She's not talking about changing up MCFL's questionnaire to scratch off the question about whether a candidate legally supports life from the moment of conception to natural birth to trick the grassroots into believing proabortion candidates are "prolife".
"Enough is Enough" is about me.
I'm a purist and while it's nice to know what a political purist looks like, questioning MCFL candidates is wrong and demoralizing. I'm "attacking' MCFL because I have a conspiracy theory that they're really proaborts and I'm "subjecting' their 'prolife' candidates to 'inquisitions' because of my animus for MCFL.
Anne talks about specific examples of their candidates which seems to walk around the elephant in the room - their candidates were either so marginally prolife, or they weren't prolife at all, like Delahunt, they are not very long into their position before they are not voting 'prolife' at all.
I did speak personally with Perry and in spite of his omission about the right to life from conception to natural death, he told me he is prolife from the moment of conception. Unlike Cahill, Brown, Romney, Finneran, Delahunt, Ambler - etc., it does sound like Perry is really 'prolife' and I think he's a candidate prolifers could and should endorse and assist.
We're fresh out of having MCFL call Cahill an 'outstanding prolifer'. The guy, and again, I don't begrudge him the title of the best of all the proaborts if that's what MCFL was getting at, scrubbed his proabortion credentials from his website after coming out of a meeting with MCFL whereby they all agreed they would endorse him. After the dust up, he had the decency to admit he is proachoice. "Outstanding prolifer" said MCFL and we are proud to endorse him.
The indignation makes for good drama but isn't MCFL doing another jig around their own wrongdoings and the consequences?
Perry said he wants us all to agree there are too many abortions and he wants to move in the direction of providing more assistance to pregnant women and then he jumped right into he opposes partial birth abortion.
Sadly, Perry's desccription is found wanting as to whether he actually opposes Roe v. Wade and in light of the fact that proaborts qualify for the description 'outstanding prolifer' - isn't it a little disingenuous to get all huffy about asking him to verify his 'prolife' credentials?
Further, calling me a 'purist' is silly. I have repeatedly said, nobody would object if she and others at MCFL would change their language from calling proaborts prolife to something like 'that though are no prolifers in this race, we recommend the following candidate(s) based on ____________."
We want them to just be honest about candidate positions. If they perceive this as 'an attack', so be it. After some years of going postal over people asking questions and trying to hold their feet to the fire, the Massachusetts prolife grassroots is fractured. We've got zero candidates in the Senate and a handful in the legislature and a million and three quarters of prolifers don't want to have anything to do with MCFL.
Wouldn't you think it would be time to change the game plan?
What happened with Perry underscores the consequences of cheapening the word prolife and circulating a 'prolife' questionnaire that leaves more questions than it does answers.
Anne says in her op ed:
MCFL is the oldest and largest pro-life group in the state. Our job is to identify, educate, and activate pro-life people. There are more than three million pro-life people in Massachusetts. Slightly more than 200,000 of them are members of MCFL. As groups with other, complementary missions have formed, we have all worked together for our common goal: saving babies and protecting all vulnerable lives.
Our PACs support politicians who will advance a culture of life, those who will make pro-life gains. As Fr. Frank Pavone has said, "Don't give me labels. Give me specific commitments."We all want to save babies. It is good to have people constantly reminding us of what political purity ought to look like, but when those people drive away others, when they alienate us from elected officials, and when they seek to demoralize and divide the pro-life movement, they accomplish what even the pro-abortionists cannot accomplish.
It is sad when a few people want to believe the worst about fellow pro-lifers: that they are somehow part of an elaborate conspiracy to help those who are pro-abortion. It would be silly if it weren't so serious.
I really don't get intellectual dishonesty.
The prolife grassroots is split because MCFL removed the most important question about abortion from their candidate 'questionnaire'
What is the burden of putting the question back in?
It seems ludicrous to carry on about people 'attacking' MCFL when all we want is honesty about the candidates they are supporting.
Jeff Perry's website avoided saying he would defend life from the moment of conception.
Since MCFL conveniently deleted the question and has called dozens of proaborts 'prolife' candidates, what is the burden of asking Perry to clarify his stance on Roe v. Wade?
That is supposed to be MCFL's job, isn 't it?
If they don't do it, why all the drama when somebody else steps up to the plate to find out?
This is a battle we must win. We must persuade and convert others. We must work with existing politicians and grow new candidates who will help advance the cause of the unborn.
The dust up, is not about opposition to 'working with existing politicians' or 'converting them', it's about calling proabortion politicians 'prolife'.
Would somebody please enlighten me to what the burden is of putting the critical right to life question back into their questionnaire and finding a different way to recommend the best of all the proaborts than calling him prolife?
It seems like two minor compromises to me that they've instead spent ten years throwing bricks at us for asking the questions and then blaming the people disgusted with the dishonesty for the disenchantment in the camp.
I'm beginning to wonder if they're taking PR lessons from Terri Donilon.
I never alluded to any 'conspiracy', what I said was, if MCFL is going to find common goals with prochoice candidates and call them "prolife", there isn't any difference between MCFL and Catholics United.
It is confusing the masses. You can't tell people not take advice about who to vote for from Catholics United when MCFL uses the exact same tactics.
Whittling the right to life from conception to natural death leaves it so nuanced that some of the pols who have thrown our agenda right under the bus answered 'yes' to most/all the questions.
There is no way to tell the wolves from the sheep they way they are conducting their affairs.
By their own admission, there are two million prolifers in Massachusetts. A couple of hundred thousand of us don't understand all the hoopla about adding back in "the critical question", honesty about who is prolife and who isn't.
Instead of doing it, they've spent ten years throwing prolifers who want total honesty under the bus. Killing the messenger is what has been fracturing the prolife community in Massachusetts.
