Ugh. Great. Now American Right to Life cronies can infiltrate ProLifeBlogs with the mission of their fledgling organization: to attack the National Right to Life.

Like I've said before: let's wait and see how many "American Right to Life" approved bills pass at any level of government. My guess: none.

Great blog..

Why is PLB allowing itself to be a conduit for attacking pro-life groups? We can have a good faith debate about the best strategy to protect the unborn, but allowing comments comparing a pro-life group to the betrayer of Jesus makes PLB look pretty bad. Surely this web site is above allowing these kinds of pathetic antics.

I was all set to agree with Steven, but then I saw my second cousin, Charlie Rice, quoted here. Being my relative aside, he's "definitive", for me and for many, when it comes to prolife issues and constitutional law as related to prolife issues. I have a call/email in to him to see which side (if any) of this new debate he might be on. There is something to this if Charlie is putting his name on something (plus I must see if he authorized actually putting his name on the ARTL website list in the right sidebar).

This press release paraphrases Dr. Rice but the rest of the paragraph is vague on whether he fully agrees with ARTL or with NRTL overall.

Posted by: Annie B. on December 26, 2007 11:32 AM

Annie B:

Just take note that the American Right to Life sidebar is not an endorsement of American Right to Life--it is a list of people who opposed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. That does not mean, ipso facto, that they support American Right to Life.

Annie B: Not only does your second cousin Charles not agree with NRTL's strategy of regulating child killing, he appears on the blockbuster DVD, "Focus on the Strategy II" that you can get at KGOVStore.com that also features Steve Ertelt in a debate with American RTL president and Columbine dad Brian Rohrbough. Finally, did you read the rest of that Legacy article? It's riveting, and devastating, and the correct URL to find it at is: artlaction.com/TheLegacyofJudas.

Thanks for being cautious! -Bob Enyart

Posted by: Bob Enyart on December 26, 2007 5:56 PM

This continuing debate within the pro-life movement is yet another example of how easy it is to compare the pro-life movement with the animal rights movement, which is also split.....

The large, well funded organizations (PETA, Humane Society and others supported by vegetarians, who don't eat meat, and some vegans, who don't eat any animal products, including meat, eggs, and dairy) take an "ethicist" approach - using incrementalism and "ethical treatment" options (like painkillers for animals about to be slaughtered....) to bring about less animal maltreatment. They applaud companies things like organic and "free range" meat, and decisions to stop serving veal (without going after the other forms of meat), and have a history of spending millions of dollars on campaigns that do little or nothing to advance the idea of "hey, lets not eat them" (which one would think is the goal). Peter Singer (known to pro-lifers as "that dude who thinks its ok to kill kids AFTER birth") is an animal ethicist, and claims that compassionate slaughter is OK (another example of his twisted view of "ethics").

The smaller groups (made up of committed vegans) focus on animal rights, and advocate nothing short of total elimination of animals from our diet. They do not congratulate companies that treat animals kindly...and then kill them, and they do not ask restaurants to stop serving one type of meat (like veal)....they ask them to stop serving ALL types of meat. These groups are thought of as more radical, but tend to be the ones making serious converts, and winning solid campaigns that actually accomplish their goals.

When I first saw this I cringed. It pains me to see one pro-lifer pull the rug out from under the works of another.
Sure, it would be great if the whole pro-life community could pool resources and have a unified strategy and get it all done perfectly. However, that is never going to happen. Real life is not like that. The pro-life cause is to big...to varied...to many important things need to be done...none of which need to wait around for the other guys program to be completed.
There must be a multi-pronged strategy. Stop thinking either/or. Start thinking both/and. There is room for both NRTL and ARTL efforts. Both are worthy works of mercy. Just like there must be room in our pool of resources for crisis pregnancy centers, TV ads, legal/political stuff, etc. One does not under cut the other. Even if you disagree with the logic of the other guy's strategy...trust that it is worthy...even if imperfect in your eyes. If you don't like it don't support it and just let if fail on its own (unless, of course, it's violent or some such nonsense).

Thanks, Bob E., I didn't know that about the DVD.

I haven't done a lot of research on this but this came up in a cursory google search, http://www.nrlc.org/news/1999/NRL499/amr.html

NRLC apparently sued ARTL in '99 "In order to protect our membership and the general public" alleging that ARTL's "the overwhelming majority of the pro-life resources raised [in 1998] by the nationwide telemarketing campaign being conducted under the name "American Right to Life," were paid to the telemarketing firm, Capitol Communications of Mesa, Arizona. You all can read it for yourselves, and I don't know how it was resolved (if at all). Anyone?

Regardless, ARTL has done a great service to me and I hope to us all, by pointing out what we thought (and have said, in Bopp's case) was "a great victory" in the PBA ruling, was in fact, completely NOT a victory. I read the ruling in more detail, and while some are misquoting certain passages in wrong places within the document, generally the ruling does change the PBA procedure allowing it to still be done minus a few short inches of the baby's body. Had I known that, I wouldn't have been so congratulatory of the justices' decision.

To answer Bob's q, I did read that legacy section in full. While it is certainly devastating, I objected to the inflamed rhetoric of some of it. Certainly unnecessary. ("In betrayal, NRTL quietly worked..." is an example. I would like to see some objective, calm proof that NRLC's work was indeed that before I believe it was intentional "betrayal.")

Other phrases, such as this "the godless NRTL strategy" and this series, are mostly antagonistic opinion and poetry: "NRTL, always brokering power, raising money for bloated salaries, and funding comfortable retirement programs, opposes all efforts, including South Dakota's recent referendum, toward actually ending abortion. NRTL and Bopp only prune the abortion weed and thereby strengthen its root, betraying those who trusted them, using donations not to protect children, but to regulate the most visibly egregious actions of the abortion industry, unwittingly doing Planned Parenthood's public relations work for them."

Wow! Give me less rhetoric and more factual original sources and quotes, and they'll have something there (perhaps I need to review their site in light of the corrections they commented on having made there in the other thread on this). This legacy oped said "see the Oregon RTL 2004 Voters Guide" yet gives me no link to easily go see it. Questionable journalism, this, and if I ever did that on our site, I'd be lambasted. Some of this is also an ironic attack on NRLC given the apparent money-funneling problems of ARTL in 1998 (As mentioned in link above).

I'd like to ask Nathan in particular, do you and other folks at and supporing NRLC, and those with ARTL, see how sometimes the inflammatory rhetoric is exactly what pleases satan most?

I also posted a reply to the newer thread on this topic, here, http://www.prolifeblogs.com/articles/archives/2007/12/american_right.php

I do believe it is a hard choice to make: try to save some, or try to save them all, but end up saving none. I've gone back and forth myself over a period of years.

I'm never one for succoring an organization that has come to seek its own self-preservation (good case in point, American Cancer Society), but let's be damn certain the intentional-betraying devastation is real, not just what some or even many believe it is.

Posted by: Annie B. on December 31, 2007 3:16 PM