CHOICE WORDS
Re: Jeffrey Lord’s
An Open Letter to Michael Smerconish and Jennifer
Stockman:
Toward the end of Jeffrey Lord’s open letter,
addressed to Michael Smerconish and to me (February 24, 2010), he
poses the central question of his marathon missive: “At some
point, one has to ask, when is enough enough?” My sentiments,
precisely. And I’m not just talking about Lord’s rambling
assertion that my position as a pro-choice Republican is somehow
anti-choice. What I and other reasonably-minded Republicans have
had enough of is the party’s extremes exercising disproportionate
influence on policy and political decision-making.
Mr. Lord is right on one point: the abortion debate has
been costly and divisive for our party and for our country. But
he points his finger in the wrong direction.
Moderates like myself and others in the Republican Majority
for Choice organization support a Big Tent GOP,
which focuses on common sense solutions — not division. We have
members who are personally anti-abortion but support the ideal
that families and individuals should make choices best for them,
whether that be adoption, parenthood or abortion. Furthermore, we
support proven and effective ways to reduce the number of
abortions through access to prevention methods, family planning
and education instead of laws that would criminalize women who
seek abortions.
Mr. Lord’s intellectual calisthenics make no contribution
towards solving biology’s basic dilemma: women will
become pregnant, often unintentionally, and they sometimes will
do so when it is virtually impossible for them to successfully
raise children, with or without a partner. On top of that,
pregnancy itself can be fraught with danger to a woman’s health
and well-being. At those moments, women need to consult with
their doctors, their families and their own consciences — not a
political party looking to round up votes in the next
election.
Facts are stubborn things. Studies show that abortion rates
in countries in which the procedure is illegal are similar to
those in which it is legal. The starkest divergence between
places where abortion is legal and illegal is the safety of the
procedure and the number of woman who may die. The consequence of
Roe is that American lives have been saved and
preserved. Legal abortions are safe abortions — even if we
personally aren’t happy that they occur.
But this assumes that Mr. Lord spends time thinking about
the health and well-being of American women. He
seems more interested in the intellectual back and forth about
what constitutes a conservative, so let’s return to that line of
argument.
I was raised on the idea that less government frees the
individual to live a productive, entrepreneurial, responsible
life. Uncle Sam should stay out of your bank account, your
bedroom and your doctor’s office. Giving states the option to ban
abortion, as Mr. Lord argues, would be the
antithesis of this Republican ideal. Legislatures
and governors would have the power to dictate the very dynamics
of the American family: its size, its economic prospects, even
its physical condition (depending on the mother’s ability to
carry and bear a child, and the child’s own health once it’s
delivered).
Is this the conservative position in 2010 America?
Mr. Lord asserts that I support a judicial philosophy that
is “expressly designed to circumvent the real choices the America
people wish to make,” which, by extension, makes me anti-choice.
He attempts to back up that nonsense with a misguided
dissertation on the court’s history with slavery. He conveniently
ignores more salient decisions, such as Brown v. Board of
Education, which declared separate public schools for black
and white children to be unconstitutional (I’m assuming he agreed
with that bit of judicial activism). Brown upended state
laws that denied black children access to equal educational
experiences. Similarly, Roe prevents states from
legislating away the rights of women. Access to quality family
planning — which shapes the entire lives of adults and children
— should not be dictated by where you live or how much money you
have.
Unlike Mr. Smerconish, I have not left the Republican
Party. As a voter and activist I still believe in the Party’s
philosophy of limited government. My views are completely
consistent with that philosophy. Where I differ with the
fundamentalists’ right is their failure to
acknowledge the views that I and so many other Republicans hold,
and to work with us toward common goals.
The GOP’s recent surge is an exciting development for those
of us who believe in a vibrant two-party system. However, this
momentum will grind to a screeching halt if Party leaders pursue
litmus tests for candidates, with abortion being at the top of
the list. GOP victories came from the middle, where the American
people happen to be. Groups like the Republican Majority for
Choice remain central to those victories because we signal to
voters that the right to personal freedom remains one the most
important GOP ideals, and one which we will not
easily give up to a vocal minority.
Mr. Lord, Mr. Lincoln would be proud.
– Jennifer Stockman
Former chair,
Republican Majority Coalition for Choice
Jeffrey Lord
replies:
Thanks to Jennifer Stockman for responding.
First, whether she realizes it or not — and the “not”
seems operative here — while Ms. Stockman cites the GOP’s
“extremes” she is quick to call her side in this
almost-40-year-old mess “reasonably-minded Republicans.” She
seems honestly unaware that to many she and the Republican
Majority Coalition for Choice have repeatedly and deliberately
book-ended themselves as the other extreme in this equation,
making them appear as the “Non-Republican Minority Coalition for
No Choice.” There is nothing “moderate” or reasonable about
denying choice on abortion policy to the American people.
Typical of this mindset is Ms. Stockman’s line that implies
I have not spent time “thinking about the health and well being
of American women.” Sigh. The obvious counterpoint of the
pro-life activist (which, I should say, I am decidedly not) is to
wonder whether Ms. Stockman spends any time thinking about the
health and well-being of the millions of babies whose lives have
been snuffed out because of Roe. Both lines are, well,
out of line. Yet typical of the raw emotion that Roe
brings to the surface, typical of its tendency to push good,
rational people to extremes, one of which Ms. Stockman occupies.
And for the record, I harbor no such unkind thoughts about
Jennifer Stockman who, I believe, is the mother of, I’m sure, two
wonderful daughters and doubtless loves babies.
A few points:
• The Big Tent
argument. Sounds wonderful, infers broadmindedness. Really? In
2004 pro-life Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum had done
the Big Tent thing and provided crucial support for pro-choice
then-Republican Senator Arlen Specter in a tight primary fight
with the conservative Pat Toomey. Specter won, and promptly
thanked Santorum. In 2006 Ms. Stockman went out of her way to
oppose Santorum, running ads against him and editorializing
against him in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
In effect, Ms. Stockman vividly demonstrated the real idea behind
the Big Tent. Which is to say, the Big Tent is for me but not for
thee. She in fact believes religiously in a litmus test on
abortion for candidates, and vigorously demanded a litmus test
for Santorum. She talks the talk but refuses to walk the
walk.
• It startles
to see that Jennifer Stockman says I “conveniently” ignored
Brown v. Board of Education in my list of Supreme Court
decisions that, as with Roe,
deliberately violated the Constitution. I confess I simply
believed that Ms. Stockman understood Brown and no
explanation was needed. Obviously not so. Far from being an
example of judicial activism, Brown was precisely the
judicial antidote to the judicial activism that was Plessy v.
Ferguson, which, in the style of Dred Scott and
Roe, conjured a right for states to segregate, a direct
violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Judge Robert Bork,
famously pro-life and very much the originalist, called
Brown a “great and correct decision,”
which it was. Not because it was morally correct — which it also
was. But because it righted the constitutional wrong that was
Plessy, specifically violating the plain intent of the
Fourteenth Amendment. Plessy,
like Roe, was judicial
activism. Brown is
its opposite.
• To airily
dismiss the idea that “legislatures and governors” — i.e., the
people’s chosen representatives directly elected by those same
people — should set abortion policy, while defending, Roger
Taney-style, the right of judges to write in their own personal
abortion policy prescriptions that deny choice to Americans, is
morally wrong but more to the point constitutionally wrong. To
update the essence of the quote from dissenting Justice Curtis in
Dred Scott, one woman’s common sense is another woman’s
nonsense. Which is why we have a Constitution and the rule of
law. The law is not about Jennifer Stockman or Sarah Palin. It’s
about — the law. Which both Jennifer Stockman and Sarah Palin –
and all the rest of us — have the opportunity to write.
• The
“conservative position” in 2010 America should be to let the
American people chose the abortion policy they wish to
have.
Last.
With the greatest of respect I think Jennifer Stockman
should take a leadership role in resolving this issue for good
while upholding her point of view. Let me suggest the following
language for a proposed 28th Amendment to the
Constitution.
The right of a woman in the United States to have an
abortion is unlimited.
Two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the states, and
the abortion issue is resolved in a simple, quite plain
Constitutional fashion, with the American people getting to chose
the abortion consensus they prefer by supporting or not
supporting it. Surely she could get the support of President
Obama and Speaker Pelosi and, I bet, even the pro-life Harry
Reid, not to mention pro-choice Republicans who are, she insists,
the Republican Majority.
No fuss, no muss. No government in the bedroom. No judges
in the womb. True to the Constitution. Choice for all Americans,
not just judges. Women free at last, as embedded specifically in
the Constitution itself, to “consult with their doctors, their
families and their own consciences — not a political party
looking to round up votes in the next election.” And most
attractive, surely, it would be the end of those irritating
pro-lifers for good.
The problem? Ms. Stockman told Sean Hannity she opposed
abortion at the very last stage of a pregnancy. Which makes
her…drum roll please…not just an opponent of a Constitutional
amendment legalizing abortion, but one of those irritating
pro-lifers after all.
Over to you Jennifer.
Thanks for writing.
