The
greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn’t exist.
- The Usual Suspects
Contrary to what Kevin Spacey’s
character claims in the
movie The Usual Suspects, the greatest
trick the devil ever pulled was not convincing
people he didn’t exist. It was convincing Pro-Life Christians that Republicans
were actually pro-life. The truth is,
when we look at everything from wars to genocide, as well as abortion, murder, infant
mortality, death penalty, and suicide rates, and in which states people live
the longest, it turns out that Republicans seem to be almost anything but.
.
When did Republicans start calling themselves
“Pro Life”?
The Pro-Life moniker became attached
to the Republican Party in 1976 when it was introduced as a plank in the
Republican Party platform by Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). The only reason
no serious challenge was brought within the party against its move to Pro-Life was because, at the time, the Republican Party was divided about the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, “which was already under
siege from prominent party members like Phyllis Shafly.”[i] If the Republican Party had not been so busy attacking the ERA - with such dubious claims as, it would "deny a woman's right to be supported by her husband" and "result in women being drafted into combat" -
it may never have become Pro-Life in the first place.
When are Abortion Rates Lower?
Have you ever wondered if more
abortions are performed, on average, during Republican or Democratic
presidencies? In response to this question, some have argued that abortions are
lower when the president is Republican[ii],[iii] while others argue it’s lower when the president is a
Democrat.[iv] The
truth, however, is that, according to the numbers, it’s pretty much even. The average is about the same number of abortions per year regardless of which party is sitting in the oval office.[v]
Considering the fact that Republicans
were Pro-Choice until 1976, we see that, while abortions dropped under the Clinton administration,
the slightly higher average number of abortions per year since 1976 for the
Democrats is, for the most part, statistically insignificant. As one
commentator explained, “In rough terms, there is about a 97% likelihood that
any differences between the groups are completely due to chance.”[vi]
This difference can hardly be said to
be the basis for one political party being more pro-life than another,
especially when we look at other areas of data that concern protecting the value of human life.
Who Starts More Wars?
Since becoming the “pro-life party” in
1976, Republican Presidents have started more wars than Democratic presidents.
The first war to be waged after the Republican Party changed its Pro-Choice
position was started by Ronald Reagan in Grenada in 1983. The next White House incumbent, H.W. Bush, followed this up with an invasion of Panama and a war in the Persian Gulf. After
that, the Democratic President Bill Clinton took office and, over the course of his two terms, started wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, and
Iraq. And finally, following in his father’s footsteps, President G.W. Bush started wars
in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Looking at the score card, since becoming Pro-Life, Republican
Presidents have started 5 of the last 8 wars to date. It is impossible,
therefore, to see how the Republican Party is more Pro Life than Democrats when
it comes to war.
What about Genocide?
Five years after committing itself to being a “pro-life”
party, Republican President Ronald Reagan directly contributed to acts of genocide
in Guatemala from 1981 to 1986.
“As reported by the journalist Robert
Parry, working from a document he discovered in the Reagan Library,” in 1981, Reagan’s
national security team sought to supply military aid to the right-wing regime in
Guatemala in order to “exterminate not only “Marxist guerrillas” but also their
“civilian support mechanisms” – which means, effectively, genocide.”[vii] To accomplish this, Reagan sent "nonlethal" equipment
to that countries dictator, "including Bell helicopters that were
immediately armed and sent on their missions of death and destruction."
Once in office, Reagan continued to
supply munitions and training to the Guatemalan army, despite a ban on military
aid imposed by the Carter administration. In fact, economic aid increased from $11 million in
1980 to $104 million in 1986," with nearly all of it going to the rural western
highlands, where the Mayan victims of the genocide lived."[viii]
This aid
helped the Guatemalan military implement a key part of its counter-insurgency
campaign: following the massacres, soldiers herded survivors into “model
villages,” detention camps really, where they used food and other material
supplied by the U.S. Agency for International Development to establish control.[ix]
On Dec. 5, 1982, Reagan hid his contributions to the genocide using Orwellian double speak when he met with Guatemalan president
Rios Montt (1982-1983) in Honduras. He did this by claiming that Montt was “a man of great integrity''
and "totally dedicated to democracy.” The day after Reagan finished bestowing these accolades on Montt, Guatemalan soldiers arrived at a village called Dos Erres
and started killing. The slaughter went on for three days and by the time it
was over at least 162 people, including many children, were dead.[x]
What about the Death Penalty?
Since becoming Pro Life, Republicans have also
become greater supporters of the Death Penalty.
Views of the death penalty for convicted
murderers over twenty years show a drop in support among Democrats from 75% in
1994, to 49% (47% according to some statistics)in 2014. At the same time, views
of the death penalty among Republicans have gone from 85% support for the death
penalty in 1994 to 76% support for it in 2014. Likewise by political
ideologies, 74% of Conservatives supported the death penalty from 2001 to 2004,
while only 54% of Liberals supported it during that same time.
Furthermore, “thirty-two states have
the death penalty on their legal code,” while “Republican-dominated states have
performed an enormous majority of U.S. prisoner executions since 1976. Of the 1,359 executions since that date -- the
number reported by the Death Penalty Information Center as of Dec. 18, 2013 -- 1,110 occurred in Republican-dominated
Southern states. About one-third of those sentences were in Texas, where 508
death row inmates have been put to death in the past 37 years.[xi]
What about Murder Rates?
The top three states with the highest
murder rates all voted Republican in the last four presidential elections, and
include Louisiana at 10.8 out of 100k, Alabama at 7.2, and Mississippi at 6.5. And of the top ten states with the highest murder
rates, seven voted Republican in those same elections.[xii]
How about Suicide Rates?
Like the murder rates, states that
voted Republican in the last four presidential elections also have greater suicide
rates,[xiii]
with the first four of the top five including Wyoming at 23.2 out of 100k, Alaska at 23.1, Montana
at 22.9, and Nevada at 20.3. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the lowest
suicide rates were all found in states that voted Democrat in the last four
presidential elections, including California at 9.8, Hawaii at 9.7, Maryland at
9, Rhode Island at 8.7, Illinois at 8.5, Massachusetts at 7.6, Connecticut at
7.4, New York at 7, New Jersey at 6.7, and Washington D.C. with the lowest of
5.8.[xiv]
Even in those states where Republicans
have the highest economic growth rates, like Wyoming, New Mexico, and Nevada,
we find some of the nation’s highest suicide rates. [xv]
What about living longer?
6 of the top 7 states where people
live longest in America voted Democrat in the last four presidential elections.[xvi]
Infant Mortality Rates?
Even infant mortality rates are higher
in states that voted Republican in the last four presidential elections, with
Mississippi at 10, Alabama at 9.2, and North Carolina and Tennessee at 8.2. The
lowest rates of infant mortality, on the other hand, belongs to states that
voted Democrat[xvii]
Conclusion
At a glance, it does not appear that the Republican Party can legitimately claim to be anything but "Pro-Life" in name only. The numbers suggest instead that the Republican Party became Pro Life in order to co-opt Christianity into a political culture of death. In many ways, this unholy alliance between Conservatives and Christians appears to have been orchestrated
for the sole purpose of turning a religion that originally condemned 'money changers' as a “den of thieves”
into one that championed those same money changers for their financial thrift. This role reversal eventually helped to
produce a child of contradiction known as Tea Party Republicans. Yet these Tea Party Republicans are more Barabbian than Christian, and if ever they were
asked to choose between America and God, they would feel it their Christian duty to oppose
government by freeing Barabbas and defend their religion by demanding that Christ be crucified.
Indeed, given the overwhelming opposition to gun control and universal healthcare espoused by some Conservatives today, it seems the only "life" such Republicans are in favor of is their own.
[i] Bob Dole, who was trying to win support from
conservatives in his bid to become Ford’s running mate, realized that a strong
antiabortion platform plank could conciliate Reagan delegates and gain approval
from Catholics and social conservatives. With memories of his own successful
pro-life reelection strategy fresh in his mind, Dole met with representatives
of Ellen McCormack’s Democratic presidential campaign in order to find out what
they would accept in a platform plank on abortion, and he then worked with a
sponsor of a “human life amendment,” to draft a platform plank that opposed
abortion in much more strident language than the president had originally
desired. Helms, who considered abortion to be “murder,” was one of the earliest
conservative Republican converts to the pro-life cause; by 1976, he had already
written an antiabortion article for Human Events and had been a featured
speaker at national pro-life rallies, so he was well versed in the language of
the right-to-life movement. He was also a staunch Reagan supporter. By
enlisting Helms’s support in drafting the antiabortion platform plank, Dole
helped to mollify conservative Republicans, Reagan delegates, and pro-life
activists, all of whom had been reluctant to support the president.
Twenty-eight female delegates that
year did sign a “minority report urging the Republican Party not to take a
position on abortion,” Williams notes. But they were talked out of pursuing any
serious opposition on the issue, out of fear that it could derail the Republican
party’s support for the Equal Rights Amendment, already under siege from
prominent party members like Phyllis Schafly.
[ii](According
to this author, abortion rates are lower under Republican Administrations)
[iii]
(According to this author, abortion rates are lower under Democratic
Administrations)
There is a reason abortions went up
under Reagan, up under Bush I, saw their largest decline since Roe under
Clinton, and then leveled out again under Bush II (abortion data isn’t
available yet for Obama’s first term). Democratic policies reduce
abortions, and Republican policies tend to result in more. (Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithfuldemocrats/2012/09/if-you-are-truly-pro-life-youd-vote-democrat/#ixzz3NWiJykY5)
[iv] http://www.savelivesonline.com/pro-life-commentary/should-catholics-vote-democrat-to-reduce-abortions
[v] The
averages provided are slightly skewed. The Republican Party did not adopt a Pro
Life platform until 1976, which means the first two years of Ford’s presidency
should not be included in the calculations. When those years are left out of
the averaging, the Republican per year average rises slightly from 1326447.08
to 1359178.63, compared to the per year average by Democratic presidents of
1396619.17. Hence the differences between the two parties are smaller than suggested. Also, in 2000, in Stenberg
v Carhart, SCOTUS struck down a ban on partial birth abortions in Nebraska,
which invalidated similar laws in 30 other states. Abortions from 2000 to 2007
did not rise, however, but instead continued to decline. (In 2003, President
Bush signed the Partial Birth Abortion Act that banned the procedure but it
was not passed until SCOTUS affirmed the PBA Act in Gonzales v Carhart in 2007) If PP v Casey (1992) supposedly
resulted in fewer abortions due to greater state regulations, as this author
suggests, then by such reasoning the 2000 Carhart
case, which invalidated some such regulations, would be expected to have
resulted in an increase in abortions from 2000 to 2007. Yet the opposite happened as abortions continued to decline during that time, and even until
today. This does not mean that Democrats are better or Republicans are worse,
necessarily. It just means that such suggestions can lead us to interpret the
numbers in ways more favorable to the political party we may prefer. As Mark
Twain put it, there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and
statistics.”
[vi] Jennie on October 25, 2012 at 7:39 am said:
If I made a simplistic interpretation of this based solely on the data,
I would be likely to conclude that as a pro-lifer, it doesn’t matter at all
whether you vote for Romney or Obama in terms of abortion rates. But clearly
there must be some other reason(s) for the decrease in abortions over time. I
would guess that changing attitudes over time might have an influence. I think
it is premature to wager that Planned Parenthood v. Casey was responsible for
the decrease in abortions—you could very easily suggest that changing attitudes
in the population/legislators against abortion caused the PP v. Casey ruling,
and also caused the decrease in abortions.
[vii] http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-nuclear?page=0%2C1
[viii]
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/19/what-guilt-does-the-us-bear-in-guatemala/guatemalan-slaughter-was-part-of-reagans-hard-line
[ix]
Id.
[x] Id.
[xi]
http://classroom.synonym.com/republicans-versus-democrats-death-penalty-23806.html
[xii]
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state
[xiii]
http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/poorest-list/10-u-s-states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-suicide-rates/
[xiv] http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/10-happiest-least-depressed-states-in-america-1267/
[xv]
Id.
[xvi]
http://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/2013-9-6-places-america-people-live-longest/
[xvii]
http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/
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