This week’s column represents my personal views only, and probably does not represent the views of most members of www.LIBERTYandPROSPERITY.org. 

As with most Americans, most of our members have very strong opinions on the abortion issue. And because each side bases its opinions on a different set of assumed facts, it is almost impossible for either side to change the opinion of the other.

“Pro-life” assumes an unborn fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. Therefore, the government has the constitutional right and duty to adopt laws to protect its rights.

 “Pro-choice” assumes an unborn fetus is part of the mother’s body, therefore the 9th and 10th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution prevent the government from interfering with the right of any man or woman to control his or her own body.

Since arguments over abortion do nothing but divide people and make them angry, we at LibertyAndProsperity.org avoid them.

The few people who talk about abortion these days are sincere, principled “pro-life” activists, who normally vote Republican, and cynical and calculating Democrats who call themselves “pro-choice.”

The Democrats know that public opinion polls, like Rasmussen Reports, show that 52 percent of Americans are “pro-choice” on the abortion issue, while only 41 percent are “pro-life.”

This means that when abortion is a big election issue, Republicans lose votes and Democrats win.

That is why Republican Party leaders tell their candidates and supporters to keep quiet about the abortion issue. But this never works. First, “pro-life” Republicans are fiercely independent and rarely keep quiet. Second, the Democrats and left-leaning TV networks and daily newspapers make abortion an important issue in every campaign and debate – even when Republicans don’t bring it up.

Years ago, Democrats had this same problem with the death penalty issue. Back then most blacks and university liberals – the base of the Democratic Party – opposed the death penalty, while most of the rest of the voting population supported it. Republicans brought up the death penalty in every campaign. And they clobbered any Democrat who opposed it for being “soft on crime.”

The Democrats eventually solved that problem by forcing people to admit that the issue was difficult and complicated. They spent lots of time and money on DNA investigations to claim that some innocent people had wrongfully been convicted of murder, and on endless appeals that stopped all executions in states like New Jersey. Once they made the death penalty issue difficult, complicated and non-political, voters stopped punishing Democrats like Jim Whelan who opposed it.

Maybe Republicans should drop the simple “pro-life” and “pro-choice” labels and recognize that the abortion issue is also difficult and complicated.

For 3,000 years Jews and Christians struggled to determine exactly when human life begins. Exodus 21:22 in the Bible indicates that the accidental killing of a fetus in a pregnant woman is less serious than the accidental killing of someone already born. But Jeremiah 1:5 indicates that this great prophet was anointed while still in his mother’s womb.

In ancient times, the widespread practice of Greek and Roman pagans of putting unwanted newborn babies into clay pots and leaving them on the side of the road to die was considered murder by Jews and Christians.

But early Jews and Christians did not believe unborn fetuses were protected by the Seven Laws of Noah until they developed a soul – believed to be 40 to 60 days after conception.

During the Middle Ages, Catholic doctrine changed. Today the Catholic Church (and many Protestant denominations) teaches that human life begins at conception and that life should be protected during the entire pregnancy. But many Jews, Catholics, and Protestants still follow the earlier doctrine.

Recent polls show that some two thirds of Americans today think late-term “partial birth” abortions are as barbaric as what pagan Greeks and Romans did to newborn babies in ancient times, and that they should be outlawed. Even many “pro-choice” women agree that they lose some of their freedom to the “unalienable rights” the recognizable human they allow to develop within them if they wait too long.

But most Americans, including many moral and religious Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, don’t feel that way about very early term abortions, especially when other issues like rape, likely birth defects, and physical and mental health of the mother are involved.

So many of them, even those who support the entire 10 Point Program of LibertyAndProsperity.org , will vote for liberal Democrats because they are afraid of “pro-life” Republicans.

Somers Point attorney Seth Grossman appears on 92.1FM 8-9 a.m. Saturday. For information see www.libertyandprosperity.org, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call (609) 927-7333. Breakfast discussions are held 9:30-10:30 a.m. every Saturday at the Shore Diner on Fire and Tilton roads in Egg Harbor Township.