They just don't have the guts. They haven't for a while, and that won't change anytime soon. As the Christian right has crumbled in power, prominent Republicans have had less reason to feign religious zealotry, much less sincerity. The result has been a growing acceptance for a pro-choice camp within the party. In 1996, Bob Dole asked to pull the abortion plank from the party platform, a request the younger Bush's wife and mother, both quietly pro-choice, echoed on a national television appearance last month.
Republicans believe abortion is murder but stand idly by.
This makes them witnesses to a massacre, robots in straitjackets. Meanwhile, the Democrats humiliate the Republicans when it comes to acting on other Christian principles such as social justice and care for the environment. Not only are the advantages of a do-nothing Republican negligible, the simultaneous harm done to the poor and the earth is dangerous. This is not to suggest abortion should be less than urgent to voters with Christian principles. The civics lesson of the era, taught by Clinton and now Bush, is that politicians enjoy the success that comes with occupying the political center.