Bill Frist's election
as Senate Majority Leader would represent a stunning setback for pro-life
conservatives
By David T. Pyne
web
posted December 23, 2002
Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss) announced on Friday, December 20 that he was
stepping down from his post as Senate Majority Leader under heavy pressure
from the White House after determining that he did not have the votes
to withstand a challenge from White House-backed centrist Sen. Bill Frist
who declared his intention to challenge Trent Lott for his leadership
position the previous day. Frist is a noted centrist who is pro-choice
on abortion and is reportedly favored by President George W. Bush and
his advisor Karl Rove. Rove has developed quite a reputation of late for
opposing conservatives running for elected office and leadership positions
and supporting moderates and liberals who he believes are more electable.
In an even more disturbing development, the frontrunner to succeed Sen.
Lott as Senate Majority Leader who appeared to be the great white hope
for conservatives, outgoing Assistant Senate Republican Leader, Sen. Don
Nickles (R-OK), announced he would not run and would instead support Sen.
Frist, perhaps under pressure from the White House and other moderates
in the party. Many conservative Senate Republicans like Sen. James Inhofe
(R-OK) had been enthusiastically supporting Nickles as a more conservative
alternative to Sen. Lott. Thankfully, pro-life conservative Sen. Rick
Santorum (R-Penn) announced his candidacy for Senate Majority Leader to
fill the pro-life void so conservatives can now support Santorum against
pro-choice moderate, Bill Frist, in his bid for Senate Majority Leader.

Frist |
Frist's overall voting record in the Senate puts him squarely in the
squishy center of the Republican Party and well below the conservative
average for his fellow members of the Senate Republican Caucus. According
to at least one noted conservative ranking, Frist scored somewhere between
the 28th and the 30th most conservative of the forty-nine member Senate
Republican Caucus in terms of his voting record during the 107th Congress.
Trent Lott was rated the fifteenth most conservative member of the Caucus
by the same ranking. Senate Republican Conference Chair, Rick Santorum
(R-Penn), the other declared challenger for Lott's Senate Majority Leader
position, scored even better than Lott as the tenth-ranked conservative
in the Senate. Don Nickles was rated as the Senate's fifth most conservative
member.
Frist was awarded a 'D' by Gun Owners of America for his voting record
of opposing the Second Amendment rights of US citizens. He was also awarded
a 'D' lifetime rating by Americans for Better Immigration for his voting
record of supporting unrestricted open-borders immigration and amnesties
for millions of illegal immigrant law-breakers. As objectionable as Frist's
voting record is on the Second Amendment and border security issues, his
record on abortion is even more troubling to social conservatives.
During his initial campaign for US Senate, Bill Frist ran as a pro-choice
candidate on abortion. During an appearance on a Nashville radio station
in May 1994, he stated he "would like to keep our Senators out of
the [abortion] decision making process....it's a very private decision."
Both the Nashville Banner and the APN Hotline reported on June
24, 1994 that Frist was noted to have "frequently" and publicly
declared his position that he "does not believe abortion should be
outlawed." On October 10, 1994, a Memphis Commercial Appeal report
on a debate between Frist and incumbent Sen. Jim Sasser (D.-Tenn) stated,
"There were some topics on which the candidates agreed -- both said
they're personally opposed to abortion but don't think the government
should prohibit abortions." In a later edition of the Memphis Commercial
Appeal on October 28, 1994, Frist declared his opposition to a constitutional
ban on abortion. On November 4, 1994 the Knoxville News Sentinel
reported that Frist said during the 1994 campaign that he "would
not overturn Roe v Wade" and said on at least one occasion that he
supports "a woman's right to decide."
Frist's record on the life issue has continued to be mixed at best since
being elected to the US Senate. In an article appearing in the Commercial
Appeal on June 30, 1995, it was reported that the National Right to Life
Committee "slammed" Sen. Frist for supporting Nashville obstetrician-gynecologist
Henry Foster for surgeon general. Foster was defeated by Senate filibuster
following his admission that he had performed nearly seven hundred "therapeutic
abortions" throughout his career. Foster also admitted that he had
sterilized mentally retarded patients via hysterectomy. Frist subsequently
stated that Foster's record of performing several hundred abortions was
totally irrelevant to the Senate's consideration of him for the post of
US Surgeon General. He joined his pro-choice Democrat and Republican colleagues
in unsuccessfully voting to end a filibuster by pro-life Republican Senators
to end further consideration of Foster's nomination.
WorldNetDaily reported that Frist championed the nomination by
President Clinton of former Surgeon General David Satcher, a fervent supporter
of unrestricted abortion who like Foster performed scores of abortions.
Satcher continued to serve in the Bush administration until earlier this
year when he resigned due in large part to his opposition to the administration's
push for abstinence sex-education, which he vehemently opposes. WorldNetDaily
also reported that while Satcher's nomination was widely presumed to have
originated with Vice President Al Gore, like Satcher, a Tennessean, his
confirmation was actually championed by Frist.
While Frist has also joined with fellow pro-choice Republican Senate
colleagues in opposing public funding for abortions, he was at the forefront
of urging President Bush to support federal funding for the grisly practice
of embryonic stem-cell harvesting which was consistently opposed by pro-life
Presidents Ronald Reagan and the President's own father, George H.W. Bush.
Frist once told National Public Radio that there are no absolute right,
absolute wrong answers in medicine. The Weekly Standard also noted
that Frist believes there is a moral imperative to use one unsalvageable
life to save another.
An expose in Human Events on Frist's pro-choice position on abortion
that ran yesterday stated that the Nashville Banner reported that
one of Frist's Republican primary rivals, Steve Wilson, "demanded
that Frist sell his millions of dollars in stock in the Hospital Corporation
of America [HCA], which Frist's family founded. Some of the hospitals
in the chain perform abortions." HCA is a for-profit hospital chain
founded by his father and brother that profits from "providing"
abortions to its "customers." Frist has refused to divest himself
from this family-owned company that profits from performing abortions
and denying the right to life to an unknown number of unborn babies every
year. His refusal to do so is completely at odds with those who believe
that the right to life should be protected and defended in this country.
Both Sens. Trent Lott and Rick Santorum are more conservative than Frist
on all of the above-mentioned issues. For example, Lott has been very
vocal in his support for increased border security including deployment
of US Army troops to defend our borders from invasion by illegal immigrants
and potential future 9/11 copycat terrorist perpetrators. Lott has also
expressed opposition to the President's proposal to reward millions of
illegal immigrants with amnesty. In marked contrast to Frist, Lott has
been consistently pro-life and has declared his intention to reward pro-life
conservatives with an immediate vote to ban the grisly practice of partial
birth abortion as one of the initial votes of the new Republican-led 108th
Congress.
Reportedly, the President and Rove have urged Lott not to pass a ban
on partial birth abortion this year because it would be too divisive during
a time of war. Rove reportedly held a conference call with some of the
top Christian conservatives in this country and begged them to be patient
and not call for the passage of a ban on partial birth abortions. While
Sen. Frist has joined with several other fellow pro-choice Senators including
Sen. Arlen Specter and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in supporting a ban on
partial birth abortion, given his pro-choice record and his close ties
to the White House would be highly unlikely to challenge the White House
by trying to pass such a ban. Rick Santorum has an even more stellar record
than Lott in his championing of the pro-life cause and other issues of
importance to conservatives and would be much more likely than Frist to
support a partial birth abortion ban against the wishes of the White House.

Santorum and his two-year-old daughter Sarah Maria enter a victory
rally in Pittsburgh in this November 7, 2000 file photo |
Given the fact that crucial federal court vacancies and up to two Supreme
Court seats might become vacant during the next two years, it is absolutely
critical for the GOP to continue to have a pro-life Senator like Rick
Santorum as Senate Majority Leader. Sen. Frist's statements and his voting
record on abortion suggest he would likely be much less inclined to support
federal judges and Supreme Court judicial nominees who opposed him in
their support for overturning the seminal abortion rights decision of
Roe v. Wade. Senator Frist's opposition to a constitutional ban on abortion
and an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade combined with his refusal to divest
himself of stocks which allow him to profit by providing abortions to
scores and perhaps hundreds of people each and every year disqualify him
for the position of Senate Republican Leader far more than any inappropriate
remarks that Senator Lott may have given.
Senate Republicans have not elected a pro-choice Senator to be their
leader for at least two decades. Now is not the time to change the longtime
tradition of pro-life Republican Senate leadership. Conservatives should
unite in calling on their GOP Senators to defeat pro-choice Sen. Frist's
bid for leadership and vote instead to elect pro-life champion, Rick Santorum,
as Senate Majority Leader on January 6th. A Santorum victory would excite
the GOP's conservative base and help ensure continued Republican control
of the Senate after 2004 whereas a Frist victory would depress GOP base
turnout and would likely result in significant Republican congressional
losses in the 2004 election and potentially put at risk President Bush's
re-election effort. Accordingly, a Santorum triumph would be the best
possible outcome for pro-life and religious conservatives and the best
outcome for the Republican Party.
David T. Pyne, Esq. currently serves as Executive Vice President of
the Virginia Republican Assembly. He was recently interviewed on Howard
Phillips' Conservative Roundtable TV program. © 2002 David T. Pyne

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