I read one of the best essays I have read in a long time today from Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things. The essay, The Signpost at the Crossroads, looks at a statement in a recent interview with Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. Daniels, who by most accounts is a pretty decent governor and a dark horse candidate for the GOP nomination in 2012, at one stage mentions to Washington Post interviewer Michael Gerson that some social issues may have to be set aside, a “truce” might have to be called to fix the economy:
But, along the way, Daniels told Ferguson that the next president will “have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a little while,” until the nation’s economic issues are resolved. And one has to wonder, a little, about Daniels’ political sense. Did he think a reporter as good as Ferguson wouldn’t quote the line? The backlash started almost immediately, with loud growls from the family-values groups, while rival Republican candidate Mike Huckabee seized on the blunder to declare the openly pro-life Daniels insufficiently pro-life.
Here is the problem with a “truce” on this issue (and despite the clumsy use of the words, I believe that is what many fiscal conservatives want). A truce on abortion leaves us with the status quo, a status quo that means a million aborted babies every year and a status quo that is unacceptable in any form as Bottum rightly points out. Agreeing to a truce on abortion is not going to create a consensus because the pro-abortion forces in this country are at least as intractable as the pro-life forces. Nothing less than tax-payer funded abortion on demand, at any stage and for any (or no) reason in every state in the union, is the only position they will accept. Abandoning the abortion issue will not lead to Americans getting along because the far left that is in control of one half of the political spectrum has a radical agenda that includes not just socializing all private industry but also includes forced normalization of any and all deviancy, whether homosexuality and its various ancillary perversions or the murder of innocent children. The Left doesn’t seek a Savior who has redeemed them from sin, it seeks a savior who will declare sin to no longer be sin. Why atone for something if it is normal? The only sin will be to call sin what it is.
Here is the danger for Christians who are politically conservative. In the desire to see economic conservatism enacted and to win the war on terror, the fear of terrorism and taxes may override our proper deference to the defense of the innocent. Can’t imagine that conservatives would abandon the unborn to keep a few more dollars in their pockets? Think again. The move is already afoot and will gain steam as we approach 2012 in what will be labeled a “must win” election. No one despises big government, higher taxes and encroaching socialism more than I do but tax cuts and the deficit are virtually irrelevant when compared to the defense of life. While lower taxes may improve the economic conditions of poor women considering abortion, the sad reality is that abortion is primarily about personal convenience and choice rather than perceived economic suffering.
There can be no truce on this issue, most certainly not in the name of fixing the economic issues facing the country. What sort of country will America be if we have low taxes, great employment and a thriving economy if we still murder the least among us, sacrificing children on the bloody altar of choice in homage to the unholy trinity of the gods Choice, Profit and Convenience. I for one would rather live in a nation without the prestige and power America has enjoyed but where unborn children are given the most fundamental right: the right to life.
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