Father Frank Pavone: No Truce on Abortion, Can’t Agree to Disagree on Life
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 14, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Father Frank Pavone, the national director of Priests for Life and one of the foremost respected pro-life Catholics in the country, has penned his response to the abortion "truce" potential Republican presidential candidates Mitch Daniels and Haley Barbour have advocated in recent months.
"Sorry, but this is a proposal we in the pro-life movement can’t accept. There can be no truce," Pavone writes in a new column at the Washington Times.
"It is dismaying to hear some pro-life politicians calling for a ‘truce’ on social issues like abortion – possible White House contenders Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour among them. Their suggestion is that it’s more important to do whatever is necessary to get elected than to worry about issues that appear to be intractable," he says.
Pavone says asking pro-life advocates to "agree to disagree" on abortion is akin to asking them to change their position on the killing of unborn children.
"Why do we disagree in the first place? When we oppose abortion, we disagree with the notion that it is even negotiable. We do not only claim that we cannot practice abortion, but that nobody can practice it, precisely because it violates the most fundamental human right, the right to life," he says.
"To "agree to disagree" means that we no longer see abortion for what it is – a violation of a right so fundamental that disagreement cannot be allowed to tamper with it," the Priests for Life leader continues.
Pavone also argues against the notion that Roe v. Wade is settled law or not relevant for the 2010 elections.
No issue is less settled than abortion. More importantly, America’s courts and legislatures have a history of changing "settled law," he argues, and cited the eventual overturning of the Dred Scott case and Plessy v. Ferguson .
"Many reversals of Supreme Court cases came about when new evidence made it clear that someone’s rights, not previously recognized, were being violated," he said.
"We are now witnessing the same trend regarding children in the womb. Evidence that has been around for quite some time demonstrating their humanity, and their inalienable right to life, is finding its way into legislatures and courts," Pavone continued. "With hundreds of embryological studies, and massive evidence of the harm abortion does to women, such evidence, combined with new legal concepts, can challenge Roe v. Wade in the same way its erroneous ancestral decisions were challenged."
Pavone noted that the day after Roe v. Wade was decided, the New York Times headline read, "Supreme Court settles abortion."
"It has remained the most unsettled issue on our national landscape," he concluded.
Daniels told the Weekly Standard this summer that the next president "would 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," by casting social issues like abortion aside so the next president can focus on fixing the beleaguered economy.
Barbour faced his own backlash from pro-life advocates after saying at a breakfast on Wednesday that pro-life advocates should ditch social issues this election cycle in favor of focusing on the economy.
Daniels told the Weekly Standard the next president "would 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," by casting social issues like abortion aside so the next president can focus on fixing the beleaguered economy.
Daniels told WS reporter John McCormack "I don’t know," when asked if he would issue the executive order every pro-life president has done by instituting the Mexico City Policy Obama revoked.
That caused such a stir that Daniels was forced to walk back the comments — later telling reporter Michael Gerson he would sign the Mexico City Policy but saying he would stick to his controversial comments calling for a "truce" on abortion.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour faced his own backlash from pro-life advocates after saying at a breakfast on Wednesday that pro-life advocates should ditch social issues this election cycle in favor of focusing on the economy.
“Any issue that takes people’s eye off of unemployment, job creation, economic growth, taxes, spending, deficits, debts is taking your eye off the ball,” Barbour said, according to a Daily Caller report.
“But if somebody goes to campaign for governor candidate x, I would hope that somebody would stay focused on the issues that matter to the campaign: jobs, the economy, taxes, spending, debt, deficits,” Barbour continued. “You run down rabbit trails, you’re wasting— you’re using up valuable resources that could be used to talk to people about what they care about.”
The truce has come under fire from Rep. Mike Pence, Congressman Paul Ryan, and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, among others.
Also, several pro-life gorups, including LifeNews.com, released a joint statement condemning the truce.
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