Thompson: Abortion, Gay Marriage, Whatever

Clayton Cramer defends Fred Thompson to religious conservatives who are upset by his appearance on Meet the Press in which he stated that he didn’t support a Human Life Amendment or a Marriage Amendment.

To the degree that passage of either Amendments is infeasible, the controversy has been built up to be more than it is. George W. Bush doesn’t support the human life Amendment. However, what Bush did speak of is creating a society where human life is respected. What comes off from Fred Thompson is: “This is a state issue and whatever the states do, I really couldn’t care less.” The same thing on marriage. Thompson doesn’t seem interested in creating a society with respect for life and that doesn’t sit well.

On one hand in his own (at times) awkward ways, George W. Bush made conservatives feel he shared their concerns. With Fred Thompson’s answer, he usually raises the canard that if he were in the states, he wouldn’t support criminalizing a teenage girl in a crisis situation who chose an abortion. This is despite the fact that nearly every serious pro-life group tacitly rejects prosecuting women for abortions and would only prosecute doctors. By raising the spectre of that straw man, Thompson successfully raises the fears of pro-choicers and at the same time, raises their most powerful argument against federalism without them having to do it. Thus he blunts his message and makes a federalist solution increasingly unlikely.

Other people can make a States Rights solution sound like a great pro-life strategy (such as Ron Paul) , but for people to buy that, they have to buy that you actually care about the issue. And that more than the positions taken is what has hurt Fred Thompson.