In February, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin wrote a paper for the Heritage Foundation titled “The Cause of Life Can’t be Severed from the Cause of Freedom,” and in July, he took issue with Mitch Daniels’ call for a “truce” on social issues.
So it’s a little surprising to see this criticism of Ryan at Red State:
Really? I guess Mr. Ryan’s idea of a “roadmap” is just to get on “the highway to power,” and ignore any of the bumpier roads – never mind if it takes you somewhere you don’t want to go.
But Ryan hasn’t gotten on board with the idea of a truce on social issues. “I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” Ryan told me in July. “You’re not going to have a truce. Judges are going to come up. Issues come up, they’re unavoidable, and I’m never going to not vote pro-life.”
What Ryan appears to be saying in his comment on CNBC is that he’s willing to tolerate some people in the party like Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Mark Kirk of Illinois who think abortion should be legal, if there are other important issues on which they agree, such as repealing Obamacare–which happens to also be a goal of pro-lifers. (It’s worth noting that Brown’s positions–against abortion funding, against abortions on military bases, for judges like Alito–make him mostly pro-life when it comes to his voting record.)
Ryan says in a statement to THE WEEKLY STANDARD today that the Republican Party must “remain ever-vigilant in its defense” of the right to life:
