If You Really Believe in a Right to Life...
Democrats and center/left commentators should challenge values voters to live up to their values, especially the right to life.
Values voters grabbed their language from the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
But they apply Jefferson’s sweeping assertion of human rights only to the narrow case of abortion. On the one hand, they reject abortion under any circumstances and have mobilized against it to great effect. On the other hand, they ignore the hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths that occur every year from various causes:
Guns kill almost 50,000 Americans.
Poverty kills over 180,000 Americans.
Air pollution kills over 60,000 Americans.
Lack of healthcare kills tens of thousands of Americans.
Climate change will kill hundreds of thousands worldwide.
Republicans oppose any action to reduce these deaths. White evangelical protestants—the core of values voters and the largest Republican constituency—vote Republican by a ratio of 5 to 1.
Democrats and commentators should issue loud public calls and quiet personal appeals to values voters for help on these issues: “We know you believe in a right to life. We need your help to save countless lives. We need you to organize, just as you’ve done on abortion, to pressure the Republican Party to support action on guns, poverty, and the other causes of death.”
At the same time, Democrats should label Republicans “the party of death” for their refusal to act.
Appeals to the right to life will place the Republican Party in an awkward position. They will pit evangelicals against gun rights zealots and small-government conservatives. If values voters really believe in a right to life, they will force the Republican Party to change its stance…or shift their votes to the Democratic Party. If values voters refuse, their moral authority and their numbers will erode even faster.
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