I'm attempting to look up the abortion voting records or positions of all the prominent speakers at the Republican National Convention. I'm righteously steamed that the most notable ones, Schwarzenegger, Pataki, and Guiliani, are all pro-abort Republicans who call themselves Catholic. What about McCain? Not Catholic, but pro-abort, right?
Please post in the comments if you can point me in the right direction to find their stance on abortion, and let me know if I'm leaving any names out. I have never been a card-carrying Republican, and this is one of the reasons. The tent is too big if pro-lifers are marginalized in such an important forum.
Kate O'Beirne has some thoughts on the topic. Again, on NRO.
At the Big Apple convention, three Kerry Catholics will be representing the millions of faithful Catholics being aggressively courted by the Bush campaign. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will likely be heard from as a congressional leader, but haven't senators who have been on point on crucial issues like abortion, cloning, same-sex marriage, and international human rights earned primetime placement alongside their tormentor John McCain? Conservative Republicans should be asking why senators like Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback aren't enjoying the same public embrace as the New York Times' favorite Republican.
McCain voting record is fairly pro-life, though he voted against FMA.
Here is a list of his votes by the NRLC
http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/bio/keyvotes/?id=192&lvl=C
Judy Brown should have all this posted on the ALL website...Im pretty sure she has the list up.
www.all.org
Yeah, McCain ran in the 2000 primaries as the "not a religious conservative" candidate, and he's never led with his chin on abortion in the manner that, say, Santorum has.
But his voting record is strongly pro-life.
I did some research on this and posted the results on my blog. They're incredibly disturbing. You can read about them here.
Thanks for the help and the links! Nathan, you did a far better job getting all the info together than I would have. I must say, though, that this is not going to change my vote for President. The Democrats are proportionally much worse on life issues. I might post on this later today.
While I think the bishops need to be consistent with these parishoners as well, I'm much more concerned at this time as to the judging records of those judges that will be on the ballots this November 2nd. They have more power than any Senator, and yet we voters know nothing about them when we vote for or against them.
We only have until July 30th to find out and spread the information. Then McCain-Feingold kicks in and only the major media may comment on politics until after the election. The rest of us could find ourselves facing fines or worse, if we dare speak out.
We have to dump the republican party.....after the election.
NRLC also has voting records and I suspect that each state Right to Life
has information on judges as well..??
Or state Catholic conferences too??
http://www.nrlc.org see the right hand column for the link to congressional voting records
We must remember that the conventions are nothing more than publicity stunts aimed at the middle 20% of the electorate which is at stake in any Presidential election. This 20% is soft on life issues - softly pro-life or softly pro-abortion. I think this explains the choice of speakers.
The only hope of reversing R v W in the foreseeable future is for Bush to be reelected with a strong enough Senate majority to get pro-life judges onto the Supreme Court. Even a pro-abortion Republican senator helps here because he would not engage in the obstructionist tactics of pro-abortion Democrats.
The majority party is the party that captures the center of the electorate. The ideologues of the majority party get key appointments that affect policy behind the scenes. It is the dominance of the Democrats in the 1930-2000 period that explains the condition of the federal judiciary.
Even a pro-abortion Republican senator helps here because he would not engage in the obstructionist tactics of pro-abortion Democrats
At least we hope that's the case.