keep her out of the Senate (which she would have run for and won had she stayed in Kansas). I'm glad he congratulated her, I hope he helps her move!
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