EDITORIALS

By Dave Andrusko

Harvesting a Bumper Crop

Every year I tell myself that the summer never passed so quickly. And, boy, is that true for 2003! It hardly seems ten minutes ago that our older kids straggled home from college, our youngest graduated from middle school, and our middle daughter finished up her sophomore year in high school.

It occurred to me that while pro-life activity never wanes, it's also true that pro-lifers use the hot months of June, July, and August to recharge their batteries. But there are exceptions even to that generalization.

Read the story on page 14 about the payoff we reap when we create a visible pro-life presence at state and county fairs. There are few better places to meet our kind of people in a relaxed atmosphere where you can get to know them and they can get to know you and your organization. And it's always a moment of deep satisfaction when someone first eyes the fetal models and their jaw drops in sheer amazement!

In light of the new school year's impending arrival, the August issue of National Right to Life News is naturally filled with stories about education. Let me talk about a few of them and tell you on what page you can find them.

At the risk of sounding immodest, we believe that for sheer education per square inch there is no better starting point than paging through the latest issue of NRL News. As anyone who reads the paper or who has "Today's News & Views" automatically sent to their e-mail inbox each day already knows, I am a fervent believer in using the latest information technologies.

But that should never be at the expense of utilizing time-tested, very productive ways of informing our base - - otherwise known as carefully perusing the "right to life newspaper of record." In other words, it's not "either/or," but "both/and."

You can use the coupon on page 18 to renew your NRL News subscription and the coupon on page 16 to give a gift subscription to a friend, family member, clergyman, librarian, elected official - - just about anyone! And as an NRL News subscriber reminded me just this morning, obtaining bulk subscriptions is the last word in obtaining larger quantities of each issue at very low prices. You can hand out NRL News at state and local meetings and at your church or association meeting. For information about bulk subscriptions, please go to page 30.

Joseph Landrum was kind enough to write two stories explaining the range of resources available from the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund (pages 8 and 9). The Trust Fund also put together a very striking full page ad to tell readers about a beautiful new fetology brochure, a baby's first months. (See page 13.)

Also, given the strikingly pro-life sentiments expressed by youth in recent polls, where might we expect to find a bumper crop just waiting to be harvested? Schools. But aren't they difficult, if not impossible, to get into?

No, they aren't. Pro-life groups just need to commit the time and effort to cultivate contacts and provide informed speakers. The bad old days when there was a de facto exclusionary policy in some-to-many schools are gone. Now, for the most part, we'll get in based on our persuasiveness, diligence, and determination.

There's this and more. But why do all this?

Simply because confusion and ambivalence are the two primary ingredients of most people's perspective on abortion, the effect is to blunt what would otherwise be a far sharper opposition among many more people to the execution of 1.3 million unborn babies. This has come about because, assisted by a compliant media, pro-abortionists rarely have to fight the battle in the open. What do I mean?

Our opponents like to pretend that pro-lifers are "outside the mainstream." Yet the instant we propose what any neutral observer would agree is "mainstream" legislation (parental involvement laws, women's right to know, etc.), they scream even louder.

By contrast, they are allowed to protect a radical regime of abortion on demand because the media allows them to get away with talking about everything but abortion's bloody, bone crunching reality. However, a more important question than why the double standard is why do our opponents feel the need to obfuscate?

They must cover their tracks, knowing there is only a tiny constituency for their all-abortions-are-wonderful perspective. They fear - - quite properly - - that if citizens get in the habit of encouraging their legislators to pass such commonsense legislation, these citizens might learn that (a) the public is much closer to our perspective on abortion than to NARAL's, and (b) that Roe v. Wade and its ill-begotten legal progeny have spawned an abortion license that most people want revoked.

Put another way, legislatively, we move incrementally, confident that in the end most people ultimately will find that they can "live without Roe" - - as will tens of millions of unborn babies and millions of women. Chicken Little-like, pro-abortionists must fight every piece of protective legislation (no matter how overwhelmingly the populus supports it), screaming that the sky is falling. That is a tough, out-of-the-mainstream position to be in.

Education acts like a steel brush, cleaning up a thinking apparatus that has grown rusty. Why is that important? Because once most people get to thinking about the ugly reality that is abortion, they will come our way.

That is our blessed assurance. That is the pro-abortionist's worst nightmare.

dave andrusko can be reached at daveandrusko@hotmail.com