The GOP's Abortion Anxiety (Newsweek)

[norml]

The GOP's Abortion Anxiety

The pro-life movement is on a roll. So why are the Republican Party's top guns suddenly so shy on the subject?



Greg Latza / PeopleScapes-WPN for Newsweek
Across the Divide: A pro-life Catholic (in foreground) faces pro-choice activists in Sioux Falls


By Howard Fineman and Evan Thomas
Newsweek

March 20, 2006 issue - When South Dakota approved a law sharply restricting abortion last week, many pro-life Republicans around the country sounded a loud hallelujah. But at least one very senior Republican did not seem at all eager to join in the chorus. As Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, flew to Memphis to attend the first gathering of potential GOP presidential candidates for 2008, a NEWSWEEK reporter asked him if he had anything to say about the South Dakota law. "No," he said. Did he plan to make a statement on that topic at the Republican gathering in Memphis? "No" was the answer. Would he ever be willing to comment on the topic, other than to say that it's up to the states to make their own choices on abortion? Again, the answer was "no." The look on his face was more expressive. It appeared to ask, "Are you kidding?"

Why such reticence to embrace glad tidings? After all, the abortion issue has been good to the Republican Party. It has energized Roman Catholic and evangelical grass-roots activists and allowed the GOP to paint pro-choice Democrats as cultural extremists, out of step with Main Street and the heartland. But a recent flurry of activity on abortion is making Republican politicians nervous. With states moving to restrict abortion and the Supreme Court drawing closer to the day when it might actually reverse Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision guaranteeing a woman's right to an abortion, GOP leaders see big political risks.

They may be in the awkward position of getting more than they asked for. The South Dakota law, for instance, would allow abortions only to save the life of the mother, not in cases of rape or incest. That is further than most Americans want to go. By a roughly two-to-one margin, polls show, people want to uphold the basic abortion right enshrined in Roe v. Wade, even if they approve of some restrictions, like parental notification. "I'm pro-life, but you can't wear the thing out," says Clarke Reed, the legendary architect of the GOP in Mississippi. "I'm worried about it." With reason: his own state legislature is moving in a direction similar to South Dakota's.

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"Republicans are going to be the ones who look like extremists," says former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who lost his seat in 2004 after being beaten up on the abortion issue for years. That does not mean, however, that Democrats are rushing to call attention to the Republicans' dilemma. In the upcoming midterm elections, the Democrats don't plan to spend a dime on ads highlighting the abortion issue, according to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the savvy Chicago pol who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He wouldn't spell out the reasons, but a top party staffer (who declined to be quoted out of deference to his bosses) told NEWSWEEK: "These guys are gun-shy because they're used to getting clobbered on the issue."


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http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11786788/site/newsweek/

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. Um.. how is it that DEMs are "out of touch with Main St." when the country

does NOT want a ban by a 2:1 margin? :shrug: :shrug: :shrug:

[tularetom]

3. This guy Emanuel is a brain dead idiot

They are going to get clobbered in the corporate media whethter they take a stand or not. They might as well get clobbered for something they had the backbone to stand up for as something they remained silent on. The puke party is way out on a very slender limb on this issue and if these guys showed some cojones they'd gain a lot of respect in red Amurka. I doubt it will happen though, since they think they way be "tough" is to agree with everything the pubs propose (or at least not stand against it).

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

4. Agreed on the brain dead idiot part. Why the HELL NOT use WEDGE issues as

a wedge to shove straight up the Repubs' arse for a change?

How much of a poll majority do Dems NEED, as a national party, before taking the wood to the Repubs for being on the "wrong" side of it? 2:1 ain't enough? What about 9:1? 99:1? Sheesh.

[cali]

10. Unbelievably stupid

Rahm Emanuel is a total idiot not to use this. Just unbelievable.

[depakid]

14. Emanuel and his ilk are EXACTLY why the Dems lose

and why I'm not at all confident about 2006.

Dems like these are the reason that Republicans haven't been painted (tarred and feathered) as the extremists that they are for all these years. I count 6 elextions now that Emanuel types have been setting the "strategy." And I see 6 straight losses- and what's looking like a 7th.

Abortion is only one of MANY issues where progressive positions are majority opinions- and yet assholes like him recruit candidates who run away from them- while at the same time, legitimizing the far right- keeping there from ever being any sort of coherent nationalized campaign.

[Erika]

2. We've all seen the Turk family who walks on all fours

The mother and father were "closely related" and the children are mentally retarded, but South Dakota will force women victims of incest to bear the child, and deal with the father's rights.

I've never seen South Dakota other than "flying over" and I never will.

But the GOP stuck the carrot of no abortions to the right and they bought it. Let them live with the results.

[babylonsister]

5. Great correlation I never thought about, though that picture

of that family, despite the fact it came from Ntl Geo, never rang too true. They were in famiiar 'Turkish' attire, gallavanting on the beach, walked on all fours, but only had shoes on their feet? If it was a photo op, for who?

[Erika]

6. I saw the family on CNN

The scientists are studying the family for evolution or deevolution links.

The picture rings completely true. The mental retardation is clear in the faces and the eyes. The physical defects have also been documented.

But maybe governor Rounds will dress them well and stick a popsicle in their mouths and call them mascots for the antichoice, antiwomen group.

[babylonsister]

7. I only saw one picture, so I shouldn't have an opinion until it's

justified; I always think Nat'l Geo is the best of, but I really haven't seen any proof to make a determination, and CNN isn't going to be my arbiter. :)

[Erika]

9. Just a look into their eyes as they ate says it all

The film is also being shown around the world.

[niyad]

8. "be careful what you ask for, you might get it" is a standard metaphysical

concept. guess the repukes weren't paying attention.

[greenman3610]

11. that's why I think this SD statute is a good thing

I've been waiting for 25 years for someone to make the
phonies in the GOP put up or shut up on abortion.
Bush doesnt give a rats ass about fetuses, and
neither did Reagan, they have been using the
brain dead Pro Life lobby as a fund raising
tool and no more..

[complain jane]

13. I agree!

[complain jane]

12. Abortion was meant to be a political football for the GOP, nothing more.

I always suspected that the abortion issue was just a bunch of hot air and postulating by the GOP just to throw their religious base a bone every now and then by looking like they wanted to outlaw abortion.

Now that they've got what they claimed to want, they're going to look like the extremists because mainstream America, I think, supports a woman's right to choose.

I hope the whole thing comes right down on their heads.

Let them implode all on their own. It will be fun to watch.

[genieroze]

15. If they outlaw abortion, the glue that binds these psychos will start to

dissolve. My husband is right when he says let them outlaw abortion, let them outlaw homosexuality, let these right wing nut religious psychos get everything they want. Then maybe the majority of Americans will wake the f**k up! The frog's at the boiling point.