Fred Thompson's prolife record speaks for itself
By Alexham Posted in Life Issues — Comments (39) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
For some reason (beyond my comprehension), Drudge is highlighting this joke of a video posted by "prochoicefred" over at You Tube. The many deficiencies in the video are self-evident, so there's no need to recount them here; but I do want to make note of prochoicefred's assertion (at the very end of the video) that FDT was given a 33% score by National Right to Life for the years 2001-02 (while he was serving in the Senate). This is a curious claim to make, given that NRTL has publicly stated that FDT had a 100% prolife voting record for his entire Senate career. And when you couple that sterling prolife record with the video FDT sent to NRTL for its recent conference, it seems difficult to suggest that he is anything other than prolife.
Update: It appears that Drudge is no longer linking to the video in question. Good for him.
Update II: A commenter, Bricklavin, explains where the 33% rating for 2001-02 comes from (i.e., FDT's support of campaign-finance reform legislation). He also, unlike prochoicefred, offers a direct link to NRTL's website to support the assertion. Thus, I stand corrected in this respect, and I greatly appreciate Bricklavin brining this information to my attention.
That having been duly noted, I am now puzzled by NRTL's public statement that FDT had a 100% prolife voting record throughout his time in the Senate. And I would be highly surprised if LifeSite.net manufactured that statement out of wholecloth. I'll do a little digging and see what I come up with.
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Fred Thompson's prolife record speaks for itself 39 Comments (0 topical, 39 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I would love to be a picture hanging in their campaign headquarters.
You want to be a picture of Karl Marx???
Fred has said clearly that the government shouldn't get involved in abortion decisions, but that they should be decided by the woman and her church. Are you simply going to dismiss this and not respond? The blindness of the Fredheads on this sight is sad. If you can't admit that he is not perfect and come up with a solid argument refuting these claims, Fred is going to get eaten alive.
D
...given that NRTL has publicly stated that FDT had a 100% prolife voting record for his entire Senate career.
And if that's not enough for you, try reading the link Alexham posted. Here it is again:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/may/07053109.html
And if you don't want to link to it, here's a relevant quote:
Thompson did however in 1994 fill out a survey for Project Vote Smart in which he supported legal first-trimester abortion. However Thompson’s voting record does not reflect this, and Thompson says his views on abortion deepened greatly after watching a sonogram of his 3 year-old daughter.
Thompson has supported overturning Roe v. Wade calling it “bad law and bad medical science” saying “I don’t think the court ought to wake up one day and make new social policy for the country. It’s contrary to what it’s been the past 200 years."
(highlights are mine)
interesting......
in all seriousness, lets hope our politicians change their minds from time to time. Who in business has not changed their mind after encountering new information? Steadfastness in the presence of new evidence cintradicting one's principles is foolhardy.
45 year-old former physician, business consultant
pro life litmus test. For God's Sake, we are in a generational struggle against terrorists, we are up to our butts in illegals, our government is growing like a leviathan and has already swallowed up some of our rights, and we are facing imminent collapse of our social services.
Now is not the time for one issue voting and worrying about intractable social issues.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
immigration? ;-)
But seriously, if there is any issue that would be a stopper for me, it would be abortion. A candidate's stance on abortion (to me) indicates far more than just what they think about abortion - it is a commentary on the person's whole values system.
That's right. It also shows the candidate's respect for and knowledge of the Constitution. It points also to the types of judges he would likely appoint. Certainly judges are important for those who fear the government is taking away Constitutional rights. In some ways, it can even point to the candidate's intelligence or lack thereof.
Also, a lot of us see unlimited abortion as a real human rights issue, not just a "social" one. And a lot of us are not single issue voters because a contrary position on ANY issue important enough to a voter can cause that voter to not vote for the candidate taking that position.
Exactly. Abortion views are important because they show how a person views the world as well as respect for life.
Donate to Fred Thompson's Campaign right here...you know you want to!
And now you can take the link down to the video
Thompson at one time supported a woman's right to choose and now he doesn't. I know he voted pro-life as a senator, that's great. My point is that Romney gets grilled when he changes his mind and when Fred does is the FredFluffers dimiss it and don't have any explanation. That kind of free ride is going to end soon for him and he and his supporters need to be able to respond to his inconsistencies.
D
What voters care about is what the candidate's policies are and how they will follow those as they govern. If you have a valid reason to think he's lying about his stance on abortion, then show some evidence. If he had just changed his mind in the last few months, when his presidential aspirations began, I'd be a little concerned. But it's obvious that he's had that position for many years now.
Frankly, I haven't followed any of the Romney stuff. If he has changed positions on some policy thing but has now held that position for a long period of time, I don't personally think that is a problem. Now if position changes are a "life pattern" (ie. he has done it in many different policy scenarios) then it may be an issue. Or if he has done it for seeming political expediency, then that too is an issue. I see no such patterns in Thompson. Everyone changes their mind on a few things. I was once a rabid pro-capital punishment person. Now I'm not. People change....some.
Surely you can come up with some better anti-Fred blather. That one don't play. Even Drudge knows it, or he'd have left that video pointer there.
Romney's record consists of not liberalizing abortion laws in a state in which abortion is legal for any reason or no reason through all nine months of pregnancy from the time girls are young enough to conceive. He pledged not to try to change those laws. How you can compare that to an long and established pro-life voting record is beyond me. Does Thompson support making abortion illegal at the state level? I don't know, but I do know that he voted the right way on federal legislation.
Having said that, I am a bit concerned about the type of judicial nominees he'd put up given his support for McCain-Feingold, an unconstitutional piece of legislation.
I'm not denying that Fred has a solid voting record on abortion, I'm not debating that. However, he very clearly was pro-choice at one point and he had better be ready to explain when he changed his mind.
D
He wasn't "very clearly...pro-choice at one point." So he thought Roe v. Wade shouldn't be the law, that states should decide, and that women shouldn't be put in jail for abortions. That's hardly pro-choice...that's a pretty common viewpoint of most pro-lifers.
I'm one of those people who would like to see a Life Amendment to the Constitution, but only because I think state-by-state differences on abortion miss the point. But I respect that view far more than a view embracing total legalization of murder of innocent children.
Donate to Fred Thompson's Campaign right here...you know you want to!
I wrote himself that he didn't think the government should decide, that a woman should. I'm not judging his right to change his mind, but it's very clear that there was a time that he was effectively pro-choice and he is going to need to explain how, when and why he changed his mind. If he and his supporters don't discuss it now, it's going to come out at an inopportune time for him.
D
On Abortion: “Government should stay out of it… The ultimate decision must be made by the women… Government should treat its citizens as adults capable of making moral decisions on their own.” — Fred Thompson, July 1994
http://vote-smart.org/npat.php?can_id=22003#408
Look at the first checkmark of his-
"Abortions should be legal in all circumstances as long as the procedure is completed within the first trimester of the pregnancy."
Again, I'm not questioning his beliefs, but he needs to explain this soon...
D
Well it looks like you've already been banned, but you are questioning his beliefs. You're spamming these threads against him to question his position as it is today and has been for over a decade. He said some things in 1994 and 1996, sure. It would be nice if he had been "solidly pro-life" for his entire life and there was never any question about his views, but most people aren't perfect like that. There isn't another candidate in the race who is electable, conservative on nearly every other issue, and who has a solid pro-life record while in office. There just isn't. Fred is the best in the race.
Donate to Fred Thompson's Campaign right here...you know you want to!
at least in reference to the NRLC ratings.
According to the NRLC website, the Committee gave Thompson a 33% rating in 2001-2002, a 78% rating in 1999-2000, and an 87% rating in 1997-1998.
Link to National Right to Life Committee scorecard ==>
http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/scorecard/?chamber=S&session=107&x=14&y=6
Furthermore, your refutation links to a second hand source that claims National Right to Life gave him a 100% rating for his entire career in the Senate. The article fails to prove its claim. It does not substantiate its source, and may well be innacurate.
You don't strike me as one trying to distort the truth or the facts; for the sake of intellectual honesty and credibility, you may want to change the content of your post accordingly.
To add some context, the 33% rating in 2001-2002 was largely due to Thompson's support of McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, which pro-life advocates have assailed from the get go.
The more difficult explanation for Thompson to make is not that of his perceived evolution on abortion itself, but of his undying support for McCain Feingold in the face of vehement pro-life opposition to the legislation.
McCain Feingold has proven damaging to the Right to Life movement, and many won't be quick to forgive Thompson's longtime support of the legislation. Put bluntly, it appears Fred!, for whatever reason, made campaign finance reform a higher priority than life, his personal views on abortion and federalism notwithstanding.
The 3 votes that they used for 01-02 (from your link):
1 - McCain-Feingold "campaign finance reform"
2 - Shays-Meehan (McCain-Feingold) "campaign finance reform"
3 - Ban on abortions in military medical facilities
So he actually had a 100% rating on the (only) life issue before the Senate that session. Fred has already stated that McCain-Feingold hasn't worked and he's ready to think about scrapping the whole system for immediate online disclosure.
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The CIA has better politicians than it has spies - Fred Thompson
If you think that McCain Feingold isn't considered a life issue by NRCL, you have another thing coming. If you want to ignore its implications to the pro-life cause, go right ahead. The fact is, the pro-life movement was all over McCain Feingold from the beginning, and its arguments proved right.
McCain and Thompson turned a blind eye then. Thompson has flipped on the issue now, but the damage has been done. It wasn't just that he was for it then and against it now. He was McCain's right hand man on the legislation and has a long way to go to establish credibility on the issue.
is directly to the NRLC's website. I agree the Youtube video was a cheap shot, and a rather poorly executed one at that. But to claim that it misrepresented the NRCL's rating of Thompson is simply not true.
Of course it misrepresented it. It attempts to play 3 votes, two of which are only very indirectly related to "pro-life" issues (if you believe that CFR impacts the pro-life movement), as if they represent some consistent trend of Fred Thompson.
Taking one whole year out of an eight year career is a terribly disingenuous thing to do. What would you think if say, one of the years there wasn't a vote on any life issue, and they had passed it off as a 0% record? 0/0 of course is undefined, but I think you get the point. It misrepresents his career and passes off two votes on campaign finance reform as being "consistently pro-choice." It's an absurd allegation.
Donate to Fred Thompson's Campaign right here...you know you want to!
I didn't say it misrepresented NRLC's rating. I wouldn't have given him the same rating myself is all I was saying. I don't speak for NRLC and didn't claim to. I just put the "33%" in context - 2 votes on CFR and 1 on an actual life issue. I'm just pointing out that their standard for a life issue vote might be different than others. People can easily look at 3 votes and determine for themselves. I think it paints a much clearer picture than throwing "33%" out there.
I don't think they'd get many people to back up the claim that CFR is a life issue. McCain-Feingold is an abomination, a stain on those who supported it (the president who said he would veto it, and the mental midgets on the Supreme Court who didn't overturn it in McConnell). It does have some impact on right to life groups, but no more than any other group.
Their ratings, their choice of which legislation to use. I just wanted a bit of context.
___________________________________
The CIA has better politicians than it has spies - Fred Thompson
I've updated the post accordingly.
"I die the King's good servant, and God's first." Saint Thomas More.
And it may be that NRLC praised Thompson in another context, I don't know. Or that the article was counting only those ratings that did not include BCRA support among them, as Darin H does in his post above.
Stone?
Oh I'm so dissapointed...
Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin
Seeing as you spend most of your time dreaming about being nuzzled up against Rudy's hindquarters.
"I die the King's good servant, and God's first." Saint Thomas More.
Considering the source and history of doing such things, I'm not offended.
For one who dares to use a quote from Saint Thomas More as a sig line and spends so much time demonizing others, I might suggest some reevaluating but then I'm guessing humility is not your thing.
Speaking of good St Thomas More quotes though...
“One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated”
PS
As I've said before, Rudy is a good man, a man who is part of our party, has worked for our party, raised money for our party, helped others get elected. You with your front page access and agenda can't undo those facts or change history with your character assassination attempts. Your linking to a Rolling Stone article and then defending it leads one to question your judgement if not your agenda.
You don't personally get to decide who is part of our party but at some point I do hope your lack of tact will get your front page rights removed.
Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin
You started this crap by taking a cheap shot at me for linking to a Rolling Stone article over in RedHot (not on the front page), which, of course, has nothing to do with the substance of this post. There's no mention of Rudy whatsoever, but you want to dredge up an unfortunate exchange I had with my cobloggers for no reason other than to be a punk.
You're being a jerk, and you know it. I'd suggest you watch your step, or you'll end up being "banned guy."
"I die the King's good servant, and God's first." Saint Thomas More.
at some point I do hope your lack of tact will get your front page rights removed.
Clearly, you've never met Thomas, Streiff, Moe or I. It won't. Given your history in this particular exchange, I wouldn't go waving the posting rules around if I were you. I'd also disengage from this particular discussion, as it has nothing to do with your chosen candidate, and we frown upon threadjacking here, especially when said threadjacking begins with a huge Pointy Stick™.
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[F]or by the fundamental law of Nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred...
-John Locke
Come on. There's no need for crap like that here.
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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community
There was no need for strange_guy to take such a cheap shot at me. I assume that is what you find "appalling."
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"I die the King's good servant, and God's first." Saint Thomas More.
Everyone stop, now, please, with "please" being code for "and I mean it." That means every commenter, diarist, and contributor playing he-did-it-first on this thread.
This is not a suggestion. I'll close comments if needed.
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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!
For those extolling Thomson's principled federalist stance on abortion, please explain his vote FOR the federal partial birth abortion ban. Thomson says he doesn't think Congress should get involved in establishing abortion policy, yet votes for the federal partial birth abortion ban. What gives?
I am thankful Thomson voted in favor of the federal partial birth abortion ban, but his vote was clearly inconsistent with his statements that abortion policy should be left to the states.
That's a decent question. Perhaps he thinks that in certain cases it's necessary for the federal government to intervene. Federalism doesn't mean states rights all of the time. Given Roe v. Wade, it is entirely reasonable to have supported a law that circumvents that.
By the way it is Thompson.
Donate to Fred Thompson's Campaign right here...you know you want to!
IMMIGRATION PROFILE OF SENATOR FRED THOMPSON:
http://conservativesagainstfred.wordpress.com/
Voted to grant amnesty to close to one million illegal aliens from Nicaragua and Cuba in 1997
Sen. Thompson voted to grant legal status to Nicaraguans and Cubans who had lived in the United States illegally since 1995, along with their spouses and minor unmarried children. The overall ten year impact of this legislation will be the addition of some 967,000 people to U.S. population.
Voted in 1996 to continue chain migration
Sen. Thompson in 1996 voted against the Simpson Amendment to S.1664. It was a vote in favor of a chain migration system that has been the primary reason for annual immigration levels snowballing from less than 300,000 in 1965 to around a million. Sen. Thompson supported provisions that allow immigrants to send for their adult relatives. Then each of those relatives can send for their and their spouse’s adult relatives, creating a never-ending and ever-growing chain. The bi-partisan Barbara Jordan Commission recommended doing away with the adult relative categories (begun only in the 1950s) in order to lessen wage depression among lower-paid American workers. The Simpson Amendment attempted to carry out that recommendation. But Sen. Thompson helped kill the reform by voting with the 80-20 majority against the amendment. Sen. Thompson’s vote helped continue a level of immigration that the Census Bureau projects will result in a doubled U.S. population in the next century.
Voted in favor of chain migration in 1996
Sen. Thompson voted in 1996 against the Feinstein Amendment to S.1664. The Feinstein Amendment would have reduced annual admission of spouses and minor children of citizens to 480,000 and significantly reduced annual limits other categories of chain migration such as parents of citizens and adult unmarried children of citizens. By voting against the Feinstein Amendment, Sen. Thompson voted in favor of a system of chain migration that has been the primary reason for annual immigration levels snowballing from less than 300,000 in 1965 to around a million today.
Voted to allow firms to lay off Americans to make room for foreign workers in 1998
Before the Senate passed the H-1B doubling bill (S.1723), Sen. Thompson had an opportunity to vote for a measure requiring U.S. firms to check a box on a form attesting that they had first sought an American worker for the job. Sen. Thompson voted against that, joining those who said the requirement would give government too much authority over corporations’ right to hire whomever they please from whatever country.
In 1996, removed higher fines for businesses which hire illegal aliens
Sen. Thompson, in committee consideration of S.1664 protected businesses from having to pay higher fines when they are caught hiring illegal aliens. Under the idea that current fines were not enough of a deterrent against businesses cutting their labor costs by hiring illegal aliens, the Senate immigration subcommittee approved higher fines. Various study commissions have found that the willingness of U.S. businesses to hire illegal aliens is the No. 1 incentive for foreign workers to become illegal aliens here. But Sen. Thompson voted with a 10-8 majority in the Judiciary Committee to remove the higher fines from the 1996 legislation against illegal immigration.
Tried to kill voluntary pilot programs for workplace verification in 1996
Sen. Thompson voted IN FAVOR of the Abraham Amendment to S.1664. He was part of a coalition of pro-business conservatives and liberal civil libertarians who tried to use the amendment to kill the establishment of voluntary pilot programs in high-immigration states. The programs were intended to assist employers in verifying whether people they had just hired had the legal right to work in this country. Such verification is considered by many experts to be an essential tool for withdrawing the job magnet from illegal aliens. The verification system established by S.1664 did not involve an ID card. Rather it provided that when new workers wrote down their Social Security number on an application, employers could phone into a national verification system to help assure that the number was a real number and belonged to the person giving it. In earlier smaller pilot programs, businesses had hailed the verification system for making it easier for them to avoid hiring illegal aliens. Sen. Thompson was unsuccessful in stopping the voluntary verification system. The Senate tabled the by a 54-46 vote.
FDT hasn't officially jumped into the campaign yet and the Dems are already throwing hissy-fits. I love it! The Dems reaction to Fred proves beyond doubt they consider him THE threat. I would love to be a picture hanging in their campaign headquarters.
Let the Fred tsunami begin!!!