Isn't That Just Like a Pro-Lifer...?

"So Al Gore is a statesman for finally conceding defeat after 36 days of legal street-fighting. But Chief Justice William Rehnquist has 'scarred' our institutions by doing his duty and deciding a case he preferred not to hear. This is the conventional wisdom in the wake of Tuesday's Supreme Court verdict against the Vice President. Too bad it turns history on its head."From "Supreme Irony," an editorial in the Dec. 14 Wall Street Journal

"Don Imus, host of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning program, asked Howard Fineman yesterday how 'the news media would be treating this if roles were reversed' and George W. Bush was challenging an election victory by Al Gore. Mr. Fineman, Newsweek's Washington bureau chief and an analyst for MSNBC, replied, 'Are you kidding? That George Bush was a cry-baby, that he was the spoiled son of a failed president. You know, you could just hear -- the personal attacks on Bush would be just absolutely vicious.' "Washington Times

"I have something else to ask you -- to ask every American. I ask for you to pray for this great nation. I ask your prayers for leaders from both parties. I thank you for your prayers for me and my family, and I ask you to pray for Vice President Gore and his family."Pro-life President-elect George W. Bush, December 13

By the time you read this edition of National Right to Life News, today's abiding conventional wisdom--that because the process culminating in victory for Gov. George W. Bush dragged on for 36 days the result is somehow "anticlimactic"--will have been swallowed up in the hurly burly that surrounds the changing of the Presidential guard.

Pro-lifers, of course, never for a moment believed such transparent bunkum. We knew that the greatest lesson future generations will absorb is that our nation patiently worked its way through a series of what could have been fundamental challenges to our basic institutions with a minimum of rancor and a maximum of grace. There is nothing " anticlimactic" when the outcome is the selection of a man who brings to the office of the presidency exactly the qualities needed in a time of almost unparalleled parity between the parties.

Many people whose opinion I respect first began to talk seriously about pro-life Texas Gov. Bush immediately after pro- abortion President Bill Clinton dispatched Sen. Robert Dole in 1996 to win re-election. We all knew that the 2000 presidential election would pose the following question: would we awake from our eight-year-long nightmare or would the ordeal go on even longer?

As the election cycle progressed, we also knew that Vice President Al Gore was not only the prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic Party's nominee, but also that he was much more dangerous to unborn babies than Bill Clinton. The consummate politician of his era, Clinton's wholehearted embrace of the Abortion Establishment's agenda more likely stemmed from political expediency than conviction.

Not so with the Vice President. Gore's kooky hyper-environmentalism was informed by an apocalyptic vision of a world "polluted" by excess people. What better way to "solve" the "problem" than by culling the herd, so to speak.

Gore enthusiastically filled the role of Administration point man at various United Nations conferences whose abiding goal it was to elevate abortion to a "fundamental human right." And we were not merely cheerleaders: tragically; our nation called the tune.

And, sadly, Mr. Gore ran a predictably ugly, divisive campaign. It made the "us" versus "them" rhetorical dichotomy too often encountered in political contests seem positively inclusive by comparison! For me it gave new urgency to the oft-expressed observation that when this junk food Clinton presidency ends, the very first thing we all need do is take a shower.

Contrast that narrow, pinched, morally truncated appeal with President-elect Bush's expansive vision of a nation " guided by a spirit of common sense, common courtesy and common goals," by which "we can unite and inspire the American citizens." There were, naturally, many of his proposals about which men and women of good will could passionately disagree. But Mr. Bush's appeal was always to us as AMERICANS, not as members of some subcategory who (as Gore encouraged us to believe) should see others outside their "group" not as friends and fellow citizens but as rivals, even enemies.

Gore's grimy campaign reinforced our resolve. The thought of this man leading our nation was, well, unthinkable.

That is why pro-life Americans from one end of this nation to the other quietly, faithfully, unceasingly worked for Mr. Bush's election. That is why many NRL PAC staffers virtually lived in the office for well over a month before the election.

That is why people such as Rai Rojas, whose story is told on page one, announced with fierce determination that they would organize massive literature drops. Like you, Rai worked hour after untold hour.

So tenacious was this long-time NRLC staffer in his campaign to educate Hispanics in the Miami area that he plastered a map of the city's precincts on the ceiling in his bedroom. The first thing Rai saw every morning was a reminder of what needed to be done THAT day.

Isn't it just like a pro-lifer to plunge in where others fear--or are simply too tired--to tread? Isn't that just like a pro-lifer to refuse to be an impotent bystander when the future of America's unborn children hangs in the balance?

Isn't that just like a pro-lifer to resolve to change the way America looks at her future generations, even if that requires a lifetime of dedication?

And isn't that just like a pro-lifer to celebrate the election of George W. Bush, not by bragging about how he or she may have helped, but in humble gratitude that our prayers had been answered?

Over the next four years, there will be challenges beyond number. To begin with our cultural fabric has been badly frayed and is in need of much repair. But remember this above all else.

The moral reclamation project we are about to undertake would be infinitely more difficult had not pro-lifers turned back most of the Clinton/Gore Administration's most egregious pro- abortion initiatives. Remember FOCA--the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act," a carnivorous piece of legislation that would have devoured every legal protection (however small, commonsensical, or supported by the public) that we'd managed to eke out in the last 20+ years?

Or the Clinton Health Care Rationing Plan, which would have woven abortion into the warp and woof of our medical delivery system? Or a dozen other ferocious assaults on unborn babies and the medically dependent elderly?

Like firemen on an old train, Clinton and Gore furiously shoveled coal into the mouth of the furnace. Had they fully prevailed, the abortion locomotive would have traveled at breakneck speed, taking far more lives than were lost these last eight years. The carnage would have been far worse, and prospects for future progress much more bleak, had not NRLC led the fight to put the brake on-- to thwart what Pope John Paul II so astutely has labeled the " culture of death." Congratulations!

Stay the course. Be prepared to support National Right to Life and your state and local right to life affiliate in the challenges ahead. And be sure to subscribe to NRL News, which will be more essential than ever! (See page 33.)

And be sure to read our daily web feature, "Today's News," found on NRLC's web site, www.nrlc.org.Thank you for everything! And God bless America.

dave andrusko [dha1245@juno.com]