Letter: Anti-abortion GOP has itself to blame

Monday, June 11, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

Hypocrisy is partly defined in Webster's dictionary as: "the false assumption of virtue or religion." This part of the longer definition applies to the Republican Party.

In November 1967, Republican California Gov. Ronald Reagan signed into state law the California Therapeutic Abortion Act.

In 1969, Republican President Richard Nixon appointed Republican Harry Blackmun to the high court. It was Blackmun who, in 1973, championed and wrote the majority position on Roe v. Wade, which affirmed the right to abortion.

Abortion was the result of two Republicans, and not the Democrats, who get blasted for upholding the Constitution, which since a 1973 Supreme Court decision has affirmed the right of a woman to control her own body.

In 1976, during his first run for president and while speaking to a religious fundamentalist group in California, Reagan said "God is on our side," meaning that God favors Republicans.

He also profoundly pledged to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision.

That was 31 years ago and the Republicans have repeated that pledge, yet they have not reversed it. It has been a bumper-sticker event each year, which has sucked in the religious zealots year after year.

In the case of the Catholic hierarchy, "vote your conscience" is the code phrase coming from the pulpits and bishop's chairs, which means vote for Republicans.

The single issue of abortion has trumped all other moral issues, which barely reach the light of day.

Hypocrisy abounds.

James J. Poupard, Henderson