8/04/00 11:50 a.m.
The Big Tent Gets Too Big
Extremism in defense of infanticide.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate editor

here is such a thing as too much diversity.

A shining example of this truth came in the form of a Republican Pro-Choice Coalition reception on Sunday night honoring the hero of the year, Leroy Carhart. Carhart, you might remember, was the plaintiff in Stenberg v. Carhart, the Supreme Court's recent ruling making it impossible for states to prohibit partial-birth abortion. Victorious, free to perform the murderous procedure in his Nebraska office, Carhart took some time away from brutally ending lives to do a little politicking on Sunday in Philadelphia. Not content with recently making the U.S. safe for infanticide, Carhart went to Philly to take the GOP "back from the radical right."

With the theme song from Rocky to welcome their hero, Carhart was the star attraction in what the Omaha World-Herald dubbed " a pep rally for Republicans who failed this week to reshape anti-abortion planks in the GOP platform." Carhart, who claims to be a Republican who voted for Reagan, says the planks are "scary." (Some of us find those whose life's crusade is to make the country safe for infanticide scary.)

In addition to the long-standing GOP position on abortion, the platform includes new language that refers to the Supreme Court ruling in Stenberg v. Carhart as one that "shocks the conscience of the nation."

Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of host state Pennsylvania were both in Carhart's audience.

Fortunately, its unflinching support for "reproductive rights" doesn't promise the Pro-Choice Coalition types a successful future in the GOP; they have proven themselves, this year, to be an extremist minority. With limited support in platform negotiations, and none at all from the podium, the days of the pro-choice wing of the GOP seem numbered. They can come, but they won't change anything — expect maybe alert a few more people to their fanaticism.