One of the reasons many conservative Christians tend to vote for Republican politicians is due to the party’s moral conservatism: pro-life, pro-family. Several people have argued, however, that this is not a worthwhile reason to vote Republican because most Republican politicians only pay lip service to the pro-life position for political purposes, and/or they don’t really do anything to limit or abolish abortion (or can’t really do anything due to Roe).
I’ve always found the psychoanalysis claim to be dubious. It’s very difficult to prove that someone does not truly believe what they say they believe. Pro-life Republicans could make the same claims about pro-choice Democrats: They don’t really believe abortion should be permitted, but pay lip service to the pro-choice position for political purposes. I think it’s best to avoid the psychoanalysis, and just take people at their word unless we have good reason to doubt their sincerity.
What we can measure is whether or not a politician puts his money where his mouth is. And the fact of the matter is that Republicans have been very active in pushing for pro-life legislation, and have had considerable victories over the last 20 years. According to a January 2, 2014 press release from the Guttmacher Institute, 22 states enacted 70 provisions in 2013 that “sought to restrict access to abortion services.” The provisions included “abortion bans, restrictions on abortion providers, limitations on the provision of medication abortion and restrictions on coverage of abortion in private health plans[,]…parental involvement, public funding for abortion, waiting periods and counseling, and ultrasound.”
In their analysis, “This makes 2013 second only to 2011 in the number of new abortion restrictions enacted in a single year. To put recent trends in even sharper relief, 205 abortion restrictions were enacted over the past three years (2011–2013), but just 189 were enacted during the entire previous decade (2001–2010).” That means “more state abortion restrictions were enacted in 2011–2013 than in the entire previous decade.”
I can assure you that it wasn’t the Democrats who were responsible for proposing and passing these 394 pro-life laws. It was the Republicans, putting their money where their mouth is.[1] While state and national lawmakers cannot outlaw abortion due to Roe, they can and do restrict many facets of the abortion industry that reduce the number of babies murdered in this country. If you are prolife, who you vote for does make a difference for the unborn.
See also: Abortion Restrictions Reduce Abortion
[1]Yes, I recognize that there are some pro-life Democrats and pro-choice Republicans. I am not speaking of individual voting records, but parties writ large.
Thinking to Believe 
January 3, 2014 at 1:28 pm
Jason, Interesting post. As a life-long republican…still as, but since de-converting from fundamental christianity and now atheistic in my views, I have experienced some adjustment to my thoughts on abortion. Yes, many republicans during my years gave lip service to the cause of pro-life, but little in the way of solid change ever happened.
I thought by way of introducing a different line of thinking to this discussion, I would point you to a rather provocative post which should get any rationale person to rethink the whole question. It can be found here…
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/10/how-i-lost-faith-in-the-pro-life-movement.html
All the best to you in this new year.
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January 3, 2014 at 1:53 pm
Kerry,
What years are you referring to? Clearly, in the last 13 years a lot of progress has been made by pro-life politicians in limiting abortion.
Have you lost faith in the pro-life movement or the pro-life position?
When we talk about the “pro-life movement,” we are referring to non-political efforts to change people’s minds, and political efforts to change our laws. I’ve already discussed the successes in the political realm, but there are also successes in the social realm. More people claim to be pro-life than ever. And what’s best, is that it’s not the old people who are holding on to the pro-life cause. It’s among the young people that the pro-life position has the most traction. So I would say that the pro-life movement, while it has not reached its goal yet, has made amazing strides. Now is not the time to give up, but the time to get on board and double our efforts. It took decades for Wilberforce to bring down slavery. We should expect no less on the issue of abortion.
Might I ask why you became an atheist?
Jason
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January 3, 2014 at 6:16 pm
Provocative? That blog post on Patheos is so pathetic, I don’t know why people take it seriously. Let’s assume it’s true (even though it sounds like the assignment of a pro-choice activist). It would be like me deciding I’m not against communism anymore because I discovered how much post-communist societies stink (which they generally do). Clearly she didn’t have the strength of the pro-life convictions she thought were her own – inherited but maybe not internalized properly? From the blog post, she was not very well informed and was impressed by the usual pro-choice lies – the one about how restricting abortion does not actually decrease abortions is priceless. It’s hard to believe that she wouldn’t find counter-evidence, but maybe she wanted to fit in with the cool pro-choice crowd at the university. In my experience peer pressure is a very powerful thing.
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January 5, 2016 at 2:37 am
[…] See also: “Pro-life Republican politicians aren’t just paying lip-service to the pro-life cause“ […]
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