The PAC could have acknowledged both candidates, instead of choosing to endorse one over the other. National Right to Life rates McCain 77% and JD Hayworth 100%. The PAC endorsed Huckabee over McCain in the presidential election. This is no longer the PAC I used to know and love.
I have served on the board of AZ Right to Life for over four years, and its associated PAC for almost that long. No longer. I resigned from the PAC last week over its decision to endorse McCain in the U.S. Senate Republican primary election in Arizona. The decision caught me off guard, because the PAC endorsed Huckabee over McCain in the 2008 presidential primary. Huckabee doesn't even have any ties to this state, yet we still selected him over McCain. JD Hayworth is a 12-year Congressman from Arizona with a 100% lifetime rating from National Right to Life. McCain's lifetime rating? 77%.
The PAC could have chosen a middle ground solution, to "acknowledge" both candidates instead of choosing one to endorse, which I recommended as an alternative. But they didn't. This is extremely disturbing to me that the PAC could swing on the one hand from endorsing Huckabee over McCain two years ago, to endorsing McCain over Hayworth. It is true that prolife incumbents are given some weight over non-incumbents. But it is only some weight, and considering McCain is arguably not much of a prolifer, that should be outweighed – or at least balanced – by Hayworth's outstanding lengthy prolife record.
McCain has been a strong proponent of taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research, voting for legislation to authorize such. Not just research on these tiny aborted babies, but taxpayer-FUNDED research. McCain co-sponsored campaign finance legislation with Sen. Russ Feingold that greatly crippled the ability of one-issue organizations like Right to Life from influencing politics. He was one of the "Gang of 14," a group of moderate Senators that worked together to block prolife conservative judges from being appointed by the Bush administration.
Arizona Right to Life's base is very conservative and generally does not like McCain. The organization must be accountable to its base – not powerful political leaders with their own agendas.
Granted I am currently a paid employee on the JD Hayworth for Senate campaign. But that would not have affected my decision to resign from the PAC. I have been exposing McCain's liberal record for years going back to 2002. And I was highly influential in the decision to endorse Huckabee two years ago. I was not permitted a vote this time due to my paid work on the Hayworth campaign. Yet a brand-new PAC member whose law firm had represented McCain was permitted to vote, as well as a longtime close friend and supporter of McCain's on the PAC, and a newer member whose law firm had also represented McCain. It was troubling that a couple of new PAC members were able to come in and overrule others – including the President of Arizona Right to Life who is on the PAC, and I am the Secretary of the Board of AZRTL – who have worked in the prolife movement for years. JD Hayworth has the endorsement of six former Arizona Right to Life and PAC Executive Directors and PAC Chairmen.
If this is how politics is done, I want no part of it. I fight for the unborn, not just some of the unborn.
Reaction from the past AZ Right to Life PAC chair
"Shame on You," reaction from resigned AZ Right to Life events coordinator
JD Hayworth reacts to the endorsement
Life Decisions International: Prolife Leaders Favor Hayworth Over McCain
More Arizona Right to Life Leaders Defect Over McCain Endorsement
Despicable: McCain rips off the AZ Right to Life website
Video of McCain stating his real views on abortion
Abortion is such a straw man issue. We could multiply our abortion rate by 10 and still have a growing population. We can’t employ the residents we already have, so I see no reason to regulate abortion from a practical sense. When we have abortion rates like Russia does, I’ll start caring.
China, a real threat to our economic well-being, just laughs all the way to bank as we squabble about this nonsense.
From a moral sense, I’m more a Machiavelli fan, and I usually look at things from an amoral position. (This is why I find the “immoral” case against socialism to be nonsense) In this case, the amount of abortions versus the population of the state in question does not warrant the amount of effort we put into this issue. It just doesn’t.
Morality applied in government is as likely as immorality to cause bad leadership decisions. It has been proven time and again that a state can not successfully legislate morality.
Yeah, we’re only killing a few million, it’s not so bad as Russia. No reason to worry.
Speaking of strawmen, what law is there that does not define a moral position?
I personally don’t see how anyone favoring the redistributionist, entitlement driven systems such as the social democracies that exist in the EU could possibly favor abortion. Such a society should logically be ‘natalist’. How else is the society to guarantee subsequent generations of newly minted workers to supply the tax receipts that he various entitlement programs are dependent upon for funding?
Societies live and die, if you’ll pardon the pun, by the replacement birth rate. Most of Europe is showing birthrates well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman for population. These countries are going out of business. It’s the same with Russia and China. China’s ‘one-child’ policy has guaranteed that there will come a time when that country’s population will not be able to support its economy.
The population of Japan is preparing to become older that it has ever been. With birth rates declining, how likely is it that any country birthing below replacement rate will ever be able to pull itself from the triple death spiral of an aging population coupled with a shrinking work force and rising entitlement costs?
The abortion rate is, again, not that high in the US. Certainly not high enough to the population growth of this nation. On top of that, we also gain huge amounts of citizens from naturalization each year.
I am personally opposed to abortion. I would never ask a girlfriend to have one, nor would I recommend one for my theoretical daughter. I honestly don’t care if it is legal or not.
That being said, I don’t find it worth fighting over to extent that our nation does. You have to draw a line between that which is personally distasteful and that which is practical. Outlawing abortion is simply just another headache we collectively don’t need.
Speaking of strawmen, what law is there that does not define a moral position?
Laws against murder are not just moral, they optimize living conditions for citizens of a given nation. So there may be many such laws that optimize living conditions that have nothing to do with morality whatsoever. Remember morality varies from culture to culture, whereas mathematical optimization generally has only one solution for a given system state.
At the same time, we don’t have a legal protection against any moral wrong either, do we? Should we? For example, it’s not illegal to call your mother a senile old windbag. But it is immoral (honor thy mother and thy father.)
Martel732
“We could multiply our abortion rate by 10 and still have a growing population.” Really think so?
Documented live births in the US (2000 – 2005) average a total of 4,074,470 births per year. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005067.html The average amount of abortions in the US is 1,328,000 per year. .http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/aboramt.html The number of annual naturalizations in the Us is @ 650,000 http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/74.pdf Multiplying the abortion rate by ten-fold as you suggest would be 13,280,000 abortions per year as compared to 4,074,470 births. Adding in the 650,000 naturalizations would yield a negative gap of 8,555,530 per year. I’m certain that given these referenced figures you’ll be willing to retract your above quoted statement.
Secondly; you’ve not addressed my comment that any social democracy, must by definition, be natalist in order to ensure the continuation of tax receipts to fund future entitlement programs.
Third you state that the abortion rate in this country is not that high. As compared to what? Would you please provide a measure. Is 1.3 million per year ‘acceptable’, ‘not enough’ or ‘too many’? Just asking.
I was, um, exaggerating. What would even cause such a leap in abortions? But I did learn something there. Given your own numbers, we have plenty of cushion for growth even with the current abortion rate.
It’s true that social democracies must maintain a certain birth rate to maintain economic viability. Some are better than others. France and Singapore, for example, have successfully socialy engineered fertility rates above the magic 2.0. Others, like Japan, have failed at this miserably.
As for abortion rates, let’s compare. Russia is the major nation champion at 44.7%. Given that Russia actualy lost population during the 2000 decade, I am in full agreement that this a huge problem. Plus, who the hell want to move to Russia?
The US comes up at a somewhat embarassing 22.6%. It’s about half of Russia’s. Why do over a fifth of pregnant women here choose to abort? I’m sure there is a multitude of reasons, but economic is probably the number one reason.
Let’s look at some of these so-called disfunctional socialist nations. Sweden is in deep crap at 25.8%. They already have a low population. France is up at 21.4%, which is probably why they resorted to social engineering. Similarly, UK and Canada come in at 20.9% and 20.7%, which is probably not so healthy.
However, Germany comes in at 14.4%. One would expect the dour Germans to abort more than that. Belgium is at 13.5% and not-so-wealthy Portugal rings up at 11.9%.
What’s remarkable here is that in all these countries save Sweden, the abortion rate is LOWER than it is here. You would think that those amoral Europeans would just be aborting all over the place, but that’s not the case. It’s even free in most of these countries; they get government money to do it!
Consider your life as a 17-year-old mother in Germany. You can still go to university if you had previously qualified, because they don’t have tuition. And there is state-sponsored child care so you don’t have to pay for that. AND you can get around without the upkeep payment for a car because of nation transit. Under this scenario, an abortion is not remotely justifiable. The subject in question in convenienced, but her overall economic prospects are not hurt significantly.
Consider a 17-year-old mother here. No state sponsored child care. No free university. Everything is spread out, requiring the ownership of a car. If this individual can not get meaningful help from her family (not guaranteed) or the father (certainly not guaranteed) what is she supposed to do? In many cases these people end up on the exact programs conservatives hate so much; ie welfare. Faced with these conditions, abortion becomes much more attractive.
Trying to outlaw abortion is not achieving anything meaningful. Young women faced with early pregnancy in a winner-take-all, anything goes economy logically would be far more likely to consider abortion. If abortion is outlawed, they will just acquire them illegally.
To truly slow abortion, add more options that are available in Germany. By spending SOME money up front, you can prevent the need to spend a LOT of money down the line. The woman in the German example will likely spend far less of her life “on the dole”.
This is a key theory in social democracy that conservatives seem to miss. A society pays for each person that slips through the cracks one way or another. You can not avoid this payment. Don’t want to pay for public child care and university? Then you end up paying for welfare and prisons. This is happening in the US right now as we type. All you can do is attempt to change the quantity and form of payment to a more constructive model.
Martel 732
You ask; “What would even cause such a leap in abortions?” While we are always careful to enshrine the phrase ‘ in the case of rape, incest, or in the diagnosed danger to the health of the mother’ into every piece of federal legislation; when you get to the point where you’re performing over 3,600 such procedures a day, 365 days a year, it is obvious to the most casual observer that this procedure has now become a de-facto method of birth control. Your own statement; “I’m sure there is a multitude of reasons, but economic is probably the number one reason.” Is the proverbial ‘final-nail-in-the-coffin’.
That a significant portion of the population holds to the philosophy that life is to be respected from conception to natural death does not ever enter into the debate. Your own admission that; “I am personally opposed to abortion. I would never ask a girlfriend to have one, nor would I recommend one for my theoretical daughter.” Is enough to let us know that (wink, wink) you really know ‘how the cow ate the cabbage’ as my mother would say. “I’m personally against it , but what is one to do?”
I’d still be interested in your assessment of whether there is too much, not enough, or too little of this particular type of genocide going on as you’ve not addressed this directly as of yet.
If we had a great economy, a 99.9% literacy rate, a budget surplus, a low school dropout rate, low unemployment and no foreign hot spots, I would consider abortion a worthy topic. But these things are not true, and abortion is not worth fighting over at this time.
The Chinese and other Asian powers are laughing at us as they take our wealth year-by-year, inch-by-inch and we sit around and argue about crap like this. We don’t have the resources to enforce current law properly. We don’t need to make additional activities illegal at this time.
I’d rather we didn’t have any abortions. But as I showed you, even very teen-mother-friendly nations such as Germany still have abortions occurring. And we don’t qualify as teen-mother-friendly in any sense of the word.
Since people are going to have sex outside marriage, and they WILL screw up birth control sometimes, so you are going to have a certain number of young, single mothers to deal with. The first step towards reducing abortions is to make this not an economic death sentence. So, in that sense, I don’t think enough is being done.
But we have two different ideas of what needs to be done. And no one ever considers combating abortion by making it not an attractive economic option. I guess that’s socialism, though.
Martel732,
You first wrote, “It has been proven time and again that a state can not successfully legislate morality.”
Then you write, “Laws against murder are not just moral…”
So which is it? Can morality be legislated or not?
Laws against murder are universally considered moral, they optimize the living conditions of citizenry. Laws against abortion are moral to a majority of folks (not universal) and do not work towards living condition optimization at all. Therefore, laws against abortion would only be for moral grounds.
I guess I should have said “It has been proven time and again that a state can not successfully legislate on PURELY morality.” Some concepts happen to be practical and moral at the same time, while some are practical but not moral (Stalinist industrialization), moral but not practical (abortion ban), and some are neither (Cultural Revolution by Mao).
I hope this clears up my position.
Martel732,
I apologize for pressing you, but it is not yet clear to me. You write, “Laws against murder are universally considered moral…” No, murders happen all the time. Many people believe murder is moral (or justified, or not immoral, or whatever teminology you wish to employ. Definitely not “universal,” however).
“…and do not work towards living condition optimization at all.” You write this like it is self-evident. Are you saying that because laws against abortion are not universally held that this is the case, or are you saying that laws against abortion result in this?
Your use of the word “practical” implies a utilitarian approach. Is the purpose of, or effect of morality purely utilitarian?
I guess I’m making too many assumptions too quickly. Nearly all SOCIETIES condemn murder as immoral. They still happen, but murder is almost (to my knowledge) universally recognized as immoral.
Not all societies recognize abortion as immoral. Not all individuals do, either. Therefore, it is going to be much, much harder to apply a rule against abortion than against murder. Only those who recognize abortion as murder will generally be in favor of this.
I lean utilitarian, but really, when I say practical I mean practical. If abortion is illegal, it’s something else for the police to waste their time enforcing.
Also, I am not aware of any strong argument suggesting that legal abortion is lowering living standards. However, arguments can be made that the messes with China and Mexico are lowering living standards for Americans. This to me, makes these issues automatically higher priority.
I see abortion as a straw man issue that both sides use to whip up their troops, while the rest of the world snickers at our short-sighted introversion. If you fix poverty and educational issues, abortion will be reduced as well, and then we can contemplate a ban. A ban can not be contemplated at 10% unemployment and a 22% abortion rate.
Martel732,
What percentage of societies is needed to believe something is moral for it to be moral?
Well any given concept can be moral within any given society, but for something to be considered “universal” morality, I think the number from my philosophy class was 95%. Needless to say, there is not much universal morality.
THE AZ RIGHT TO LIFE ABORTS ITSELF FROM ITS OWN MISSION!
In supporting John McCain for Senator, with his mediocre 77% anti-abortion rating, over JD Hayworth’s stellar 100% pro-life rating the AZ Right to Life has suicidally moved from Political Action Committee, to being a Politicized Action Committee!
Not only has it betrayed its very reason for existence, in siding with John McCain and turning its back on the unborn 23% of the time, when the average pro-life voter realizes what has happened and rightfully revolts against it–in favor of a truly pro-life PAC–the AZ Right to Life organization will have been seen as having ironically aborted itself out of existence!
If I was a pro-abortion athiest, I’d probably give the annual Darwin Award for “…those who improve our gene pool…by accidentally removing themselves from it…” to the AZ Right to Life.
Good job, bozos!
Martel732,
The arbitrary nature of your theory regarding morality and law is anything but utilitarian. You seem to regard morality in terms of how many societies agree whether something is moral, as if morality is a product of society itself.
So, if only 90% of societies regard something as moral, then adequate consensus does not exist to regard something as moral? Is that what a society does, check out other societies to see if they think something is moral? I know of no such process.
In this scenario, you would want to poll the question of the morality of an act to see if there is enough support to deem something moral.
This is not morality. It is pop culture opinion.
That’s the whole point; morality is completely arbitrary. That’s why decisions made my government need to be based on measureables and likelihoods, not morality.
“So there may be many such laws that optimize living conditions that have nothing to do with morality whatsoever.” That is a moral judgment. Your entire presentation has been based on moral preconceptions. You have been using morality to attempt to prove the irrelevance of morality.
Try again.
Umm, okay. What’s your point? We need laws based on morality and not reason? I’m saying subjective morality needs to be irrelevant when crafting laws that affect huge numbers of people because different people have different morals.
I’ll support anti-abortion legislation if I can be shown some kind of benefit to society that makes up for all the hassle of enforcement and extra medical bills of botched illegal abortions.
I think we covered this ground. All laws render moral judgments. Breaking a contract is *wrong*. Stealing is *wrong*. Running a stop sign is *wrong*. Why? Because a contract binds parties to an agreement, and breaking that agreement damages the other party. Damaging someone else is wrong.
Stealing deprives someone of their possessions or money, which is the fruit of their labor and rightfully theirs. Doing such a thing is wrong. Running a stop sign endangers other people, and injuring someone else is wrong.
You have defined morality as being subjective, which is what I have been challenging all along. You have made claims like this: If enough people/societies/courts decide something is moral, then it is. Therefore, if enough people/societies/courts believe something is lawful, it is. No difference.
Morality is a cost/benefit equation for you, which is foreign to the concept of morality and violates its basis.
Reason is not and has never been a basis of law. Reason can be arbitrary, because reason is based on what a person considers reasonable. Further, the process of reasoning carries moral judgments, is based on morality, and is culturally dependent.
If morality is subjective, it no longer is morality, but public opinion. Law, then, is also arbitrary.
Let’s talk about abortion. Abortion kills pre-born genetic humans. Statistically, those humans will grow up into productive members of society. They pay taxes, help people, give to their churches, and buy and sell things. They fund Social Security, plant flowers, and provide the sweat of their brow for the good of their families and communities.
Abortion robs society of productive members and the prosperity they create. Abortion kills future geniuses, future moms, future scientists who might have developed a vaccine or found a solution to some problem. Abortion kills our future indiscriminately, shortchanges society of the benefits they might have brought, and cheapens life itself.
How’s that for a cost/benefit analysis?
Abortion robs society of productive members and the prosperity they create. Abortion kills future geniuses, future moms, future scientists who might have developed a vaccine or found a solution to some problem. Abortion kills our future indiscriminately, shortchanges society of the benefits they might have brought, and cheapens life itself.
I can say all the same things above the conservative attitude toward poor people. Since most abortions are performed by the lower classes, why would conservatives want more poor people around?
Oh, and the US has over 300 million people already. Life is already cheap.
What? Conservatives don’t care about the poor? What an idiotic statement.
Rather than address a single issue I raised in my two posts, you engage in a gratuitous ad hominem.
Textbook example of leftist thinking. Sidestep the issue and engage in character assassination.
It’s neither character assassination, nor a gratuitous ad hominem attack nor an idiotic statement if all available evidence points to that conclusion.
And I did address your points. I’m not sidestepping anything. I think life is cheap; so cheap in fact, that it is not worth enforcing abortion laws. Morality arguments do not sufficiently convince me to change my stance.
Now that you mention it, you did not address my statement either. Why ARE conservatives against abortion again? As I said, I figured they would want FEWER poor people to freeload off them.
Restating your assertion does not make it fact. Since your statement is not true, it is a gratuitous ad hominem.
“Morality arguments do not sufficiently convince me to change my stance.” Please point out where I made a morality argument. Indeed, if anyone is moralizing, it is you.
“…I figured they would want FEWER poor people to freeload off them.” There is nothing in this statement to answer. It makes unwarranted assumptions based on a faulty premise.
I hope others will not choose to divide the pro-life community like those who are resigning (or pretending to resign) over this.
The AZRTL Pac made the right decision to endorse Senator McCain. He is a powerful voice in the US Senate for pro-life issues.
Hayworth cannot be counted on to win the general but he is willing to put this solid Republican seat in jeopardy because he has a political vendeta. The AZRTL would be wrong to support that.
I hope others will use caution before they decide to split the coalition for life over political vendetas.
Mr. Green’s comment; “I hope others will not choose to divide the pro-life community like those who are resigning (or pretending to resign) over this.” Raises an interesting point. That AZRTL backs Senator McCain, who is or has been until lately; on the wrong side of literally every conservative issue. AZRTL supports John McCain because they’ve determined he is more ‘electable’ than candidate Hayworth. Such a statement points out the danger of single-issue PAC’s. We’ll take a RINO that aligns himself with us 77% of the time because we believe he’s more ‘electable’ than the opponent that votes with us 100% of the time.
On either side of the political aisle; single-issue organizations usually do more harm than good. McCain’s ‘switcharoo’ on immigration just to pander and win an election smacks of being rather ‘Arlan Specterish’ another famous RINO that would even go so far as to change parties to save his job.
The only polls that show McCain handily ahead are coming from the DailyKos. Gee: I wonder who they want to win? http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/04/02/mccain_beating_hayworth_in_poll SIngle-issue organizations can deal deadly blows to candidates. However; they can also be so rigid as to end up allowing an apostate to remain in office through their short-sightedness.
We’ll take a RINO that aligns himself with us 77% of the time because we believe he’s more ‘electable’ than the opponent that votes with us 100% of the time.
That’s why politics sucks. It’s all about compromise, so in the end, no one is happy.
Seriously, even if your dream comes true, and abortion is outlawed, what do you do with the lawbreakers? Put them in jail too? We don’t have the capacity in the women’s prison system for that. Build more? Where’s the money for that?
On top of that, now you potentially have families whose mother is in jail. What about single mothers you send to jail? What happens to their kids? Put them in the social welfare system?
Don’t you see why opposition to this issue is a waste of time?
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