Certain apologists *coughhackscough* for Rudy Giuliani have been insisting that though he’s pro-abortion, pro-lifers should nonetheless accept him. Their efforts have not been helped by the man himself, who clearly cares nothing for the concerns of pro-lifers and is barely attempting to muster the modicum of effort necessary to pretend that he won’t make pro-lifers consider Bill Clinton with nostalgia.

Yes, Rudy’s position is that extreme. He supports partial-birth abortion *coughinfanticidecough* and taxpayer funding for abortion (yes, he’s changed his rhetoric on these of late, but the exceptions and caveats he has added belie his position). He obviously believes that pro-lifers are frauds and dupes who will either abandon their principles for a perceived better chance at Republican victory or else not even note that they’ve been promised nothing.

This weekend, Rudy demonstrated again his contempt for pro-lifers, saying about abortion that “our party has to get beyond issues like that.” Apparently, we’re supposed to just “get beyond” the murder of 3000 innocents every day in America and turn our attention to the really big issues, like, in the words of one GOP sell-out, “fiscal responsibility and good management.” Let the babies die, so long as we can balance the budget. Maybe the left is right, and the GOP is just a collection of tightfisted worshipers of mammon.

If the Republican Party nominates Rudy, it will be the death of any principled conservatism; the GOP will be the home of materialistic technocrats and their comfortable suburban acolytes, nothing more. The party that ended slavery will have abandoned the last shreds of belief in the dignity of the human person and the sacredness of human life and liberty. It will have become a Godless corporate whore that worships ease, comfort, and efficiency and disdains anything that cannot be tallied in a budget spreadsheet.

Western civilization depends on the doctrine of the imago Dei, and the belief that human life is therefore sacrosanct. This has always been imperfectly realized, but it is the central character of our culture that conservatives must cultivate and preserve.