An observant reader notes that my description yesterday of Ted Kennedy’s support for legal abortion as “lifelong” is an overstatement. In fact, early in his public career, even Ted Kennedy had not yet embraced the casual cruelty of his party towards the defenseless unborn; indeed, Kennedy’s rhetoric in those early days, displays genuine compassion for the defenseless unborn. Given Kennedy’s centrality to Democratic strategy on this issue – he was the leader of the fight against the Bork nomination – it’s interesting to look back. Here’s Kennedy during his 1970 campaign for a second full term in the Senate:
Spaulding was what today would be called “pro-choice,” and Kennedy, at that time, was passionately opposed to abortion. So when the subject came up, the senator was in full voice. He screamed, “Don’t tell me there isn’t enough love in the world to care for all the unwanted babies.” He mentioned that adoption agencies had waiting lists.
In 1971, Kennedy put his pro-life convictions in writing to a correspondent on Long Island:
Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized – the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old….Once life has begun, no matter at what stage of growth, it is my belief that termination should not be decided merely by desire….I also share the opinions of those who do not accept abortion as a response to our society’s problems…When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared enough about human beings enough to…fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.
Sadly, Kennedy’s estimate of how much love there was in the world, and how much his generation should care about fellow human beings, dwindled with the years – I leave to the reader to speculate on his motivations in the regard, but two of the groups most ardently in favor of legal abortion (not to suggest that they are mutually exclusive) are Democratic presidential candidates and men who have a lot of sex with women not their wives and don’t especially like to pay the consequences. What is clear, however, is that the many years Kennedy spent trying to convince Americans that the pro-life movement was somehow extremist and anti-woman were really a renunciation of his own heart. Because once upon a time, Ted Kennedy cared about the unborn.
Steve Maley
KnightsofMalta
Dan Spencer
Moe Lane
Dan McLaughlin
Tears to my eyes Dan
BlackConservative (Diary) Thursday, December 10th at 6:15PM EST (link)“Don’t tell me there isn’t enough love for all the unborn babies in the world.” We have been saying that in the pro-life movement for years. If on;y this Ted Kennedy was our adversary, not murdering drunken Uncle Teddy that we ended up with. This one would have been a worthy adversary.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.-Jesus Christ
JFK
Swamp_Yankee (Diary) Thursday, December 10th at 6:27PM EST (link)JFK was a pro-life, pro-military hawk, tax cutting, supply sider. Different era. TK was a early produect of that school, but ascended during hippie revolution of teh sixties and seventies and only joined them after he was free from family peer pressure. No doubt, if it was Joe that lived all those years and not Rose, TK would never had the balls to forget his roots.
Ted displayed his pro-life sentiments at Chappaquiddick. nt
nessa (Diary) Thursday, December 10th at 6:40PM EST (link)“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to Unified Patriots
teh twitter
Very insightful, Dan, ty.
Veronica (Diary) Thursday, December 10th at 9:14PM EST (link)I’m very, very moved.
What a shame .. and I want to say a waste of a life.
And that’s about Kennedy, not the millions of children he helped murder by his sin of omission.
Millstone.
May God have mercy has on his soul, tho he less mercy for the unborn.
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Pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on us. – St. Augustine
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Which face was his true one?
fisk2521 Thursday, December 10th at 10:35PM EST (link)“I leave to the reader to speculate on his motivations in the regard, but two of the groups most ardently in favor of legal abortion (not to suggest that they are mutually exclusive) are Democratic presidential candidates and men who have a lot of sex with women not their wives and don’t especially like to pay the consequences”
I would strongly suggest that the ardent feminists (feminazis as Rush calls them) were very influential in Ted Kennedy’s political reversal to the matter of the unborn. It is that group that has equated women’s equality with things such as sexual promiscuousness, and ‘reproductive rights’ which defined means abortions. (How Reproductive Rights can be translated to mean the destruction of life is a true mystery to me) This strident group screams the loudest, has an ‘in your face’ mentality and claims to represent the female voter in this country. Ted Kennedy catered to this group for their political support , leaving behind what he knew to be true.
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
LDavis
Maybe, but...
merryj1 Friday, December 11th at 12:41AM EST (link)…his other convictions seemed to be highly influenced by what would “play in Peoria.”
there are others
Steven Ertelt (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 10:23AM EST (link)He wasn’t the only Democrat to flip-flop on abortion – http://www.lifenews.com/state4373.html
"Hamana hamana hamana"
jeannieology (Diary) Friday, December 11th at 5:18PM EST (link)That is what Ted Kennedy said when he stood before God.
www.jeannie-ology.com
And then we have Patrick...
brian401 Saturday, December 12th at 5:16PM EST (link)Some of you may or may not know about young Patrick Kennedy’s recent public spat with Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin over Kennedy’s pro-choice stance on abortion. Without Ted around to keep him quiet, Patrick is self-imploding, especially on this issue.
It’s time for him to go!
His opponent, State Rep. John Loughlin (R), is a businessman, an Eagle Scout, a retired Army colonel and PRO-LIFE. John has raised more money than any of Patrick’s previous opponents. We finally have a fiscal conservative who has a real shot at unseating Kennedy.
Find out more about John at: www.johnloughlin.org