Jerry Falwell is dead. I don’t believe he deserved the hype he got in life and I don’t believe his death deserves the hype it’s getting now. Rather than donate any more cyber space to a second rate politico and third rate preacher, I will comment on an issue near and dear to his heart – the Pro-Life stand.

The Other Pro-Life

It is resolved then, that it is a simple fact of existence backed up by the bumper stickeritis that infects central Pennsylvania, that in order to be a good Republican, you need to be pro-life. From the base on up the legislative food chain, the pro-choice Republican went the way of the three-martini lunch. Rudy is one, but barely, and the other panderers in the Republican primary for President are strictly toeing the line either out of legitimate principal, or because they are scared of the fundamentalists.

Although I truly believe the abortion issue to be a legislative ruse de guerre of modern politics, I think there is a basic inconsistency in the way that conservatives view the pro-life issue. No, I am not talking about the logical conundrum of being against abortion and for the death penalty. What I mean is that conservatives should consider taking the very basic moral stance of being pro-life and apply it to actual life, and not just pre-natal politics. If we were legitimately pro-life as a party, we would be advocating programs to benefit those outside of the womb as well.

Being pro-life means taking care of the living as well as those unborn. If conservatives are to be consistent and convincing on this issue, then they should be advocate better child healthcare and better public education. Life is a continual cycle that begins before conception (sperm and egg are both ‘live’ cells before being united in groovy-ness) and if we are to be a society that advocates life, then that should be advocating in the strongest sense of the word, improving the quality of our society as a whole.

It doesn’t stop with children. Being pro-life means advocating a reformed healthcare system that improved public health universally and throughout life. Advocating a public-private compromise to make access to healthcare affordable and mandatory of all citizens is a good way to go and one that still enables choice for the consumer, but prevents insurance companies from charging unaffordable premiums. Being pro-life is about taking care of the living, the uninsured, the poor, and the elderly throughout life and not letting the uninsured and the underinsured, live without access to doctors and medication.

Being pro-life also means also taking care of our natural environment to ensure that we have a world worth living in for our grandchildren. It means clean water and protecting our environment. It means conservation, tree planting, hiking trails, and the development of alternative fuels.

Being pro-life doesn’t stop with humans. If we require the death of animals to sustain our appetite for poultry and meat, we can make sure that these animals have dignity when they are alive and are raised and kept in clean and humane environments. It should be mandatory that animals be treated in a humane and dignified way, even if they’ll be slaughtered, it is morally outrageous the way the poultry and pork industries treat the animals under their care.

Unfortunately many conservatives see these things as liberal or as I have often heard “crunchy” values. If this is so, then conservatives are conceding that the left has a greater concern for public morality than the right, which is certainly not the case.

So why is the right often on the wrong side of these issues? Well, it has to do mostly with money. The Republican Party has often been criticized for being in bed with big industry and with the Industry of Faith. There is a reason for some stereotypes. There is a reason for this one as well. Republicans are reluctant to pass laws that govern industry because being in bed with industry is a conservative legacy that had been a detriment to the party. Likewise, Republican politicians are afraid to lose the religious demographic that is crucial to their get out to vote effort, and also indirectly, part of their fundraising strategy.

The market is governed by a lot of things, but it is not governed by morality. If we are to be a moral party, then we need to consider all issues of public morality our issues, part of our duty to make a better society. It amazes me that many mainstream Christians seem to care more about abortion than they do about the enormous social issues that we can actually do something about, right now. If we are to advocate being pro-life, then we need to reconsider how people are treated outside of the womb as well as within.