Margaret Chase Smith was a Republican senator from Maine. As a freshman senator in 1950, she rose to defend Americans' free-speech rights against the red-baiting of Senator Joseph McCarthy, delivering what became known as her "Declaration of Conscience". "As an American, I condemn a Republican fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat communist," she said. The speech was the brave beginning of McCarthy's eventual end. Susan Collins, another Republican senator from Maine, has cited Smith as a role model.
Life does not begin at the moment of conception or the moment of birth. It begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies.