Reader's view: Republicans also to blame for legalized abortion

In response to the Aug. 12 letter, headlined, “Don’t support candidates who support abortion,” I have to say the following:
I wish to God the U.S. Supreme Court never legalized abortion in its Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, but, unfortunately, it did. And I take exception to the letter’s assertion that, “If you vote for a party or candidate who supports the killing of unborn babies, then you are as guilty as that party or candidate in the deaths of those babies.” This assertion followed a statement about leaving the DFL party after it approved of abortion.
To blame legalized abortion solely on Democrats is inaccurate and unfair. Republicans have been the majority party on the Supreme Court ever since the Nixon administration, and it was during this period of Republican majority that the high court issued Roe v. Wade, under the authorship of Republican Associate Justice Harry Blackmun. Only two associate justices dissented from the decision, Democrat Byron White and Republican William Rehnquist. Since then, Republican presidents have come and gone, Republican majorities in both houses of Congress have come and gone, but abortion remains legal. When the Republicans regained the majority in the Senate in 2015, their first priority wasn’t saving unborn babies from abortion but approving the Keystone XL pipeline. Clearly, both major parties are equally guilty of making and keeping abortion legal.
If pro-life activists want the abortion issue to dictate voters’ Election Day ballots, they should form their own political party and nominate congressional and state legislative candidates whose top priority is amending the U.S. Constitution to ban abortion nationwide or to allow the states to ban it.
Timothy G. Maloney
Duluth