I question why the director of Americans United for Life (AUL) would council his fellow colleagues in the pro-life movement to refrain from introducing legislation that would prohibit abortions. I can't help but believe that he shares the opinions of the Republican Party - and the President specifically - regarding minimizing abortions, and he is not committed to ending legal abortion in America. The AUL offers model legislation guides to pro-life lobbyists on Abortion Clinic Regulations, Cloning, Crimes Against the Unborn Child Act, Human Embryo Research, Heath Care Rights of Conscience Act, Parental Involvement for Minors Seeking Abortion, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Informed Consent Legislation. Not a one of the AUL eight recommended legislative strategies decries the legality of abortion. If, and frankly since, abortion is immoral and unlawful, it cannot be regulated without us acquiring the same bloody hands that the pro-abortion lobbyists have. Regulating abortion concedes its legality, and assumes that abortion is here to stay as a Constitutionally secured right. Apparently this is the best the Republican-minded pro-lifers have to offer - to concede defeat before the battle begins. Compromise requires that you be willing to accept half a loaf, we are told. Then the GOPers ask for a quarter loaf, and get about an eighth. Why has no one thought to ask for a loaf and a half? Preemptive concession - in this case that abortion is legal and will remain such - is the rule of day. Additionally, regulating abortion creates new federal regulative programs, requires funding and oversight, and permits the pro-life movement to remain on its high horse demanding more federal intervention in abortion related causes. Keeping abortion legal for nearly 32 years now is quite possibly the best fund-raising strategy any lobbyist organization could have ever conceived. It is due to this politically impotent view that I am not a member of the Republican Party. When you belong to the political machine, as Attorney Forsythe and his Americans United for Life, the National Right to Life and other compromisers satisfied with being the reasonable people the President suggested would come together and pass good laws permitting a certain number of abortions, you lose your taste for victory. What Mr. Bush, Attorney Forsythe, the AUL and others have effectively said is that they want abortion to remain safe, legal and rare. But, if every pregnancy resulted in a natural end (either birth or miscarriage), but abortion was still legal, the pro-life movement would have lost the battle, and the pro-abortion "rights" advocates would have won. The GOP and the pro-life lobbyists have demonstrated their lack of commitment to the unborn, and they must, therefore, be opposed. They are no longer the friend of the unborn, and they are no longer our friends if they are unwilling to expend the political capital we have given them to protect the unborn. Parties and lobbyists are vehicles to advance a cause – if they stop advancing, it is time for us to find or create one that will. The crux of Attorney Forsythe's argument (I'm not picking on him since in reality the grand majority of these "pro-life lobby" organizations would contend the same as he) is this: Legislatures, don't expend in 2005 the political capital received in 2004 since the courts will oppose you, and you will be slapped with an attorney's fees bill from the ACLU.