McCain and Pro-Lifers

A letter to The Corner from someone calling himself "Palin - Jindal 2012":

Here's the bottom line for me: I strongly prefer John McCain on every issue, but not at the cost of ending the pro-life litmus test for GOP nominees to the WH and SCOTUS. (It ain't much, but it's all we've got.)

Finally, a reason to vote for McCain. I am sick and tired of Pro-Life an Pro-Choice zealots and their "litmus tests." Like the vast majority of Americans, I am ambivalent when it comes to abortion. But not the zealots. They know they have the one and only correct answer. For them, there is one and only one central issue governing any campaign. Around election time, certain bloggers at sites like the Corner seem to have little else to talk about.

Give it up people. Abortion is not going to be outlawed. It's not going to be unrestricted. Somehow, miraculously, we as a society have been able to hammer out a compromise which is not ideal to many of us, but is reasonable to the vast majority, allowing unrestricted abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, and allowing for legal restrictions it in the later stages. That's the way it's been for years now, that's the way it will be in the foreseeable future.

If McCain is able to break the GOP out of the zealots' "litmus test" stranglehold, I would feel better about voting for him.

Ann says: The issue is a pain in the butt. In particular because there is a solid consensus in the country about it. Most people want late-term abortion outlawed, except for life of the mother (and maybe rape), and most people want it rare in the middle of a term, but legal at the start.

The problem and the frustration come with the fact that no matter what the consensus is, no matter how many people agree to basically take it off the table as an issue, it can never be.

Because it is no longer an area for democratic debate and policy.

That's the problem. The Supreme Court has declared that the law is what they say it is, and no legislature can touch it. It's anti-democratic and depressing.

Most abortion zealots see the abortion issue as primary, with the Supreme-Court over-reach issue as a side effect. For me, the Supreme Court is the issue, and the abortion wars are the side effect.