Nathan Sheets - Defending National Right to Life's Political Actions

You all know that I was somewhat disappointed with National Right to Life's (NRLC) recent endorsement of Fred Thompson. This was however, in my opinion, an inevitable endorsement. Romney's my man, and perhaps that played a part in the slight sadness as well. But I think really what I didn't like was the timing of it.

Other than that, I have agreed with virtually every thing that NRLC does on the political level. To insinuate that they don't care for unborn children is childish in of itself, and thankfully there aren't too many people who care to throw that accusation around anymore. But there sure are a lot of pro-lifers complaining.

There are two kinds of pro-life groups in our country: groups that stand on principle and groups that strive to be effective politically. NRLC is the latter group. Yes, they make "compromises" all of the time. They'll throw in a "rape and incest" exception in a bill if it will be the difference between the bill passing and not passing. And I highly doubt that a single person in the NRLC office is actually pro-slaughtering-rape-and-incest-babies. But they do what they can to save 90% of the babies in a particular bill if that is what the situation calls for.

There are other groups that stand on principle. And that's great—we need them. And, frankly, I'm with them most of the time as the pro-choicers in the blogosphere can attest to. I don't use the candor and language that the sensible people at NRLC use. That's because I don't pass bills, I blog. And I blog what most pro-lifers think but are too scared to utter aloud. However, I'm not with the "principled pro-lifers" when they complain about RTL and their political efforts. Many "extreme" pro-lifers hate the NRLC because they and their affiliates make exceptions in bills, with the very stupid reasoning that we should not pass any bills unless all of the babies are saved. That's simply stupid. These groups fail to see that, given their way, they sentence hundreds or thousands of children to death so they can stand on their principle. One such annoying group here in Oregon said that our very pro-life Speaker of the House and house members were not pro-life because they eventually passed a budget that allowed abortion funding. Apparently these political geniuses think that these reps should have starved to death in the House Chamber. What they failed to acknowledge was, while they were complaining, our pro-life people managed to at least shrink the "Abortions on the House!" budget by over $100,000.

If abortion were illegal—save cases of "rape and incest"—I guarantee you NRLC would still be in existence saving them. But they work with what they have, which is a culture of pro-choicers and apathetic "evangelical pro-lifers" who would much rather spend their time jet skiing than saving the unborn. They have passed countless bills at the national and state level, and have fought the good fight countless more times. Let's compare their political record with that of the groups that refuse to "compromise" in order to pass laws. Hmmm...virtually nothing passed vs. hundreds by RTL. Sure, the "principle groups" can save babies through "education", but so does NRLC and their affiliates. They are involved in every single aspect of Pro-Life outreach, except for that infernal band scene!

Because of the recent endorsements, the bashing of Right to Life has begun from pro-lifers. "They opposed the Human Life Amendment", "They accepted a bribe from Thompson", "They don't have cookies at their meetings". If the first South Dakota ban that NRLC opposed had passed and gone to the Supreme Court, we would be looking at another 30 years of Roe vs. Wade. People who know nothing about law and the SCOTUS have it easy: they can sit and complain about RTL and their opposition of what seem like great, life-affirming bills. What they should be doing is thanking Right to Life for not going with a group of pro-lifers whose actions, however unwittingly, would have sacrificed millions more children to death.