Article I read at www.peroutka2004.com

What’s Wrong With the Pro-Life Movementby Bob StrodtbeckThis article originally appeared on DaveBlackOnlineThe pro-life movement defends the principle of protecting the right-to-life for all people. As America’s post-modern culture attracts more individuals with the allure of convenience and relativism, the pro-life principle covers an increasing number of individuals from embryos created in a laboratory to incapacitated geriatrics in nursing homes.The national debate over abortion has kept a high profile for most of the nearly three decades that Americans have been erroneously told that killing babies in the womb is protected by the U.S. Constitution. The focus of the debate has been on the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which asserts a penumbra right to privacy in the Bill of Rights entitles women to access abortion procedures.Over the years that the national debate over abortion has been measured by polls and propaganda America has been dragged into a relativistic culture that endorses killing babies in the womb and applauds scientists creating babies in the lab. Meanwhile governments are increasingly subjected to the desires of wealthy international corporations or the whims of unrestrained judicial branches which show an interest in both.It is not the advocates of abortion rights that have forwarded this lurch into social destruction, however, but the pro-lifers who have wasted 30 years pursuing an agenda rather than fighting for principles that have defined American liberty.The U.S. Constitution establishes multi-leveled government with defined responsibilities so the nation would not be subjected to the whims of power-lusting individuals. This balance of powers is not limited to the branches of national government outlined in the Constitution, but includes the state governments that are referred to in Article I, Section 3, clause one (the selection of the Senate was originally under the authority of state legislatures) and in the tenth amendment.Roe v. Wade did not so much create a right out of thin air, but was an usurpation of state legislative authority by the federal courts. This expansion of federal judicial power is now so broad that any state or local law can be struck down by judicial fiat. The power grab by the courts is a clear violation of its limits to hear only “...cases in law and equity, arising under this (the U.S.) Constitution....” This means the federal courts have the authority to hear cases regarding laws written by the U.S. Congress and enforced by the president.The pro-life movement, however, has been preoccupied with attempting to influence the national government to support its agenda when it needed to educate the general public of the dangers of a central government taking power unto itself.  In pursuit of this unfruitful strategy, pro-lifers are busy raising support for the reelection campaign of President Bush in spite of his lukewarm action on pro-life principles.Pro-life support for Mr. Bush is creating more threats to the structure of constitutional government than even Roe. Mr. Bush is an unflinching internationalist who seems to have no problems eliminating American borders and converting the military into a rapid deployment force for political and economic agendas that are poorly defined and executed without a shred of constitutional support. His agenda focuses on unconstitutional expansions of federal authority into education, medical practice, and church missions. He has further expanded executive control over the use of lands that was initiated through executive orders written by Bill Clinton and his lust for fast track trading authority for trade agreements has subverted congressional oversight in relations with trade partners.Pro-lifers are willing to accept these abuses of power because Mr. Bush will use their politically correct clichés at opportune moments. This concession on the part of pro-lifers, though, is in absolute defiance of the major principle that the framers of the Constitution used to develop legal limits on federal office holders – that is that human nature is self-serving and continually seeking personal aggrandizement.The pro-life movement seems to be committed to gauging its influence by endorsements it gets from national political celebrities, but time has proven that those platitudes won’t stop babies from being killed. The movement’s support for the current president might even help to finish the work of destroying the U.S. Constitution that was so hideously forwarded by Roe.---Since 1993 Bob Strodtbeck has been writing commentaries for The Apopka Chief, a news weekly circulated in a community ten miles north of Orlando. His analyses investigate a wide range of topics from what he calls a “Christian pragmatic” view – that is to say, he considers that human interactions are largely driven by the human instinct toward self-service, which is traditionally known as sin. This perspective has given Bob great liberty to criticize governmental officials from both parties upon the standards of constitutional laws they swear to uphold and review cultural and economic phenomena from moral standards defined in the Bible. Bob currently lives in Orlando with his bride Pam and children Charlotte and Richard. He may be reached for comment here.