Recommendation for ILGOP pro-life plank

by Jill Stanek

I appreciate Charlie Johnston’s cordial approach to discussing the 2008 IL pro-life plank to the platform. Indeed our 2004 conversations via the Illinois Leader went wild, although Charlie and I have since mended fences.

Despite the passage of time, Charlie still thinks Steve McGlynn’s 2004 language was the “most comprehensively pro-life platform in the nation.”

And I still think it sucked, beginning with Steve’s poetic yet exclusionary line, “From the first beat of a heart to the last breath drawn, we recognize each individual's dignity and worth," which omitted from IL Republican concern all preborns younger than 21 days old, since that is when the heart first beats.

Words mean things, particularly in politics, and most particularly in pro-life politics. Steve’s words abandoned embryos slated for research.

Beyond that, Steve listed nothing concrete to support or oppose; his was all flowery rhetoric.  Steve's 2004 platform never even uttered the word "abortion."  Neither did it take a stand against the critical pro-life issues of physician assisted suicide and euthanasia.

I commend Joe Behnken and the ILGOP platform committee for opening up the process for discussion.  Joe reverted back to the 2000 platform pro-life language to begin the conversation. I called Joe after reading the Illinois Review post about it and asked if I could offer suggestions. He welcomed them.  Steve did not.

The pro-life plank is not a wheel that needs reinventing. I spoke today with Colleen Parro of the Republican National Coalition for Life. RNCL’s primary purpose is to ensure strong pro-life language remains in the national Republican platform.

RNCL is recommending the national GOP adopt the wording of the 2004 national pro-life plank in its 2008 national platform. Colleen suggested the ILGOP simply adopt the national pro-life plank. i agree.  This would elimate a power struggle over verbiage between IL pro-lifers, and it would make it difficult for opponents to rebuff.

I am posting the 2004 national GOP pro-life plank on page 2. In addition I am posting RNCL’s recommended language to protect embryos from experimentation. This strong language was omitted from the national platform in 2004 thanks to then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who was pro-escr.

Following is the 2004 national GOP pro-life plank.  References to President Bush need to be removed:

Promoting a Culture of Life - 2004 National Pro-Life Plank

As a country, we must keep our pledge to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence. That is why we say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions. We oppose using public revenues for abortion and will not fund organizations which advocate it. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life.

Our goal is to ensure that women with problem pregnancies have the kind of support, material and otherwise, they need for themselves and for their babies, not to be punitive towards those for whose difficult situation we have only compassion.  We oppose abortion, but our pro-life agenda does not include punitive action against women who have an abortion.

We salute those who provide alternatives to abortion and offer adoption services, and we commend Congressional Republicans for expanding assistance to adopting families and for removing racial barriers to adoption. We join the President in supporting crisis pregnancy programs and parental notification laws. And we applaud President Bush for allowing states to extend health care coverage to unborn children.

We praise the President for his bold leadership in defense of life. We praise him for signing support the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. This important legislation ensures that every infant born alive – including an infant who survives an abortion procedure – is considered a person under federal law.

We praise Republicans in Congress for passing, with strong bipartisan support, a ban on the inhumane procedure known as partial birth abortion. And we applaud President Bush for signing legislation outlawing partial birth abortion and for vigorously defending it in the courts.

In signing the partial birth abortion ban, President Bush reminded us that “the most basic duty of government is to defend the life of the innocent. Every person, however frail or vulnerable, has a place and a purpose in this world.” We affirm the inherent dignity and worth of all people. We oppose the non-consensual withholding of care or treatment because of disability, age, or infirmity, just as we oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide, which especially endanger the poor and those on the margins of society.

We support President Bush’s decision to restore the Drug Enforcement Administration’s policy that controlled substances shall not be used for assisted suicide. We applaud Congressional Republicans for their leadership against those abuses and their pioneering legislation to focus research and treatment resources on the alleviation of pain and the care of terminally ill patients.

This is the resolution the RNCL would like added to the 2008 national platform in support of ethical non-embryonic stem cell research:

Human embryos are complete human beings at the earliest stages of development, and as such, they deserve respect and protection. In terms of scientific research, human embryos are human subjects who, under the Nuremberg Code of medical ethics, may not be subjected to medical or scientific experiments unless those experiments will benefit them, and will not expose them to the threat of injury or death.

We therefore resolve to appeal to the President and to Congress to institute a total ban on embryonic stem cell research—research that involves the killing of human embryos.

Instead, we urge them to encourage scientific research that utilizes adult stem cells and/or stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood and placentas that are recovered after live births because, unlike embryonic stem cells, they have produced positive results in the treatment and cure of disease without violating fundamental principles of morality and ethics.

And here is a condensed version of all the above that the RNCL also recommends as another option, which I really like:

The Republican Party of  (insert name of State) believes that all innocent human life must be respected and safeguarded from conception to natural death:  therefore,

The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life, which cannot be infringed.  The Party affirms its support for a human life amendment to the U.S. Constitution and we endorse making clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection applies to unborn children. 

We oppose the use of public revenues for abortion or organizations that advocate it.  We urge the reversal of Roe v. Wade. 

We affirm our support for the appointment of judges at all levels of the judiciary who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of human life. 

We are opposed to euthanasia, and assisted suicide.  We oppose the non-consensual withholding of care or treatment because of disability, age or infirmity.

The Party opposes any and all research involving the killing of human embryos.  We oppose the cloning of human embryos.  We support a total ban on the harvesting of embryonic stem cells, while we fully encourage research using adult cells.