Where was the pro-life party two weeks ago?

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Both pro-life and pro-murder activists observed the 41st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision just under two weeks ago, and most Christian churches observed Life Sunday on one of the weekends on either side of that event. Given that the sanctity and dignity of human life is its own three-paragraph line item in the 2012 Republican Platform (on page 20 and 21 of the downloadable PDF version), one would have thought that the Republican National Committee would have had something to say regarding National Sanctity of Human Life Day during their recent winter meeting in the District of Columbia, especially given that they made a point of setting aside 3-1/2 hours on Wednesday specifically for the March for Life. Given that Michigan has such a deep pro-life tradition that Governor Snyder’s veto of a pro-life bill was promptly overridden by citizen initiative, one would think that the Michigan Republican Party would have had something to say regarding the same annual event.

However, a review of both the RNC and MIGOP websites reveals that the only mention made is by RNC Deputy Communications Director Sarah Isgur Flores, and seems to be in the context of responding to the DNC’s perpetual war on women. Other than that, the silence is deafening. Which leaves us wondering, what could have been so important that it should have taken priority over speaking up to defend those among us who are most vulnerable and least capable of defending themselves?

My wife, Christie, and I learned the hard way last week about an interesting provision in Michigan Law. According to Public Act 562 of 2002 (as subsequently modified a couple of years ago), apparently if a mother should miscarry an unborn baby, and the sex of that baby can be visually identified during the fetal autopsy, then the parents have the option of naming the child for the record. This means that a miscarriage after 14 weeks (when the external sex organs have fully differentiated), and perhaps as early as 11 weeks (when the external sex organs begin developing), requires the most gut-wrenching decision that an honest father has to make. (If there’s a more difficult one, then I honestly don’t know what it is.)

I’ve already committed to at least two weeks off from my “day job” in order to shepherd Christie through recovery (including playing stay-at-home dad to our two-and-a-half year old daughter), potentially more depending on what the doctor has to say on Tuesday, and during one of my quieter moments at home last week it occurred to me . . . depending upon the state law in question (and who’s interpreting), it’s “perfectly legal” to abort a fetus up until somewhere between the 20th and 24th week of pregnancy.

Notice the use of euphemisms there, three of them in one sentence, all designed to mask the truth about what really happens inside the death chamber of an abortion clinic. The abortionists, and their enablers and sympathizers, don’t dare admit that the “legality” of their systematic murder of babies is based squarely upon a court precedent of questionable constitutionality (rather than duly-enacted legislation). To do so would be tantamount to admitting that the alleged moral high ground they’ve spent the past four decades fashioning is no more sound than a house of cards.

So think about this for a moment or so (as I did); in Michigan there’s a 6-to-13 week window between the earliest that a miscarried baby can be given a name for the record, and the latest that that same baby is an acceptable human sacrifice upon the secular altar of “choice” (notice another euphemism there) without so much as an official acknowledgment of its existence as an individual human being.

And if you cannot see the logical disconnect in this (let alone the moral one), then I don’t think there is much I can do to help you understand the larger problem.

What bugs the crap out of me is that the Republican Party is a decidedly pro-life party, at least on paper, yet during the 10 years, 4 months, and 16 days post-Roe when they controlled both chambers of Congress (January 3, 1995 – January 3, 2007), and especially during the 4 years, 3 months, and 28 days or so when they controlled both Congress and the White House (January 20, 2001 – January 3, 2007) — in both cases excepting the 1 year, 7 months, and 14 days that the 107th Congress had a Democrat-controlled Senate — I don’t recall hearing about any serious effort to use Congress’ constitutional authority to legislate both Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton into the dustbin of history. Yes, Congress does have the authority to legislatively override Federal Court decisions (the Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act is a perfect example of such authority in action), but nowadays you don’t hear about it being used much.

This, of course, raises the question of just how serious the “Party of Reagan” is about ending the intergenerational bloodbath that has permanently stained our country from one border to the other. Because if they were, in fact, serious about it, then at some point when Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, Strom Thurmond, and Ted Stevens were running the congressional show, we would have heard a considerable deal of media outcry about Congress presenting some form of personhood legislation to the President for signature. I don’t remember any, but given that I was deployed overseas at least twice during that timeframe and may have missed something, please feel free to enlighten me otherwise if so.

So, why the silence? I mean, even in the RNC 2013 Spring Meeting Resolutions, which as I understand it were unanimously approved, there is exactly zero mention of the sanctity and dignity of human life. There’s plenty of speculation regarding why the Republican Party congress-critters often don’t take the unalienable right to life seriously, and much of it has to do with the observation that the party establishment usually can’t seem to be bothered to actually hold candidates and elected officials accountable to the very platform that’s supposed to be guiding their policy decisions. I’m inclined to believe that speculation, especially given the recent efforts by the state party establishment to muzzle a committeeman who has dared to speak the unvarnished truth in public.

Way back in February of 2006, I responded to one Tina Ulrich of Traverse City, who in a letter to the editor of the Traverse City Record Eagle stated that “Jesus never said anything about abortion” and challenged those who speak out against abortion to read Matthew 23, apparently believing that those who oppose abortion also refuse to help the truly less fortunate. In my response (which was published, so feel free to do some digging, Jason), I said that, while Jesus does not directly address abortion, there are at least six instances in the Gospels where he does clearly establish a special relationship with children, and states that the penalty for interfering with that relationship will make death by drowning seem pleasant.

I can think of nothing that more conclusively interferes in that divine relationship than a medically-induced abortion. All of which means that the Republican Party leadership — federal, state, and local, as well as past, present, and pending — who refuse to either speak or act in defense of life are just as guilty in God’s reckoning as those on the other side of the aisle who actively pursue culture of death policies, and they’re going to have some explaining to do in the Great Judgment Hall, assuming that they make it past the Pearly Gates to begin with.

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