A Christmas miracle? Rick Perry has seen the light?
Perry reportedly just announced that he’s changed his mind and he’s now against any exceptions for rape and incest when it comes to abortion. So he’s pro-life all the way now. Full in. All the chips on the table.
I like Perry. I do. But this seems a little convenient for my taste. A presidential candidate announces that he’s changing his view on one of the most fundamental issues in the world right before the Iowa primary. But hey, I’ll take it. But there’s a little bitty part of me that wonders in my little bitty brain about what he was thinking about before this. I mean, did he not really consider the rape and incest business before? I mean, they guy’s been Governor for a while and he’s been running for president for months.
But like I said I’ll take it. Sometimes these things put in a different light can make all the difference. So I’ll quiet the cynical part of my brain and just say hooray.
Hot Air reports that it was Mike Huckabee’s film that convinced him to change his mind.
December 28, 2011 at 6:22 pm
I'm still pulling for the other Rick, but I'll take it, too! Good on ya, Perry! Let's hope this is a genuine conversion.
December 28, 2011 at 6:37 pm
The Texas sonogram bill signed by Perry is one of the toughest pro-life laws in the nation. He is the real deal!
December 28, 2011 at 6:38 pm
if only we weren't so cynical and praised God when people become pro-life instead of claiming it's so political…
December 28, 2011 at 7:08 pm
Be cynical. We've had plenty of 'pro-life' presidents since 1972 and they've been very successful at lulling us into this false idea that all they can do is appoint Supreme court justices who are pro-life. And then they fail to do even that. They've had plenty of time to get a majority that way, but they don't actually want to solve the problem. If they did, they would have dealt rather sharply with the Supreme court immediately rather than playing as if their hands are tied.
December 28, 2011 at 8:23 pm
"If they did, they would have dealt rather sharply with the Supreme court immediately rather than playing as if their hands are tied."
How? Send troops over to order the Supreme Court Justices at gun point to overturn Roe? We have also had the small problem of the Democrat party viewing keeping abortion legal as their highest priority and attempting to block pro-life Justices. Roe would be history today if Robert Bork had been confirmed by the Senate. Instead his nomination went down to defeat. The campaign against Bork was led by Ted Kennedy who received a "canonization Mass" when he died with Cardinal O'Malley presiding.
http://the-american-catholic.com/2009/09/04/cardinal-omalley-apologia-pro-sua-teddy/
I am always cynical about policitians. I wish I didn't also have to be cynical about members of the heirarchy when it comes to the fight against abortion.
December 28, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Aborting a child of incest or rape is punishing the child for the crimes of the parents. Justice will not be done without respect for another innocent virgin when two become one.
December 28, 2011 at 10:32 pm
There's a sucker born every minute. He SAID that NOW he's completely pro-life. How special. Are you that gullible? Talk is cheap. It's called pandering.
December 28, 2011 at 10:48 pm
@anonymous, what part of "this seems a little convenient to me" confused you? Nobody's saying it's not pandering (the interesting thing is, now he's on the record saying he'll do it, which actually does make a difference, so often it surprises me).
@ Mary de Voe, dead on. Personally I say "how about if we liquidate all the rapist's worldly goods, in perpetuity, to his victim?" Y' know, actually punish the person responsible?
But then again I also favor the death penalty for rape (my thinking is, if lethal force is justified to prevent it—and killing an attempted rapist is justifiable homicide—then execution is a just penalty for it).
December 28, 2011 at 11:24 pm
Donald McClarey – Here's how – it's called arithmetic.
After Roe vs. Wade, which was decided by 7-2, the next 6 justices were appointed by Republican Presidents. All 6 of those appointment were replacing pro-death justices. Let me repeat that – After Roe vs. Wade, the next 6 appointments were replacing pro-death justices, and those were appointed by Republican presidents.
Here's what you ended up with:
John Paul Stevens – pro-death
Sandra Day O'Connor – pro-death
Antonin Scalia – pro-life
Anthony Kennedy – pro-death
David Souter – pro-death
Clarence Thomas – pro-life
So, the great "pro-life" Republican party gave you 4 pro-death appointments and 2 pro-life appointments. This gave you a Supreme Court that was 5-4 pro-death, instead of one that should have been 8-1 pro-life.
The Republican Party will NEVER be responsible for overturning Roe vs. Wade. Sure, they'll throw a bone or two to the pro-life rubes who continue to vote for them no matter what, but they'll never actually give you that 5th vote that will overturn Roe vs. Wade.
December 29, 2011 at 12:18 am
I'm with Reagan … "Trust but Verify"
December 29, 2011 at 12:36 am
John Paul Stevens was nominated by Ford. The Democrats had complete control of the Senate. He had a conservative voting record prior to being appointed to the Supreme Court, and was the candidate that was most likely to get through the Senate in the wake of the 1974 elections that gave the Democrats a large majority in the Senate. Additionally, abortion was not yet the salient issue in 1975 that it became soon thereafter.
Sandra Day O'Connor started out voting pro-life on the Court and moved left on the issue of abortion as the years rolled by, along with most other issues.
Anthony Kennedy was Reagan's third choice after Bork and Ginsburg. Like O'Connor, Kennedy began as a pro-life vote and moved left as the years rolled by but not completely. He was the fifth vote upholding the partial birth abortion ban in Gonzales v. Carhart (2007).
David Souter was the "stealth nominee" of Bush to get a nomination through a Senate dominated by the Democrats. The confirmation fight that Clarence Thomas went through the following year demonstrated the lengths that the Democrats would go to against a nominee they knew would vote to overturn Roe. Souter was thought to be a conservative and the pro-aborts opposed him. Once he was on the Court his votes revealed him to be a liberal on abortion and all other issues.
You didn't include in your tally John Roberts and Samuel Alito, both of whom voted in Gozalez to uphold the ban on partial birth abortion and should be included on the pro-life side of the ledger.
You also didn't include these justices: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, both pro-aborts, appointed by Bill Clinton, and Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, appointed by Obama. Although Sotomayor and Kagan have not yet voted on abortion, based on their prior statements I believe they can be placed in the pro-abort camp.
Your analysis simply ignores the fact that the Democrat party is the party of death when it comes to abortion and that they are the reason why Roe has not been ruled unconstitutional yet.
December 29, 2011 at 1:54 am
McClarey,
Ford was a Republican. Roe vs. Wade was issued in 1973. Abortion was a huge issue in 1975. Maybe you don't remember.
Sandra O'Connor was NEVER a pro-life vote on the Court. She was and always has been a solid pro-death vote. The Republicans had complete control of the Senate. Reagan could have picked whomever he wanted. Heck, he could have picked BORK!
Kennedy was never a pro-life vote on the Court. He was and always has been a solid pro-death vote. If your threshold for considering someone "pro-life" is whether they will vote to uphold outlawing the stabbing of the head of a partially delivered infant (as long as the mother doesn't have a headache or some other "health" issue), then we have too much of a gap in our respective "pro-life" labels.
Souter was not a stealth nominee. Any honest pro-lifer knew he was a pro-deather. He sat on the board of a hospital that did abortions. Howard Phillips even testified against him at the Judiciary committee hearings because he was a pro-deather.
I didn't include anyone after Clarence Thomas because my point, if you read my original post, was that there were 6 CONSECUTIVE Justices that were appointed by REPUBLICAN presidents after Roe vs. Wade. 4 of those 6 were pro-death, and it was not a secret to anyone who was interested in knowing that. If the Republican party were pro-life, you would have had an 8-1 pro-life majority when Slick Willie took over in 1993. Instead, you had a 4-5 minority. This is inexcusable for a party that claims to be "pro-life". Your analysis ignores those facts.
December 29, 2011 at 2:59 am
Vehemence is no substitute for knowledge Geronimo.
Abortion was not the issue in 1975 that it became in later years. I was 18 at the time and vividly recall that year and the political climate.
I assume from your comments on O'Connor that you are not an attorney or a student of the Supreme Court. She voted to uphold regulations against abortion in City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Rights (1983) and in Thornburgh v. American College of Gynecologists (1986) and in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989). She did not join the pro-abort faction of the Court until Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990.
As to Anthony Kennedy, he upheld abortion regulations in Webster and Hodgson, mentioned above. He joined the proabort faction with Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) but not entirely as indicated by his decision upholding the partial birth abortion ban in 2007.
Your analysis continues to ignore the role of the Democrat Party. Even just looking at the period you choose to cover, the Democrats controlled the Senate for all of those years except for 1981-87. That time period allowed the Republicans to get Antonin Scalia, my judicial hero, on the Court, and to make the adamantly pro-life Rehnquist Chief Justice. Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed during this time period, and she voted pro-life throughout Reagan's tenure as President. The Democrats took back the Senate in the 1986 election and kept it until the 1994 election. But for this period Roe would have been history as Bork would have supplied the necessary vote to overturn Roe. Your ire against the Republicans is wholly misplaced.
In regard to Souter here is what the head of NOW said about him at his confirmation hearing:
When abortion became legal," Yard continued, now almost desperate, "women in the United States became free because they could now control their reproductive lives. For 17 years women have had this freedom. But by your consideration of David Souter for appointment to the Supreme Court, you are really considering ending freedom for women in this country."
They were concerned about Souter because in 1976 when he was Attorney General of the State of New Hampshire his office had submitted a brief against Medicaid funding of abortion referring to the "killing of unborn children".
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/31/us/souter-is-linked-to-anti-abortion-brief.html
December 29, 2011 at 7:10 am
You're the one lacking in knowledge, McClarey.
Not a single case you cite actually banned a single abortion. So O'Connor upheld some bogus "judge-notification" law. Bid deal. I assume from your comments that you don't know what you are talking about.
It was well known to any honest pro-lifers that O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter were not pro-life at the time of their appointments to the Court. To try to say otherwise is absurd. There were numerous pro-lifers who publicly came out against all three. Howard Phillips actually testified at the hearings against both O'Connor and Souter precisely because they were pro-aborts. You're going to take what Molly Yard says over Howard Phillips?
And abortion WAS a big issue in 1975 and it has remained THE issue. You must have been out to lunch at the time.
Your love of the Republicans is entirely misplaced. They had the chance to end abortion and they blew it. Those are the facts. Trying to blame the Senate Democrats is absurd. When it came time to vote for the 2 Clinton appointments, Ginsburg and Breyer, the Republicans in the Senate were almost unanimous in their support. Of course, I'm sure you'll find some convoluted way to explain that also.
You can rationalize all you want, but the facts are the facts. 6 consecutive Republican appointments after Roe vs. Wade – 4 pro-aborts, 2 pro-lifers – nice record for the Republican party. Those are the facts and you can't change them.
December 29, 2011 at 9:58 am
Thank you Geronimo for amply demonstrating that you have nothing of a substantive nature to offer to this discussion. I can understand why you do not attach your actual name to your comments.
December 29, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Like I said – the facts are the facts. Sorry you can't accept them and must resort to ad hominem attacks.
December 29, 2011 at 3:20 pm
I don't have time to read all of the previous comments. The reason Rick Perry just changed his mind on the rape exception is because he just met Rebecca Kiesling at the Pro-Life gathering in Iowa. She changed his mind. If you have never heard of her then please look her up. She has a very powerful story. I believe him because I know that she was very happy to have changed his mind.
December 29, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Donald, please feel free to read the Constitution and, reasoning from there, based on the checks and balances that exist in the document, construct a constitutional but alternative means to bring an unconstitutional court to heel. This will be far more profitable to you than arguing with people on the internet.
A little clue would be to reason from the document itself rather than allowing yourself to be influenced by what the court says about itself.
December 29, 2011 at 10:55 pm
"Donald, please feel free to read the Constitution and, reasoning from there, based on the checks and balances that exist in the document, construct a constitutional but alternative means to bring an unconstitutional court to heel."
Done August. It is called amending the Constitution. Short of that there is no other constitutional way to reverse a Supreme Court decision ruling that a law is unconstitutional without the Supreme Court reversing its prior decision.
December 30, 2011 at 1:37 am
Interestingly, it can be maintained that Judicial Review is itself unconstitutional, since it's, well, not in the Constitution.
I'm pretty sure the Founders meant for the president's veto power to be the assurance of Constitutionality, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure that would necessarily work, but it probably wouldn't be much worse.
Huh. How do you get the power of the court to strike things down as unconstitutional, struck down as unconstitutional? Maybe amend the Constitution so it says so?
Deep.