A "Perfect" Running Mate

As it happens I first began to think seriously about this editorial on Labor Day. How appropriate, for the work of pro- lifers is always a labor of love.

Our family vacation in early August was so wonderful nothing could've spoiled the opportunity to go back home to be with our families. Yet Al Gore's selection of Senator Joseph Lieberman came about as close as anything could to putting a damper on our trip to Minnesota.

Now, please understand that in one sense the choice of a rabidly pro-abortion vice presidential running mate by a militantly pro- abortion presidential nominee hardly qualifies as breaking news. Prior to the Democratic National Convention, I had, in fact, written a number of columns in Today's News & Views mentioning that Gore--who is to the advancement of abortion what Bill Gates is to the promotion of the use of personal computers--would surely select someone equally dedicated. [You can read Today's News & Views at www.nrlc.org.]

And so he did. When pro-abortionists run pro-abortion initiatives up the legislative flagpole, Lieberman unfailingly salutes. What is most annoying is that Lieberman does not get the "credit" he deserves for his foursquare promotion of abortion. Truth be told, if humanly possible, Lieberman does Gore one worse.

Yet among the "mainstream" press, there is a virtual blackout of Lieberman's years of service in the pro-abortion movement. A fair question they might ask me is, can I back up my assertion that Lieberman's faithfulness to the pro-abortion orthodoxy is second to none?

Let me offer just a portion of his service record as a lieutenant in the pro-abortion army to illustrate just how closely Lieberman toes the pro-abortion line.

Shortly after Bill Clinton was elected, pro-abortion leaders in Congress introduced the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act." FOCA was so far out in left field that it made Roe v. Wade seem a product of a right-wing conspiracy by comparison. It was so radical it would have invalidated virtually all state regulations of abortion, including Pennsylvania's 24-hour waiting period, which had been upheld the year before by the Supreme Court.

Lieberman's position? He co-sponsored it!

How about federal funding, a practice that sizable majorities of Americans have always opposed? With monotonous regularity Lieberman has voted in favor of federal funding of abortion on demand.

What about the aforementioned question of parental notification, which the public supports in even greater numbers than restrictions on federal funding of abortion? Here we have to be very careful.

Why? Because when the subject of abortion is reluctantly mentioned, reporters typically soften Lieberman's unswerving devotion by stating that he supports parental notification.

True, early in his Senate career he wrote a constituent that he would "support a requirement that parents of a minor be notified before an abortion is performed." But without exception Lieberman has voted against parental notification when given the chance to put his vote where his mouth is.

Lieberman has also consistently voted to authorize funding of unlimited abortion under Medicaid and other federal health programs. He is so extreme that he has even voted against various proposals that would have allowed conscience clauses so as to exempt people whose ethical framework does not allow them to be involved in abortion in any way.

There are a host of other examples of Lieberman's pro-abortion zeal. Suffice it to say here that the man whom the press likes to call the "conscience of the Senate" has had five opportunities to vote against what his colleague Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who usually votes in support of abortion) called "infanticide." While a lopsided majority of senators have repeatedly voted in favor of a ban on the grotesque partial-birth abortion procedure, Lieberman has not.

As well as anything could, his woe-is-me-what-shall-I-do rhetoric on the ban illustrates how Lieberman can SAY all the right things but never VOTE the right way. For example, when he announced that he would uphold Clinton's first veto of the ban in 1996, Lieberman said, "However, I will do so with a growing personal anxiety that something very wrong is happening in our country." (New York Times, 9/27/96)

But Lieberman made it worse by helping to draft a counterproposal (originally known as the Daschle Amendment) that would allow partial-birth abortion without restriction during the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy, when upwards of 90% of partial-birth abortions are actually performed. This proposal also would permit any type of abortion (including partial-birth abortion) even during the final three months of pregnancy for " health" reasons. This all-purpose loophole was so broadly defined that Dr. Warren Hern, author of the standard textbook on abortion methods, said he could legally perform a third- trimester abortion on any pregnant woman under the Lieberman- backed proposal.

The New York Times's masthead bears the logo, "All the News that's fit to print." But for the Times, that Gore has chosen--for him, a least--the perfect running mate does not qualify as "fit" news for the American public to read.

The truth is that when it comes to abortion, no matter how Lieberman professes to "agonize," his decisions always result in the agonizing deaths of unborn babies.

dave andrusko [dha1245@juno.com]