GOP Must Hold to Its Principles

I thank Dana Parsons for his column of May 2. Unfortunately, he misses a crucial element of my argument. I maintain that abortion is wrong not because of religious faith or theological doctrine, but as a matter of common sense. The doctrine of individual rights is the basis of self-government, but the ground of individual rights is human nature. Lincoln, who was neither an extremist nor a religious ideologue, maintained that slavery was wrong because it violated the “self-evident truth” of human equality. It is on exactly the same ground that I, and many others, maintain that abortion is wrong.

What’s to be done about it? We must establish the principle of the matter before we can determine the prudent course of action. The goal is not to prosecute mothers, or women, or doctors, but to place the policy of abortion on the road to its ultimate political extinction.

What the neophyte Republicans of the 1850s learned is that maintaining the principles of the party, instead of throwing them into the wind as some would have us do, is the best strategy.

After all, it was the anti-slavery Republican Party that won a presidential election just four years after it was founded in 1856. What divided the electorate in 1860 was not the anti-slavery position of Lincoln, the Republican, but the pro-choice position of Stephen A. Douglas, the Democrat.

Despite all the loud complaints of those who espouse Democratic Party positions and yet claim to be Republican, pro-life, pro-family voters are the base of the GOP. Attacking that base is what hurts the party.

MATTHEW SPALDING

Claremont