|
Part Three of Three
Editor’s note. The following
are NRLC President Wanda Franz’s opening remarks
delivered at NRLC’s 37th annual convention in
Charlotte.
I am Wanda Franz, President of
the National Right to Life Committee. It gives
me great pleasure to open the 37th Annual
National Right to Life Convention. On behalf of
the Board, the officers, and the staff of the
National Right to Life Committee I welcome you
most cordially to this convention.
Our hosts for the next few days
are the hardworking right-to-lifers of North
Carolina Right to Life and South Carolina
Citizens for Life. I can’t mention all the
pro-lifers in the Carolinas who have worked hard
to make this convention a success. Let me just
thank two of them as representatives of our
hosts: specifically, Barbara Holt, the President
of North Carolina Right to Life, and Holly
Gatling, the Executive Director of South
Carolina Citizens for Life.
 |
|
Wanda Franz, Ph.D., President National
Right to Life |
Both of them represent their
state chapters on the Board of NRLC. And Holly
Gatling is also the Secretary of the NRLC
Executive Committee.
To help you appreciate the
pro-lifers in the Carolinas I’ll confine myself
to a couple of items.
The first is the fact that David
G. and Emma O’Steen founded North Carolina Right
to Life in 1973. Both of them devoted many years
of their lives to the right-to-life cause. Emma
O’Steen is with us at this convention. David G.,
as we always referred to him, passed away just a
few weeks ago. We offer our heart-felt
condolences to Emma and assure her that the
O’Steens’ many contributions to the
right-to-life cause are deeply appreciated by
all of us.
Aside from their years of hard
labor in the pro-life vineyard, I must mention
another thing about David and Emma O’Steen:
Their son Dr. David N. O’Steen has been the
Executive Director of NRLC since 1984.
Dr. O’Steen started out as the
chairman of a college mathematics department—yes
mathematics. Then he focused on the
right-to-life issue and became the executive
director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for
Life. While he was at MCCL, he implemented the
“Mission Possible” project in the early
seventies. This program was designed to aid
pro-life organizations in the southern states
with money grants and organizational expertise.
I very well know about this project by the
Minnesota pro-lifers. They helped me jump-start
West Virginians for Life in my home state.
I mean you have to hand it to the
man: Here you have a Southerner persuading
Midwestern “northerners” to give away some of
their hard-earned money to Southerners. Well
done, David!
As I mentioned, Dr. O’Steen
became NRLC’s executive director in 1984. It is
hard to believe that this was 25 years ago. His
tireless work in this role is appreciated by all
clear-thinking pro-lifers. We who work with him
think that his strategic vision for our work is
brilliant.
Thank you, David. And may the
Lord bless you.
In 1984, I am sure he hoped that
Roe v. Wade would have been repealed by now and
that he would have gone on to other things in
the year 2009. But the parable of the workers in
the vineyard tells us that the early workers in
the vineyard and those joining late will get the
same reward. The O’Steens have been among the
early ones.
Now let me briefly talk about
South Carolina Citizens for Life as an example
of what determined legislative action on the
state level can do.
In 1988 the number of abortions
in South Carolina peaked at 14,133. By 2005 the
number of abortions had declined by 52%! In
comparison, nationally, the peak was at 1.6
million abortions in 1990. The national decline
since that peak was only 25% by 2005.
Why could South Caroline reduce
the number of abortions at twice the national
rate? One reason surely is that SCCL worked hard
to pass pro-life legislation. There were, among
others, the Parental Consent Act in 1990, the
Women's Right to Know Act and Abortion Clinic
Regulation Act in 1994, the Partial Birth
Abortion Ban Act in 1997, the Safe Haven for
Abandoned Newborns Act in 2000, the Unborn
Victims of Violence Act and Choose Life Tag in
2006, and the Ultrasound Act
in 2008. The campaigns promoting
these legislative initiatives educated the
public and helped change attitudes about
abortion. We can safely say that passing
pro-life laws on the state level is an extremely
important strategy to move public opinion in the
pro-life direction.
There is another thing we can
learn from South Carolina: When it comes to the
wording of pro-life state laws, it is essential
that you make use of NRLC’s expertise. At NRLC
we don’t just work on the federal level. We
intensively work with our state chapters and we
understand the long-term strategies and the
legal and political framework within which we
have to operate.
Let’s consider what these
long-term strategies can be and what we have
achieved so far.
With Roe v. Wade the Supreme
Court did more than merely legalize abortion: it
“constitutionalized” it. That made the newly
invented abortion “right” immune to simple
legislative correction. Roe v. Wade was an
illicit amendment to the Constitution that
created the severe difficulties pro-lifers have
faced since 1973.
Overturning Roe v. Wade is
possible in only two ways—both very difficult:
Either Congress and the states remove the
fictitious abortion right by amending the
Constitution or the Supreme Court reverses its
Roe v. Wade decision.
As to the first possibility, it
is simply not feasible in the current climate.
As to the second, reversing Roe
v. Wade first requires a change in the
composition of the Court: justices must be
Constitution-oriented instead of acting as a
super-legislature. In 1973, Roe was imposed by
an “activist,” pro-abortion majority of 7 to 2.
Many observers think that the Court has become
less sympathetic to extra-constitutional
law-making from the bench. But the opposition
faced by pro-life presidents about their
judicial appointments made it clear that the
pro-abortion Democratic leadership in the U.S.
Senate is determined to frustrate all attempts
to appoint Constitution-oriented justices and
judges. The election of President Obama, who is
fully committed to abortion rights, threatens at
least to delay a reversal of Roe, which remains
a major goal of NRLC.
Given this state of affairs, the
strategy for pro-lifers must have elements like
these:
n First, we must see to it that
we have pro-life presidents and a solid majority
of pro-life senators so that we get a
Constitution-oriented Supreme Court.
n Second, we must save lives by
denying federal and state tax funds for
abortions. This requires pro-life presidents,
governors, and majorities in Congress and the
state legislatures. It also demands smart
behavior by the pro-life electorate. For
example, denying the non-ideal pro-life
candidate the vote “for the sake of principle”
too often leads to the election of the “ideal”
pro-abortion candidate.
n Third, we must strive to reduce
the number of abortions by enacting legislation
requiring parental notification/involvement,
informed consent, waiting periods before an
abortion, access to ultrasound imaging before an
abortion, etc. Anything that makes a woman
consider the humanity of her child before she
takes the irrevocable step of having an abortion
saves lives. Moreover, the process of discussing
pro-life legislation and generating public
support for it, as well as the blocking of
pro-abortion legislation, tend to move public
opinion in the pro-life direction.
n Fourth, we must change the
public’s attitude about abortion. Educating the
public about the biological facts of human
development before birth is the fundamental
first step. Informing the public about what
abortions actually do, about the frequency of
abortion, about the extremeness of Roe v. Wade,
about the destructive aftereffects of abortion
on the women who have them—all this we must
continue to do.
So after 37 years of labor in the
pro-life vineyard, has our work born any fruit?
Last month, a Gallup poll found
that a majority of 51% identified themselves as
pro-life, while 42% were “pro-choice.” Other
polling firms have reported similar results.
This is the first time this has
happened since Gallup began asking the question
in 1995. At that time, the result was very
different: 56% “pro-choice” and only 33%
pro-life. The pro-life and “pro-choice” labels
have, however, only limited value in identifying
public opinion.
In 1994 Gallup began to ask
another set of questions that shed a little more
light on public attitudes about abortion. In
that year 33% favored abortion to be “legal
under any circumstances,” 13% wanted it “legal
under most circumstances,” 38% preferred
abortion to be “legal only in a few
circumstances,” while 13% wanted it to be
“illegal in all circumstances.”
The usual habit of pollsters is
to add the first two numbers as the “pro-choice”
position, which is 46% in this case; and the
last two numbers are added as the “pro-life”
position, which is 51% in this poll. Thus even
in 1994, the “pro-life” position held a slight
advantage. But note that the solidly
pro-abortion position of 33% was nearly three
times bigger than the solidly pro-life position
of 13%.
In the latest poll of May 2009,
the results for abortion “legal in most
circumstances” and “legal in only a few
circumstances” had not changed much: 15% and
37%, respectively. But the solidly pro-abortion
position had dropped by a third to 22%, while
the solidly pro-life position had nearly doubled
to 23%! So in this last poll, the “pro-life”
position is 60%, while the “pro-choice” position
is only 37%.
Since 1994 there have been
significant events to account for this
improvement.
n First, NRLC’s prolonged and
intense campaign to ban partial-birth abortions
on the federal and state level refocused the
public’s attention away from vapid pro-abortion
slogans like “choice” and “who decides” onto the
horrific reality of what abortion actually does.
In 1996, 57% favored, while 39%
opposed banning partial-birth abortions. By
2003, the ratio was 70% to 25 % for banning
partial-birth abortions.
Moreover, NRLC’s various
campaigns in the states to enact protective
legislation such as informed consent laws, etc.
helped further educate the public about
abortion. Various polls continue to show that
the public favors such laws.
n Second, the routine use of
ultrasound imaging during a pregnancy showed
women that they were carrying a live
“baby”—their baby—not just “tissue.” Viewing
such an image can only mean that a pregnant
woman is less likely to abort her child. In
state legislatures, NRLC is vigorously promoting
laws requiring that an ultrasound be displayed
so that a woman might easily view her unborn
child before making a life or death decision.
The pro-abortionists have made
every effort to obstruct our promotion of
ultrasound in the state legislatures. And then
there are the likes of columnist Ellen Goodman
who dismissed the whole question. She wrote,
“Over the years, I’ve rejoiced at sonograms and
picked names for what we call a baby when it’s
wanted and a fetus when it isn’t.” So there you
have it, whether you have an inherent right to
life in Goodman’s world depends on someone else
wanting you.
Third, aside from academic
researchers telling us so, women who have had
abortions increasingly are speaking out about
how damaging abortion has been to
them—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
But let’s go beyond opinion
surveys; because we can gauge women’s attitudes
about abortion by what they actually do.
How much women use abortion is
measured by the so-called abortion rate, the
number of abortions per 1,000 women of
childbearing age.
From 1980 to 2005, the number of
women of child-bearing age actually rose by 16%,
while the abortion rate dropped by 33%. It is
worth noting that the abortion rate had rapidly
risen during the 1970s, but rather suddenly
reversed its steep rise in 1980-81—just at a
time when the pro-life movement became
nationally very vocal and made abortion an
important issue in the election campaign that
made Ronald Reagan our president.
Have we changed women’s attitude
about abortion? Have we saved lives?
If the abortion rate had stayed
at the level it had in 1980, there would have
been 9 million more abortions by today! Or to
say it the other way, nine million lives have
been saved.
I think we can be proud of our
life-saving work.
-------
The theme of this convention is
“Stop the Obama Abortion Agenda.” In the coming
days you will be informed about the astonishing
extent of this agenda and what we must do to
stop it.
For now let me just tell you that
President Obama’s talk about a so-called “middle
ground” on abortion is a fraud.
President Obama’s voting record
as a state senator and a U.S. senator and his
actions as president reveal an extreme
pro-abortion conviction. After all, this is the
same man who as a state senator wouldn’t vote
for the Illinois law modeled after the federal
Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. During the
presidential campaign, he falsely claimed that
the Illinois bill lacked the federal law’s
provisions—and called us “liars” when we
truthfully exposed his opposition to the
protection of born-alive infants. Apparently,
President Obama believes that a woman must have
an absolute right to have an abortion under any
circumstances.
President Obama’s assertion that
he is for reducing the number of abortions is,
of course, contrary to his actions. When he
rescinded President George W. Bush’s “Mexico
City Policy” executive order and thus paved the
way for millions upon millions of your tax
dollars going to abortion-promoting
organizations, he didn’t reduce the number of
abortions—he vastly increased them. Why did he
put so many fervent pro-abortionists in
positions of power in his administration when
his goal supposedly was to reduce the number of
abortions? How would his weakening of the
conscience clause make abortion less likely? And
there is more.
No, President Obama’s talk about
reducing the numbers of abortion is just talk
that is meant to deceive. “Making abortion safe,
legal, and rare” has been the deceptive slogan
of pro-abortion politicians, especially
Democrats, ever since the Clinton years.
After the last election, the Wall
Street Journal told us that “President-elect
Barack Obama and other Democrats have promised
to work to make abortion rare, so long as it
remains legal.” But in 1993 Kate Michelman,
NARAL Pro-Choice America’s former president,
admitted to the Philadelphia Inquirer that
“abortion is a bad thing.” The problem is if any
“bad thing”—for example, embezzlement—is made
legal, we can hardly expect it to become rare,
especially when a whole industry exists to
provide the ���bad thing.”
In its 1973 Doe v. Bolton
decision, the Supreme Court declared medical
review and hospitalization requirements for an
abortion “unconstitutional”—in other words, it
created the abortion clinic industry. That
industry has absolutely no incentive to make
abortion “rare.” So the idea of making abortion
rare while keeping it legal is both nonsensical
and fraudulent.
When President Obama and his
pro-abortion friends talk about a “middle ground
on abortion,” they really want to split the
difference their way: Namely, the “pro-choicers”
get the half that says abortion is an
untouchable constitutional right, and you
pro-lifers get the half that says you must pay
for abortions with your tax dollars and that you
must stop agitating about abortions.
There is no Salomonic solution to
the problem where the baby gets split in half.
The baby is either dead or
alive—there is no middle ground here.
-----------
Now let’s go on with our program.
Please send your comments to
daveandrusko@gmail.com.
Part
One
Part Two |
