Prolife Politicians: You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em

On Tuesday night, Virginia's candidates for governor, Republican Jerry Kilgore and Democrat Tim Kaine, had a debate on a variety of issues. One of the issues was abortion. After reading articles that describe the debate, I'm again reminded of how frustrating it is when prolife politicians are unable to use the debate format to effectively convey the prolife position.

But it was debate moderator Tim Russert, NBC's Washington Bureau chief, who brought the issue to a head when he pressed Kilgore on what he would do if a new Supreme Court were to allow states to ban abortion.

"I'm a pro-life candidate running for governor," Kilgore responded. "I support a culture of life."

"But, Mr. Kilgore, it's a simple question," Russert insisted as he asked for a yes or no answer to the question of whether the Republican would sign a bill to outlaw abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of a mother.

Kilgore, as he had said in a July debate, responded that the question is "a hypothetical. You don't know what any Supreme Court in the future is going to do."

Russert changed course and asked, "If the Virginia legislature passed a tax increase, would you veto or sign it?"

Kilgore replied, "I would veto a tax increase unless a referendum was on it."

"That's a hypothetical question," Russert shot back. The overflow crowd in the McLean Hilton's ballroom broke into laughter and applause at the Republican's expense.

Wouldn't this have been a great opportunity for Kilgore to say something like,

"Well Tim, I've actually thought about this issue a lot over the last couple of weeks and I've come to some startingly conclusions. I've realized that abortion should be legal through all nine months of pregnancy, Virginia tax dollars should pay for every abortion, and the rest of Virginia's laws that restrict abortions should be overturned if..... if what? If the unborn aren't living human beings. I believe that intentionally killing innocent human beings based on accidentally acquired properties like size and level of development is wrong. So yes, if the unborn are living human beings then I would sign a law that would provide legal protection to these innocent human beings."

Prolife politicians need to be able to do more than say, "I favor a culture of life" or "I'm prolife" over and over again. They have the great opportunity to use the political podium they've been given to spread prolife message to numerous individuals yet too often fall back on repeating slogans like a broken record.