Arlen Specter Blames Pro-Life Science Policies for Death of Jack Kemp
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 4, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Fresh from switching from the Republican to the Democratic Party, pro-abortion Sen. Arlen Specter upset pro-life advocates again over the weekend. He blamed the death of pro-life former Congressman and vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp on pro-life policies that he claimed are anti-science.
Kemp died over the weekend after a bout with cancer, with which he was only diagnosed in January. By the time it was caught, it had spread throughout his body.
Now, Specter has, as some pro-life advocates say, "shamefully" used the occasion of Kemp’s death to justify his political switch.
"Well, I was sorry to disappoint many people. Frankly, I was disappointed that the Republican Party didn’t want me as their candidate," he told the news program "Face the Nation."
"But as a matter of principle, I’m becoming much more comfortable with the Democrats’ approach. And one of the items that I’m working on, Bob, is funding for medical research," Specter added. "If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine."
Specter, who has long been a thorn in the side of the pro-life movement for pushing for making taxpayers finance embryonic stem cell research that destroys human life, raised the ire of bioethics author and attorney Wesley J. Smith.
"One can certainly argue that the cancer research budget should be higher. One can also justify changing parties because one believes in increased spending," Smith said in response.
"But to say that but for GOP policies Jack Kemp "would be alive today," is shameful demagoguery of a self-obsessed politician willing to use the death of a former colleague to justify his own desperate political maneuvers," Smith commented.
Smith says he’s not surprised by Specter’s comments because they are similar to ones he and others made after former President Ronald Reagan died.
"The same kind of bovine manure was shoveled after Ronald Reagan died of Alzheimer’s when some said that ‘but for Bush’s stem cell funding policies,’ Reagan would have been cured," Smith recalled. "Some politicians just stink."
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