Hey Republicans: Save the Unborn Millionaires

Opinion   |   Robert Morrison   |   Dec 10, 2012   |   12:39PM   |   Washington, DC

Every time the Republicans lose an election, the GOP Establishment tries to blame it on us. It’s because we were so pro-life. If we hadn’t attended all those Marches for Life, if we hadn’t spent all that time raising funds for pregnancy care centers, if we hadn’t taken those candidate classes on how to answer the hard questions of abortion, we would have won.

Here’s a novel idea: Human capital economists tell us that every child born in America can earn, on average a million dollars in his or her lifetime. If that child becomes a head of household, the earnings could top $2 million.

So, for all those Golden Calf Republicans out there, those “moderates” who don’t want to defend, or even talk about those infra dig social issues, think of the unborn as millionaires.

You can start calling them infant start-ups. You might even speak about America’s urgent need for more IPOs. (Incipient Persons of Opportunity).

One Republican who needs to hear this message is Sen. John McCain. Sen. McCain has just decided to nail his colors to the mast. The war hero has announced that he is proud of his pro-life record, but that he wants to “leave it alone” as far as public policy is concerned. If we leave it alone, that means we drop our goal to have every child welcomed in life and protected in law. Are those the colors Sen. McCain wants to nail to the mast?

Granted, his colors are a bit faded. Now, I distinctly remember his eloquent defense of life in his 2008 campaign for president. He was asked by Pastor Rick Warren when unborn children should be given protection for their right to life. “From conception,” the candidate answered firmly. Wow! I was impressed. He said it right there, in the open, forthrightly.

He had never mentioned the right to life up to that point in his campaign. He never mentioned it again. It was as if he had a “Get out of Jail Free” card to play and, having played it, he put it back in his shirt pocket.

I remember his acceptance speech. You don’t? How can that be? He asked us all to stand with him. “Fight for your country,” the gallant old man cried.

But, when a voter in a Milwaukee rally told McCain he was afraid of what an Obama presidency might mean, Sen. McCain responded, “You don’t need to be afraid of Sen. Obama. He’s a very nice man.”

So … what was that stand with me, fight for your country peroration all about? The Army-Navy game?

McCain saying he will “leave it alone” presumably means we won’t see him at the March for Life next January. It’s not like we ever saw him there before. If he doesn’t show for the 40th anniversary march, he will surely be missed, as he was in the decades preceding.

Too bad. If he’d ever joined us, he’d have found plenty of Americans willing to stand for their country and fight for her.

I guess, I hope, he’ll continue to put the Xs in the boxes whenever there’s a pro-life vote in the Senate. We don’t expect him actually to speak about it. There’ll be no “Webster’s Reply to Hayne” when it comes to debating the issue on the Senate floor. In fact, he will probably go silent on this issue. Or, rather, stay silent.

Sen. McCain once described himself, with becoming modesty I thought, as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. I was one of those, too. And I remember Ronald Reagan’s strong defense of the unborn. He spoke of them in his Inaugural Addresses, in his State of the Union Addresses. He never condemned anyone. But he defended the right to life with eloquence and conviction.

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

 

No Republican in our lifetime won such stunning victories. No Republican pitched a bigger Big Tent. When Ted Koppel interviewed Sen. Gary Hart, Koppel was struggling to find out who Gary Hart was. “If you interviewed 50 Americans on any street corner, he said, they can tell you what this president is for, what he’s against.”

“He’s pro-life and against the communists,” Koppel said. Gary Hart nodded in agreement. Everyone knew what Reagan stood for. We knew his principles. We’re still waiting to learn what Gary Hart’s are. And John McCain’s. He told voters in 2008 that we could be in Iraq for one hundred years. Really, Senator? Is that your legacy?

LifeNews Note:  Robert Morrison writes for the Family Research Council. Morrison was educated in New York Public schools and earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees in government and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia. He has also done graduate work in education at Hofstra University and in history and communications at the University of Washington.  Since coming to Washington in 1984, Bob has served at the U.S. Department of Education with Gary Bauer under then-Secretary William Bennett. He was the first full-time Washington, D.C. representative of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.