I am most interested in getting this out of the courts.....I would like to see a congress make a legit attempt to make abortion law..either pro or con. It would be good to get the whole congress on record with a vote. As it is now, The dems know they will fall short and the reps want the issue to stay open.
Say what you will, but the Democrats at least are honest in following up with action consistent with their words, whereas the Republicans talk, talk, talk, while doing nothing even when they control all levers, and that smacks of wanting to KEEP the abortion issue alive and kicking (no pun intended) for political gain. That's where I lose so much respect for the GOP. They are exploiting what they proclaim a sacrosanct issue for seeming political gain alone. There was a time that such utter hypocrisy would be labeled simply for what it is, and the perpetrators of such tactics would be dealt with swiftly and harshly. But maybe the GOP has truly bamboozled the social right wing into actually believing they truly want to end abortion.
There really isn't a lot of middle ground to negotiate a compromise when one ground says that the morning after pill and aborting a microgram clump of cells is "murder."
The Rep's never had the votes to outlaw abortion. So it became more of a campaign issue. Whereas the Dem's were tricky. They knew they never had the votes to legalize abortion. So starting with fighting Bork they used the courts to make law. The Rep's took years to catch on, with Bush41 making awful court picks.Had Bush41 not messed up Row/wade would be gone and Congress would be voting.
I won't beat a dead horse with you here. Suffice it to say that the Republicans did have the votes to bring forth legislation on both the House and Senate floor to ban abortion in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Not only that, they had a Republican President in office who claimed he would sign any legislation making abortion illegal. Despite that, the only legislation making it to Bush's desk in any of those 4 years was a narrow one dealing with a procedure known as 'partial birth abortion,' which is extremely uncommon, and was full of loopholes such as 'where the health of the life of the mother is in jeopardy' and so forth... So I really don't understand what point you aren't following. Needless to say, I don't care to debate this with you any further. If you go back and re-read what I wrote, and find that I've mistated any facts, by all means, let me know.
Do you know what a filibuster is? The minority party can hold any bill from a floor vote unless the majority party can get 60 votes to allow it onto the floor for a full vote. Why are you fighting like a deadhorse? Give it up. Just accept that your liberal friends will do anything to keep the public from voting their choice.
Did the Republicans attempt to bring forth any legislation during those 4 years banning abortion? That's a cop out that you're using. You could say that about any prospective legislation. "Well, the [whatever party] didn't bring forth any legislation to that effect (even if it was central to their platform or promises to their constituency) because of the risk of a fillibuster." Right. Did you know that Scott Maclellan has said the same thing I'm saying? Did you know that there was another Bush administration member who resigned (I can't remember his name) because he claimed Bush and the GOP never intended to keep the promises he made to Evangelicals? He figured prominently in the news about two years ago. He had been a religious liason for Bush, and went to D.C. with Bush from Texas. So, the GOP have promised the earth, moon and stars to social conservatives, and basically delivered nothing, nor have they earnestly tried to.
Well said. This is similar to my problem with the Dems. They refused to bring up impeachment for a vote for the same lameass reasons. How long do these Congresspeople think we're going to let them get away with these stupid games? If I could constitutionally ban anything it would be the filibuster. I'm sure the founding fathers didn't have in mind that the Senate be held hostage because they couldn't reach a 60:40 supermajority. And when did it become acceptable for these lazyasses to just say "filibuster" and not actually do it?
Again time for your civics lesson. Unless a committe has a sense that their Bill will make it to the floor they will not spend the time to create it. In most cases when the Bill is presented to the floor knowing it will die, its purpose then is to try to get a politicion to make a public vote. And that is very hard to do. So many of these Bills when brought to the floor are threatened with Filibuster that the best the majority can do is get an voice vote AY or NAY, no matter what that sounds like it is always the end of that Bill. The years you talk about are the 107/108th congress http://thomas.loc.gov/home/multicongress/multicongress.html 2000-2004 269 Bills from multiple Congresses under title abortion Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate 15 Bills from multiple Congresses ranked by relevance on "abortion 15 bills went to the president out of 269 offered to the floor. Most of those 15 Bills had to do with funding for planned parenthood orginaztions. The democrats fight hard against a public vote because they want to courts to take the responsbilty. The demorcrats also know a true public vote on the floor means they would lose
...if the tables were turned, and Obama or Biden had a 17 year old unmarried daughter who became pregnant and this information became public during the peak of the presidential campaign? Just some food for thought. They'd be holding marathon talk sessions about how unacceptable it was. They'd never shut up about it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yep the bible-thumping mega-hypocrites would be bashin Obama without mercy!