DemocratsForLife.org and Sarah Palin's acceptance speech

A friend sent me a DemocratsForLife.org article entitled "Tiptoeing to the Right on Abortion." It claims a delicate, strategic expansion of the Democratic tent to make allowance for an anti-abortion voice, in order to woo social and religious conservatives who are disenchanted with the Republican Party.

The article gave me pause. Could I join the Democratic Party with its abortion platform, as stated? The catch-22 is that the pro-abortion platform statements are immoral, but being able to change them probably takes Party membership. The Party needs to see a benefit for “tiptoeing to the right,” or else its radicals can claim cost without gain. So unless some of us social conservatives hold our noses and vote for the Democratic ticket, the pro-life cause in the Democratic Party could face a setback. I may not be flexible enough, but I would not necessarily mind seeing others do it, if it meant a moderation of the DNC's radical denial of a fetus's right to life. At least the Democrats' (reluctant) “tiptoeing to the right” stands in stark contrast to the Republicans' boot kicking of the left. (And with "hold our noses" I have in mind the Democratic Party, not the fresh, inspiring Barack Obama.)

One of the DNC platform pro-abortion statements enshrines “a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion.” Technically I could support that statement, since no abortion is safe for the fetus and since types of abortion can become regulated or be made illegal. A “safe and legal abortion,” to me, would be no abortion at all. I am for it! But I cannot support the platform's strong endorsement of Roe v. Wade. And since I define the “need for abortions,” which the platform says the Party seeks to reduce, only in terms of medical necessity, I do not see how age-appropriate sex education can reduce it qua need. But reducing the needless choice of abortion is common ground I could support.

Pro-Life Democrats have a point: How do the deaths of unnecessary war weigh against the deaths of unnecessary abortion? How does an unnecessarily high mortality rate due to inaccessible health care weigh against live births into poverty due to derelict social policy? How does concessively tiptoeing toward moderate abortion policy weigh against uncritically marching into strategically motivated warfare?

I heard Governor Palin's acceptance speech tonight. Her (speech writer's) cheap shots at Barack Obama were tit-for-tat to the Democrats’ cheap shots. No imbalance there. What all the commentators I heard missed, though, was that implicit to her anti-Washington-establishment statements was an indictment of Republican corruption. I bet there were some Republican politicians squirming in their seats, hoping to the Red, White, and Blue that it was mere campaign rhetoric. I would love to see Palin get in there and show them otherwise. Unfortunately, she did not indict the abuse of Republican power in her speech, and the talking heads cast it merely as her explicit scapegoating of the media.

To win the election, the cheering Republican power brokers claim that Palin was adequately vetted. But I will be impressed with their cheers if they are still clapping when Bulldog Palin starts kicking their corrupt Republican butts into jail. RepublicansForJailingCorruptRepublicans.org - Now, that is something I could unequivocally support.