Yesterday, President Bush said his brother did the right thing to save Terri Schiavo. It’s nice to see the president weigh in on Terri’s side, although it would have been nicer for him to say something before the hard action was already done. I do understand that it might have been seen as inappropriate for him to say something before his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, actually acted.
The president made another comment yesterday that I think some people are misinterpreting. He said, “I don’t think the culture has changed to the extent that the American people or the Congress would totally ban abortions.” Some people took that to mean that he doesn’t want to ban abortions, but that’s not what he said. In fact, what he said was that the political climate doesn’t exist among politicians, judges, and the voting public where an effort to ban abortion would succeed. And I think that’s true. Instead, what we need is more efforts to change the climate—something the president can and should do more about—until it is conducive to passing a ban. Think about it: if a ban even on partial-birth abortions was this hard to get (and may yet be overturned by the Supreme Court) how hard will it be to get more comprehensive bans passed?
