On Friday night in Cedar Rapids the designated stand-in for my opponent, former State Representative Jeff Kaufmann, boasted about how every "pro-life" law on the books in our state was signed by Terry Branstad.
Here's the gigantic problem with that brag: In order to write a truly pro-life bill, one that actually fulfills the explicit, absolute requirements of the Iowa and the U.S. Constitutions, that all persons be protected equally in their God-given, unalienable right to live, you have to erase Terry Branstad's entire "pro-life" legacy from the Iowa Code.
I know. I helped craft Tom Shaw's House File 138, which meets the moral and constitutional test of a true pro-life bill. In addition to rightly identifying the unborn child as a person, its language scrubbed all the unconstitutional Branstad code sections that in effect end with "and then you can kill the baby."
Of course, the Branstad Republican establishment has consistently insisted on burying HF-138 in committee, and pushing even more unconstitutional "pro-life" legislation, so that they can then go out once again and pretend to their pro-life constituency that they are doing something to stop this American holocaust.
Wake up, people. Quit buying the lie. Read your own constitutions, and start demanding that those who represent you fulfill the primary purpose and duty of their offices, which is the defense of the supreme right of every single individual human being.
"Rights of persons. Section 1. All men are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights - among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness."
-- Iowa Constitution - ARTICLE I. - Bill of Rights
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."
-- The Declaration of Independence
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
-- The Preamble, or Statement of Purpose, of the United States Constitution
"No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law."
-- The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
"No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
-- The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
"The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a 'person' within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment."
-- Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Roe vs. Wade, 1973
"You shall not murder."
-- Exodus 20:13
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever."
-- Thomas Jefferson