Where the Catholic Pro-Life movement is going wrong

As I mentioned previously, my family is very Catholic, and very Pro-Life (or should I say Anti-Abortion, we can't agree on a definition of Pro-Life). Consequently, I hear a lot from the Catholic Pro-Life perspective. I tried following people like Patrick Madrid who are rudders of this movement, but I gave up. And this is why.

If you consider yourself Pro-Life, chances are you're voting Republican. The rhetoric coming from the Pro-Life folks is all anti-Democrat, because the Democrats have made "protecting a woman's right to choose" a plank in their party platform. This makes them "Officially the party of Death" (according to Patrick Madrid). I didn't see the Pro-Life folks out protesting the Iraq invasion.

My point is not that people who call themselves "Pro-Life" more often than not really just mean "Anti-Abortion" and don't support all of Pope John Paul II's components of being Pro-Life (including opposing war, capital punishment, etc). My point is that continued condemnation of the Democratic Party only serves to push people towards the Republicans, and the Republicans will make trivial policies that will somehow limit abortions, only to be overturned the next time the Dems take over. While abortion is a partisan issue, things will only continue to fluctuate from better to worse and back, depending on who has been screwing up in Washington.

If the Republican party was going to save us from abortion, don't you think they would have under Reagan, Bush or Bush II?

The only effective way for the Pro-Life movement to make any meaningful progress on the abortion issue, is to make it non-partisan, by supporting organizations like the Democrats for Life America. Being Pro-Life does not mean you must vote Republican or Independant. I voted for Barack Obama in spite of his position on abortion because I thought (and think) that he is better fit to lead our nation at this time than a racist, philanderer hiding behind the "Moral Majority."

So WHY is the Democratic Party "Officially the party of Death"?

Because there are people out there who vote Republican because they think it's a vote against abortion, when all else being equal they would be Democrats. If there were more Pro-Life membership within the Democrats, the party's policies would eventually reflect that. In the meantime, people are taught that if you're a Liberal, you're Pro-Choice ("I think abortion is wrong, and I would never have one myself. But I think it's a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body." Sound familiar?) and if you're Pro-Life, that means you're a Conservative. Regardless of whether or not you think capital punishment is wrong, or if you think that the government should provide universal healthcare. At best, you call yourself and Independant and you vote R unless there's a Republican running as an I (looking at YOU, H. Ross Perot).

What I'm saying is that the Democrats are "Officially the party of Death" because the Pro-Life movement makes it so by abandoning it. And this has done more damage to the anti-abortion cause than any pro-choice Democrat could hope to do.