Sorry, Hil, Redstaters Aren't This Dumb

SEN. CLINTON IS ARGUING THAT WE CAN FIND COMMON GROUND ON ABORTION BY WORKING TO REDUCE THE CAUSES OF ABORTION WHILE LEAVING IT LEGAL.

No way, Jose.

I know that you have presidential ambitions, Hil, but that dog won’t hunt.

Nothing but a total ban on abortion is acceptable.

Of course, the junior senator from New York ain’t trying to win over true redstaters. She’s trying to appeal to the mushy middle.

It’s up to solid pro-lifers to educate them away from taking the bait.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

17 thoughts on “Sorry, Hil, Redstaters Aren't This Dumb”

  1. It appears she’s testing a new strategy of weeping over the tragedy of abortion in public, while quietly still probably doing everything possible to appoint judges who will never allow any limits on abortion.

    If Hillary is the best candidate the Dems can serve up, Jeb is going to slaughter them.

    Jeb vs. Hillary 2008! 🙂

  2. I haven’t seen it stated any where, but I think the next presidential election is the first election where the democratics probably lost a good candidate to legalized abortion. Probably the candidate they need now.

  3. More evidence that Sen. Clinton is practically sprinting toward the center, as I heard it put on Al Kresta’s show last Friday. And the thought that abortions should be “safe, legal & rare” is shared by Planned Parenthood; 34 percent of its clinic income comes from abortions. Rare? Hardly. Maybe that’s why Planned Parenthood aborted 138 babies for every adoption referral to an outside agency, per their 2004 annual fiscal report?

    What does she mean by “people of good faith”? Faith in what Senator? Self? Other people? The *system*? God? I’m not sure. It’s way too vague; perhaps purposely so.

    And does her current favorite term “teenage celibacy” & the way she uses it sound to anyone else like “just say no”? Whenever I bring up the fact that folks wouldn’t have any need for contraception & abortions if they’d control themselves & their appetites, I get very heated responses from pro-choicers that I’m trying to impose my Christianity to limit the sexual freedom of others! So . . . what’s Sen. Clinton doing?

    Hmm . . . I need a nap.

  4. Maybe this is a positive thing, in general. Sure, it falls far below the standard I would like to see the Democrats embrace but it may be a sign that the Democrats are ready to not be so closed-minded over the abortion issue. If Hillary does run in 2008 with a line like that, I’m sure I won’t be fooled into believing her to be sincere but perhaps she will make the party a more comfortable place to be for Democrats who are pro-life.

  5. Surely my fellow redstaters are that dumb at least in this way: if Hillary says we might limit abortions but not ban them it’s the work of the devil. If the GOP candidate says the same thing, well hum haw, politics is the art of the possible after all. So many of my fellow papists are such stooges for the GOP.

  6. Hi Kevin!

    I don’t think in this instance that a red stater’s failure to be impressed with Hillary’s statement is an example of Republican-tilted hypocrisy. There is very little the Clintons have been sincere about.

  7. Moreover, Bush has tried to do some of what public opinion now seems to allow – various pieces of pro-life legislation; various pro-life executive orders; various pro-life judicial nominees – whereas the likes of Hillary would do just the opposite. Moreover, Bush has tried – however inarticulately and hesitantly – to call for cultural shifts that will make further pro-life legal advances more likely. Hillary has not. There is a wide and deep divide between their approaches.

  8. After all the hype in the press about “values voters” don’t be too surprised to hear the Dems wrapping their ambitions in a whole ‘nother vocabulary. I’d bet the next Democrat campaign will have enough God-speak to make Jerry Fallwell sound like Snoop Dog in comparison.

  9. I just found out that Senator Clinton will be speaking at my Catholic alma mater:

    “Hon. John J. LaFalce, Peter Canisius Distinguished University Professor at Canisius College is hosting U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the next speaker in the Lecture Series on the Governmental Role in Effectuating the Corporal Works of Mercy.

    “Senator Clinton will be speaking on ‘The Governmental Role in Caring for the Sick.'”

    I would have hoped that the college practiced the corporal work of mercy of correcting the sinner by refusing to let the Senator speak and telling her why.

    Andy

  10. Spiritual work of mercy, spiritual.

    List here

    By using the correct terminology, you will help make dreadful pedants happy. 0:)

  11. One of the subtle word associations that I’m seeing more and more in the articles I read is unintended = unwanted. If you follow through the drudge link to the NY Times link, they quote Hilary stating a statistic saying that 53% of unintended pregnancy’s come from the 7% of women who don’t use birth control. She was using the statistic to show how we must stop unwanted pregnancies.

    That logicaly doesn’t follow.

    I previously had read an article about that statistic and the data gathering had no way to determine if the pregnancy was unwanted, just whether the couple was trying to have children and whether they were using birth control. It worked out something like this: 13% of women aren’t using birth control. 60% of those women are trying to get pregnant. Therefore, 7% of women are at risk for an “unintended” pregnancy. I forget how they got from there to determine what other pregnancies were “unintended” (maybe every pregnancy of those on birth control were assumed to be “unintended”?) but using that figure they could determine that 53% of “unintended” pregnancies came from that 7% of women who don’t use birth control.

    That all seems logical enough, but the mis-step is assuming that because it is “unintended” it must be unwanted.

    Well, my wife just gave birth to a beautiful boy last week, from a pregnancy that was “unintended” and we were not using birth control.

    Hwever I can guarantee you that my young son Andrew is very wanted.

  12. But it appears that George Bush has had the last laugh on the Red Staters. I understand that Air America chose inauguration day to “out” Ken Mehlman, the new chairman of the RNC, as a homosexual. If this allegation is true (Mr. Mehlman has not denied the charge but merely has declined to discuss his personal life), the message that Bush is sending to the millions of Social Value voters who made the difference for his reelection could not be clearer: “shove off.” (Bush had already personally insisted on naming Joann Davidson, a member of the advisory board of Republicans for Choice, as the RNC co-chairman.)

    At least Hil has principles (even though they are heinous ones) and stands by them. Unlike our President whose only committment seems to be to bomb countries around the world into freedom.

  13. But it appears that George Bush has had the last laugh on the Red Staters. I understand that Air America chose inauguration day to “out” Ken Mehlman, the new chairman of the RNC, as a homosexual. If this allegation is true (Mr. Mehlman has not denied the charge but merely has declined to discuss his personal life), the message that Bush is sending to the millions of Social Value voters who made the difference for his reelection could not be clearer: “shove off.” (Bush had already personally insisted on naming Joann Davidson, a member of the advisory board of Republicans for Choice, as the RNC co-chairman.)

    At least Hil has principles (even though they are heinous ones) and stands by them. Unlike our President whose only committment seems to be to bomb countries around the world into freedom.

  14. So under Marv’s analysis our options are:

    (1) vote for someone who may be lying to us (W)

    (2) vote for someone who truthfully tells us “screw your values” (JFK II); or

    (3) don’t vote (or vote 3rd party – same thing)

    None are particularly compelling. But if the only way to realistically stop (2) – a known quantity opposed to your values – is to vote for (1) – an unknown quantity that may or may not be against your values. That is probably the best of bad options. At least W has the decency to first say “I love you.”

  15. Mary,

    I apologize for the spiritual/corporal mix-up. It seems I have given you the opportunity to “instruct the ignorant”.

    Andy

  16. How come people like Hillary will never say, “I think we should allow marijuana to be legal while doing blah blah blah blah to make it less used”? I would argue that it’s because it’s not politically expedient to do so.

    Doing the same thing with keeping abortion legal, though, allows a lot of weasel room. “We’re all people of good faith,” she’ll intone if she’s successful, once someone tries to call her on her “safe, legal, and rare” bona fides.

    Mutatis mutandi I’ve seen this happen in the Catholic Church all too often. One priest even told a friend of mine that he thought orthodoxy in a parish was “divisive.” Who needs orthodoxy when we’re all “people of good faith”?

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