ELECTIONS AND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

In a few weeks Bill Clinton will enter the eighth year of his presidency. While I'm convinced that history will judge Clinton to have been a bad and corrupt president, I wouldn't be surprised if some historians were to consider him a political genius, nevertheless.

Bill Clinton is obviously very clever. And he is also unscrupulous, ready to jettison any principle (except his staunch support for abortion on demand) in order to be elected and re-elected. Yet even with all this "talent," he only got 43% of the popular vote in the 1992 election and 48.4% of the popular vote in the 1996 election.

That Bill Clinton will have served two full presidential terms without gaining a popular majority is not only a testimony to his political precocity but also to the political naivete of a lot of third-party voters.

Let's not mince words here: by casting a vote for Mr. Perot and thus denying re-election to President George Bush, these voters threw the election to a scoundrel, liar, perjurer, abuser of women, and dyed-in-the-wool pro-abortionist by the name of Bill Clinton. In other words, the responsibility for inflicting a President Bill Clinton on this nation belongs not only to those who voted for Clinton directly; it must be shared by those who made Clinton's election possible indirectly by casting a third- party vote that had the effect more of punishing than actually electing someone.

There was a lot of talk among third-party voters in 1992 about " sending a message" to both major parties, about there being "not an ounce of difference" between the major-party candidates, and about "voting on principle, regardless of consequences," etc.

This was high-minded talk; the practical result was nonetheless the election and re-election of Bill Clinton, the worst president of the century.

Whatever the message was intended to convey about the nature of government, about public policy, about principles---Bill Clinton took it as a license to misuse the powers of the presidency and be unprincipled about all things, except two: re-election and the supremacy of abortion "rights." Wasn't this predictable? Especially in 1996? If there were any pro-lifers who thought that there wasn't an ounce of difference between the major-party candidates or that President George Bush in 1992 and Senator Bob Dole in 1996 were " not pro-life enough," they certainly have reason to reconsider. It's a bit late, but still constructive, to think of President Bush's steady support of pro-life policies and fearless vetoes of pro-abortion legislation and Senator Dole's near-100 percent pro- life voting record and then look at Bill Clinton's relentless support for the preservation and expansion of abortion "rights."

This is the legacy which the nation's first "abortion president" (to borrow the apt description given to Clinton by Congressman Chris Smith [R-N.J.]) will have accumulated by the end of his current term:

* Eight years of appointing pro-abortion judges to the federal courts.

* Eight years of appointing pro-abortionists to influential positions in government and on advisory panels. n Eight years of suppressing pro-life policies and vetoing pro-life legislation. (Of course, it took him only one day---his first day in office---to rescind the pro-life directives of Presidents Reagan and Bush.) The same Bill Clinton who "feels our pain" had no hesitation about vetoing the popularly supported Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act---twice.

* Eight years of relentless attempts to widen, institutionalize, and publicly finance abortion on demand. His boldest move, to "mainstream" abortion on demand as routine and government-mandated medical care through health care "reform," has so far failed. But that means neither that he and his supporters have given up on the plan, nor that he has not promoted abortion on demand in countless other ways (giving a green light to the importation and use of the abortion drug RU 486, for example).

* Eight years of promoting pro-abortion policies internationally, especially through initiatives of the United Nations.

* Eight years of slowly (and slyly) weakening the prohibitions of fetal experimentation.

Add to this the promotion of campaign finance "reforms" that would silence citizen organizations such as NRLC and you have the complete, depressing picture.

Were eight years in the abortion desert under Bill Clinton the intended consequences of "sending a message" and "voting on principle, regardless of consequences"? No, they were unintended consequences; but consequences they were.

Consequences that weakened the pro-life cause and strengthened the pro-abortion culture.

Consequences that forced NRLC to expend enormous resources, time, and energy in defensive action---resources, time, and energy that could have been spent instead to advance the right to life in a pro-life administration.Consequences that cost lives.

If Al Gore or Bill Bradley or some other pro- abortionist wins the presidential election in 2000, the eight years of pro-life misery under Clinton will turn into 12 or even 16 years of misery.

Can you imagine four or eight more years of pro-abortionists being appointed to the federal bench and bureaucracy? Eight more years of vetoes of pro-life legislation? Eight more years of promoting abortion on demand here and abroad?

When we speak of voting "on principle, regardless of consequences," we need to be very clear about what this means. It is one thing to act regardless of personal consequences, quite another to act with consequences for the lives of others; and it is still yet another thing not to explore what the unintended consequences are likely to be.

Moreover, when we say "acting on principle," do we mean "promoting and securing the right to life" or do we actually mean "getting the personal satisfaction" of having made a statement or sending a message? It feels good to get things off of our chest once in a while and "send a message." But would you really feel good about sending a message to a pro- life candidate---who, in your estimate, might not be "perfect"--- and thereby letting the Bill Clintons of this world squeak through with a minority mandate?

Think of the unintended consequences. They can be awful, especially for the babies in the womb.