Rebuilding the Right: Why Abortion Still Matters

In the aftermath of the 2008 election, I noticed a great deal of argument within the Republican Party and the conservative mocement as to whom within our ranks we should hold responsible for our defeat.  Specifically, there has been an ongoing war of ideas between conservatives who emphasize economic issues, and conservatives who emphasize social issues, with many in the former category saying that conservatisim and Republicanism should shed their social and cultural ideas and stick to the economy, and those in the latter who insist upon the primacy of social matters.  I would say that we don't have to emphasize one at the expense of the other, but I feel I must says this: discard social values at your own peril.

Easily the most visible social issue of our time is that of abortion.  We are at a point in this nation where the Sarah Palins and Rick Santorums of the world are denigrated as backwards ignoramuses and neanderthals, as people unable to see the light of the progressive march of history towards its teleological whiggish conclusion.  This is criticism we are accustomed to from the left, who insist that abortion must be legal regardless of societal consequences.  The criticism they take from the right, however, the criticism that we need to deemphasize the abortion issue and focus on our anti-tax, pro-business agenda, is ill-advised.  This is because the notion of a Right to Life is the fundamental to basis of what conservatives believe in.

The idea of a Right to Life constitutes the very fabric of conservative ideology, the belief in the value of the individual.  The economic ideas generally associated with the conservative movement, low-taxes, limited government, and personal responsibility, are all based on the principle of individual rights.  The most basic and most seminal of these individual liberties is the liberty to Live.  As conservatives, we believe in the intrinsic and unique value of the life of every man, woman and child on God's green earth, and that they have liberties that can never be compimised.  If we as conservatives cannot respect this most basic and fundamental of individual liberties, then we have given ourselves no real reason to respect any others.

If the Republican Party wishes to return to the American political scene as a voice for conservative ideas, it cannot simply brush aside the abortion issue as some are willing to do.  Republicans should embrace this issue, not run away from it.  In some states, Republicans will have to carry minority votes, and there are strong contingents within immigrant communities, particularly those from Latin America and East Asia, that place a great importance on family values.  Furthermore, this is an issue that allows the party to reach out to the youth vote.  As a college student myself, I know that the pro-life movement has a very strong youth element to it.  If Republicans and conservatives don't want to abandon this generation to the wolves of rampant social democracy, then they need to reach out more to these groups, and bring them fully on board with the conservative movement.

Embracing social issues does not, however, mean that the Republicans must become the party of Mike Huckabee, a party whose sole appeal is to social conservatives, with perhaps some talk of tax-cutting thrown in.  We can stick to our economic conservative values, promote limited government, and stand on moral principles as well.  If we abandon one of our key principles, then we may as well abandon them all.