BILL CLINTON IS LEAVING OFFICE AND THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT IS STRONGER THAN EVER

The time is up for Bill Clinton; and that is very good. He was the nation's first pro-abortion president--for eight very long years; and that was very bad. But the anti-life "legacy" that he and the pro-abortion lobby achieved could have been far worse.

With the inauguration of Bill Clinton on January 20, 1993, the pro-abortionists' most extravagant dreams seemed to have been realized. They couldn't ask for much more: The pro-abortion leadership of the Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress, and in the White House sat a president publicly committed to a woman's "right to choose." And he meant it. Unlike so many other "principles" that Bill Clinton would conveniently forget later on, making and keeping abortion on demand legal in any shape or form was very important to him. In his second term, he proved his fierce support for abortion rights when he single- handedly prevented the ban on partial-birth abortions from becoming the law of the land--twice.

In January 1993, twenty years after the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, the pro-abortionists had every reason to believe that abortion on demand would finally become "legal" in the true sense. Instead of the Court illegitimately "legislating from the bench," Congress would pass and Bill Clinton would sign the "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA). A clean legislative act, a proper law covering the whole country. There could be no more complaints about the Supreme Court having unconstitutionally invented a right to privacy encompassing abortion on demand. Congress would speak on the matter as the definitive voice of the "pro-choice" majority. And that would be the end of it. But there was more. There would also be the "co-president's" great project: Hillary Clinton's new federal health care plan that would mandate coverage of abortion on demand as routine medical care, no questions asked. And with medical care costing so much money and all that, the plan had another truly progressive touch: Medical care would have to be rationed. That this would inevitably lead to nonvoluntary euthanasia was denied in that brazen, Clintonian fashion that we all have become accustomed to. The scheme was breathtaking--and utterly chilling. The "Freedom of Choice Act" would give the culture of death a sound legal footing, and Hillary Clinton's health care plan would speed along the cultural transformation by making killing through abortion and denial of care a routine aspect of mainstream medicine.

The quick realization of that scheme seemed inevitable. The pro- abortion Speaker of the House, Tom Foley (D-Wa.), had announced at the beginning of the Clinton nightmare that the FOCA would quickly become law. And Congress had listened with abject deference as Hillary Clinton testified about her extreme health care plan. As they say inside the Beltway, it was a "done deal."

That is what the pro-life movement faced at the beginning of the Clinton presidency. It was a scary time. On January 22, 1973, a young woman at West Virginia University's student union building had told me that it was time for me to pick up my pro-life display and "go home now." The Supreme Court had spoken, and that was that. Exactly twenty years later, the Speaker of the House, too, implied that it was time for all pro-lifers to "go home now" because, in short order, Congress would pass FOCA, Clinton would sign it--and that would be that.

So what happened? Well, you and I didn't "go home" in 1973 and we didn't "go home" in 1993. On the contrary, during the Clinton years NRLC mounted its biggest grassroots campaigns ever to stop the imposition of the culture of death by federal edict. And we succeeded! Neither FOCA nor Hillary Clinton's health care plan ever came to a vote in Congress. The "done deals" were undone-- after an enormous effort.

NRLC distributed millions of brochures attacking these anti-life schemes. NRLC lobbyists worked tirelessly. And NRLC's grassroots supporters sacrificed money and time and raised their voices in opposition to FOCA, the "mainstreaming" of abortion on demand as routine medical care, and the rationing of health care. (Fortunately, the disastrous health care plan had opposition from other quarters, too, making its defeat easier.)

After the defeat of the principal pro-abortion initiatives of the Clinton era we didn't just sit on our hands, we went on the attack. We started our campaign to ban partial-birth abortions.

We persuaded lawmakers and the public to look at abortion as they had never done before, past the pro-abortion slogans of " choice" and "who decides?" and "it's just tissue" and all the other lies and deceptions.

We breached the self-imposed censorship that afflicts the media whenever the truth about abortion is brought out. The simple, and very tame, line drawings depicting partial-birth abortions proved to be irresistible "news"--once they were shown during the debates in the chambers of the Senate and House.

We forced the pro-abortion groups to admit that the "right to choose" really has no limits, that it is the right to barbarism. And beyond that, we proved that they are liars--actually, they helped us prove that with the implosion of their heavy-handed disinformation campaign against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. No sane reporter or politician should ever trust them again.

In short, at the end of the Bill Clinton era the pro-life movement is stronger than ever.

We have shifted the debate from "choice" back to the atrocity of the abortion act itself--where it ought to be if there ever is going to be an honest debate. Indeed, we can say that we have helped plant the seed of the destruction of the culture of death. It is the pro-life movement that has proven to be the "come-back kid"--not Bill Clinton; he is just a delinquent kid. We will win in the end. Why? Because our cause is noble and right.

And there will be justice in time if you and I do our part.