Why I'm Not A Republican, Part 3

This is the third part in a continuing series of posts examining why I am not a Republican, even though many people feel like I belong in that camp. Part I outlined the most obvious reasons and Part II dealt with Republicans' misplaced perspectives on Family Values. When I have completed this series I will revisit each issue and propose legislative solutions that are faithful to the Bible and progressive in their orientation, but today I want to speak on the most significant problem that White Evangelicals have against Democrats:

ABORTION

I am Pro Life, I believe that human life begins at conception. This is something that would be expected of an Evangelical Christian such as myself, but the interesting thing is that my Pro Life stance has next to nothing to do with Christianity - the Bible is mostly silent on the question of abortion. Most of the Biblical passages that are used to support the position that human life begins at conception actually speak - in context - to God's foreknowledge and sovereignty, not to the nature and character of the baby in the womb:

• Psalm 139:13-16
  
  
  For you created my inmost being;
  you knit me together in my mother's womb.
  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
  your works are wonderful,
  I know that full well.
  My frame was not hidden from you
  when I was made in the secret place.
  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
  your eyes saw my unformed body.
  All the days ordained for me
  were written in your book
  before one of them came to be.
  
  
  Some would argue that this passage refers to the personhood of the unborn baby, but the writer is speaking of God's foreknowledge, as the writer himself concludes in verse 16.


• Job 3:11
  
  
  Why did I not perish at birth,
  and die as I came from the womb?
  
  
  Here, clearly Job acknowledges that he was alive before exiting the womb, but the most ardent supporter of abortion will admit as much - this passage has no impact on the abortion discussion.


• Jeremiah 1:4-5
  
  The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
  
  
  "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
  before you were born I set you apart;
  I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
  
  
  Again, this text speaks to God's foreknowledge, not Jeremiah's human existence prior to being born.


• Luke 1:39-45
  
  At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"
  
  Now this passage comes close to making a case for opposing abortion, the problem is that most every Christian will affirm that Jesus was no normal baby, so trying to prove a point based on the Zygote Jesus would be stretching it at best. As for John the Baptist who leapt in his mother's womb, he was heading into the third trimester and there is no debate about the humanity of a baby in the late-second or early-third trimester, so again this passage doesn't have much impact on the abortion debate.


• Exodus 21:22-25
  
  If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
  
  This passage actually does indeed speak to the issue of abortion. If a woman miscarried as a result of two men fighting then the one who caused the miscarriage would have inflicted upon him whatever harm came to the baby - eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise, life for life. Some would say that the penalty is inflicted based upon what happens to the woman, not the baby, but if that were the case then there would be no need of mentioning the pregnancy in this passage. This passage of Scripture is referring to the baby and it treats the baby as a human being. The problem, of course, is that the passage assumes that the baby is formed such that an arm could be identified, a wound could be discerned, a tooth could be found, and that would be well after conception. This passage does little to refute the logic of Roe v. Wade, and is thus pointless in the current abortion discussion.

The reason why I am Pro Life is because from the moment of conception there is no ontological difference between that baby and a full-grown adult besides growth and development. There is no point after conception where the baby "becomes" human, she is human from the moment a human genome is created - at conception - and as such it is just as wrong to kill her as it is to kill a full-grown vagabond by running over him with your car. No one else might ever know about the death of such an unknown individual but it is no less wrong. Ontologically, a human being is created at conception and the same laws that apply to killing any human being have to apply across the board to all human beings, be they newly conceived or terminally ill.

So how in the world could I vote for a Democrat? Simple - abortion is not a voting issue for me.

Say what?

If over a million children are being murdered every year with the approval of the government then abortion is not a voting issue, it is an overthrow the government issue. I don't think that too many people were impressed at Nuremburg when people said that they voted against the holocaust. When it comes to opposing abortion there is no middle of the road - either it's the murder of over a million children a year, every year, or it's not. Either it is an evil practice that has to be eliminated immediately, by any means necessary, or it is merely the elimination of unwanted bio-matter. There is no middle way on abortion, yet suburbanites lack the courage of their convictions to actually do something about it. Soccer moms hate that babies are being slaughtered but they have to get Becky to practice - they'll just vote Republican and feel better about themselves for having struck a blow for the "good guys."

Let them comfort themselves with the ashes of Slavs, Gypsies and Jews from Auschwitz, because that's the end result of their voting - death and dismemberment. The Republicans have appointed ten (10) of the last twelve justices to the Supreme Court, and Republicans have appointed every Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for the last 50 years, but Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. If the Republican Party was serious about ending abortion then they would have done it by now, but they are more interested in milking the issue than solving the problem.

But even if Roe v. Wade were overturned abortion would still be legal in America - the red states would immediately ban abortion and the blue states would immediately legalize abortion, leaving the purple states to fight it out. The GOP in purple states like Michigan and Pennsylvania tend to be more moderate, and concentrating the abortion fight in those battleground states - sending the money and volunteers that the national party craves to the state parties - would strengthen a wing of the GOP that they have spent a generation trying to eviscerate. The GOP has no interest in killing the goose that lays the golden campaign contributions and they have no interest in resurrecting a dead wing of their party so they will keep abortion legal for as long as they can milk contributions from those who are long on expectations but short on personal commitment.

And yes, the Democrats do the same thing from the other side of the aisle.

And if you stop to think about it, both parties are full of male-bovine fecal material on the issue of abortion. It is the Republican Party which believes that government has no place in the private affairs of citizens. It is the Republican Party which believes that the government that governs least governs best. It is the Republican Party that should be articulating the Pro Choice argument, yet they take the opposite position. Why?

The Democratic Party seems to have no problem with the idea of creating a new branch of government to save some helpless creature against the wiles of the powerful, so why is it that the Democrats are absent when the most helpless of all needs someone to stand up for them? It is the Democratic Party which believes in an active government that protects the disenfranchized against the decision-makers. It is the Democratic Party which believes in protecting the least of these even if that means limiting the options of others who already have that which the least of these are trying to achieve - LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - yet Democrats side against the most helpless of all, unborn babies. Why?

The answer in both instances is the same - constituency.

When abortion became a big issue in the 60s and 70s the feminists and others who were pushing for abortion on demand were already solidly in the camp of the Democrats, so the Democrats ignored their governing philosophy and adjusted to accommodate the desires of their core constituency. The Republicans were beginning to welcome a flood of Southerners who were abandoning the Democratic Party in droves after Lyndon Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress and signed it into law, and the Southern Baptists were (and are) among the most committed in their opposition to abortion, and the Republicans weren't going to alienate their new constituency by maintaining fidelity to their governing philosophy so they adjusted to accommodate the desires of their new constituency. Political parties are about winning elections, not philosophical consistency, so they focused on what was important to winning elections - their constituencies - and they've ensured that the gravy train of money and volunteers continues to flow by keeping Roe v. Wade on the books and blocking any initiative that would decrease the demand for abortions.

"They" being Democrats and Republicans.

When it's all said and done, both the Democrats and the Republicans are full of crap regarding the issue of abortion - neither party has any interest in ending abortion, and those who claim to viscerally oppose abortion have no intention of actually doing anything about it other than sending the Republicans millions of dollars and hundreds of volunteers. Nothing is going to change when it comes to abortion - I give you the last 30 years as proof-positive - so for me, at the end of the day, abortion is not a voting issue.

Two tears in a bucket...

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