The GOP is full of secret pro-choicers??

[kurth]

Abortion Politics
The Republican Party is full of secret pro-choicers. If Alito helps to overturn Roe v. Wade, it could crack open the GOP coalition in the country and on Capitol Hill.
By Eleanor Clift

Jan. 13, 2006 - The Alito hearing couldn't have come out better for the Republicans if the Supreme Court nominee himself had chaired the committee. Even though it was a Republican senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who brought Alito's wife to tears by asking her husband if he was "a closet bigot," the Democrats got blamed for hectoring the nominee with questions he wasn't going to answer. The shock of the rhetorical ploy briefly drove Martha-Ann Alito from the hearing room and gave Graham the stage to defend the judge's character and bemoan the "guilt by association" tactics employed by Democrats. It turns out that Graham had a hand in helping prep Alito for the hearings, which raises the issue of whether the line was scripted.

At issue was Alito's membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP), which he listed on a job application for the Reagan administration. The group opposed the admission of women and minorities at the expense of the children of alumni, known as legacies. Alito claimed he didn't remember being part of CAP, and early documents of the group don't reveal him as an active member. Yet Democrats kept hammering away until Graham exploded their line of questioning with his mock prosecutorial interrogation: "Are you really a closet bigot?" ...

It's pretty clear where Alito is headed on abortion rights. He refused to say whether he agreed with the characterization of the 1973 Roe ruling as "settled law," that couldn’t be re-examined. Now that the GOP is within striking distance of overturning Roe, they're having second thoughts. The public is not ready to abandon the landmark case legalizing abortion, and neither is the Republican Party. They used abortion as a wedge issue because the politics worked; they really didn't think abortion would ever be banned. "Any activist will tell you they'd rather have the issue out there than to have it resolved," says this pro-choice Republican, who has worked on the Hill and for various Republican interest groups. "If Roe were overturned, we'd be electing Democrats as far as the eye can see." According to this source, even committed right-to-life activists don't want Roe struck from the books before society is ready. "They think if given the time, they can change the culture. I think they're deluded, but they know it's going to take time."

So what is the most likely scenario? The fight over Roe is not imminent. The more immediate challenge will be whether underage pregnant women will have to notify their parents of abortion plans, and extending the right of privacy to minors. "Would we have had Sandra Day O'Connor with us on that?" says the pro-choice Republican. "I'm not sure." She expects Alito to vote to erode Roe, and then the argument will be, sometime in the not too distant future, that the ruling is a shell, and it will be overturned.

Then the battle moves back to state legislatures, and some places—like Utah, Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, Oklahoma and South Dakota—would outlaw abortions while other states, like New York and California, would be decried by the Right as "abortion mills." Politically, the end of Roe would crack open the Republican coalition in the country and on Capitol Hill. The party is full of secret pro-choicers, Republicans who signed on to a package that included the pro-life position with the belief that it would never happen. They've kept their mouth shut all these years, but they'll be mad as hell and not willing to take it any more. "Even if there's no right to privacy in the Constitution, there ought to be," says this pro-choice Republican. "It's an American virtue.”

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10839026/site/newsweek/

[virginia mountainman]

1. Yep...

Just like we are secretly full of Pro-gunners.

[girl gone mad]

16. It's not that secret...

I mean, just look at our DNC chairman.

[NYCGirl]

2. She's right. I'd bet there were more pro-choicers in the GOP than

there are anti-choice people. At least 70% of the American public are pro-choice.

[Brundle_Fly]

15. I am sure several abortions have saved

many a GOP from disgrace or scandal.

[blm]

3. I think most Repub fascists just use abortion to get fundamentalist voters

They're rich - they can send their wives, girlfriends, daughters and mistresses to other countries where abortions are legal.

You think Jenna never had an abortion?

Heck, Ronnie Reagan paid for plenty of them for his old girlfriends and his daughter.

They don't care about any other woman or child - they only care about securing their power and they need the antiabortion crowd to stay snowed long enough to maintain it.

[fudge stripe cookays]

9. self delete

[SmokingJacket]

4. Absolutely.

Though overturning Roe v Wade would be horrible for the women and girls of this country, it would be the best thing to ever happen to the Democratic party. MOST Americans are pro-choice.

[DanCa]

5. Well why havent they excumminacated Arnold or Rudy yet?

They are both pro choice correct? For all the crap that they gave Senator Kerry you'd think that they'd get rid of these two.

[liberal N proud]

6. I think the GOP is only using the "Pro-Life" movement to keep the votes

of the fundie pro-lifers.
If they ever do overturn that, the fundies may just turn on them for their lack of morals and non-conservative actions.
Again the fundies may be endeared to them forever if Roe v Wade is overturned, it is a crazy world.

[NYCGirl]

7. If Roe v Wade is overturned,

there aren't enough "fundie pro-lifers" to keep the GOP alive.

[Mabus]

8. and the hypocrisy surprises you?

The RW has always used divisive issues for political reasons. They only times they actually take action on one of their political maneuverings is when it affects them directly and changes their minds. They don't give a shit about issues that affect real Americans unless it helps their major donors or standing in the party.

How many times in just the past ten years have "morally" pure Republicans found to have illegitimate children? Or wife beaters? Or just plain selling out the American public and playing on their fears for their own personal and political gain?

[Rainscents]

10. Well, this is what GOP asked for past 40 years,

and now the realization is coming to surface, they're fucking running scare!!!

[Coastie for Truth]

11. Former AG Dick Thornburgh's political bio is interesting

He was an ACLU fund raiser and board member back in Pittsburgh, and a pro-choicer - the Reagan named him AG.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

12. K&R This is a fundie "MUST read". nt

[AtomicKitten]

13. the majority of Americans favor Roe v. Wade

which includes some Republicans, however, they will NEVER vote against their fundie masters who have taken over control of the party.

The fundies don't care that the majority of Americans favor a woman's right to choose because they don't believe in democracy. What they believe in is their ability to impose their will on the American people.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

14. I bet it is full of "pro-lifers" who when the rubber hits the road, get

themselves a convenient abortion at some faraway, little known clinic.

Hypocrisy is their hallmark.

[fearnobush]

17. If Roe is over turned - GOP looses all power but SCOTUS for the

next generation. Its that plain and simple and they know it. The core of the GOP would hate to lose that wedge issue - thus they won't overturn it unless SCOTUS is secure.

[greiner3]

18. Republican Party. They used abortion as a wedge issue;

Good call. Just as Dems needed delay in the limelight as long as possible. It will be up to the states, one by one, to decide if they want to have abortions performed there. And that leads to another fight. Whether the supremes will outlaw abortions illegal anywhere within the US.

[PlanetBev]

19. Bastard GOP made a deal with the devil 30 years ago

and you know what they say about the devil...he must have his due.

The irony is that the craven use of abortion by the Repukes will be their undoing.

[Jade Fox]

20. Abortion clinics admit self-proclaimed pro-lifers all the time....

so I've heard. They say things like this:

"I'm against abortion, but I already have 4 kids, and one of them is sick and requires my care, and my husband got laid off and is having a hard time finding work, so I JUST CAN'T HAVE THIS BABY!"

In other words, they are working against the choice they used. No doubt they've had their heads filled with stories about how pro-choice women use abortion as birth-control, and don't really "need" them, unlike our pro-life example does.