EDITORIALS

By Dave Andrusko
Editor, NRL News

The Stretch Run Begins

"Our society rests on a foundation of responsibility and character and family commitment.... Because a caring society will value its weakest members, we must make a place for the unborn child. ... And I will continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law."

President George W. Bush, in his speech accepting his party's
presidential nomination, at the Republican National Convention

"I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home, a God-fearing man with a good heart and a spine of tempered steel."

Senator Zell Miller, in his speech at the Republican
National Convention in support of President Bush

"In passing this legislation [the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act], members of the House and Senate made a studied decision based upon compelling evidence. The best case against partial-birth abortion is a simple description of what happens and to whom it happens. It involves the partial delivery of a live boy or girl, and a sudden, violent end of that life. Our nation owes its children a different and better welcome. The bill I am about to sign protecting innocent new life from this practice reflects the compassion and humanity of America."

President George W. Bush, in his remarks
just prior to signing this historic bill

By the time you have a chance to read these remarks, there will be only about 40 days before the nation casts its votes in the 2004 presidential election. I know you are busy, helping to remove scales from the public's eyes, but I trust you will have time to carefully read and take advantage of this crucial edition of the "pro-life newspaper of record."

National Right to Life News' motto for over 30 years is that an informed pro-lifer is an effective pro-lifer. We are making sure you won't have to dig around for what you need. This edition of NRL News represents a rich quarry of educational information that will empower you to help others understand where both President Bush and Senator Kerry (and their respective parties) stand on the greatest civil rights issue of our day.

That takes the form of a succinct, user-friendly comparison piece found on page 14 and thoughtful, well-researched articles on pages 6-7, 13 & 23. There is also an extremely helpful guide found on pages 26-29 to assist churches and pastors to understand what they can and cannot do.

Let me add a few observations, at the same time I strongly encourage you to keep up to date on a daily basis by going to NRLC's web page: www.nrlc.org.

I was flipping channels the other night when I ran across a program on C-SPAN that aired a talk by the author of a new book on Justice Thomas, Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of Clarence Thomas. Quiet and thoughtful, Ken Foskett was nothing short of fabulous, in his short presentation and in fielding questions from the floor.

As I listened to Foskett, and then read the first 30 pages of his book the next night, my already considerable admiration for Thomas only grew. I learned that Thomas, an eloquent, passionate critic of Roe v. Wade and its legal progeny, is a man of almost unbelievable self-discipline and backbone - - a passionate, animated African-American who also bears no resemblance whatsoever to the caricature of him found in the almost uniformly hostile "mainstream media."

As I thought about Justice Thomas, my mind moved to President Bush (whose father appointed Thomas to the High Court), and to our Movement. Like Justice Thomas, President Bush and pro-lifers are invariably misgauged, misunderstood, and misrepresented. Like Justice Thomas, both the President and pro-lifers are characterized by a steely fearlessness and constancy that puzzles and amazes those whose lives do not rest on principled stands. Pro-lifers are habitually underestimated, mocked, and made sport of by commentators who look down on us and are perplexed that we aren't more deferential to our "betters."

I was reminded of this seemingly inbred hostility when I read a column written by a television critic for the Washington Post. Tom Shales' loathing for the President is so intense it was not enough to miss what everybody else saw - - that Mr. Bush's acceptance speech "reach[ed] into each of our souls and brought forth an emotional response that only a glorious speech could summon," as columnist Dick Morris observed.

Shales was so blinded by his own bias he transformed what even the New York Times agreed was a poised response to two hecklers who interrupted his speech into an alleged bout of confusion and "fear," characterized by a President whose eyes were supposedly "darting anxiously around the hall."

I bring this snide, below-the-belt verbal assault to your attention to remind you that not only are we customarily on the receiving end of similar ugly attacks, but that this is nothing compared to what you will read or hear about the President in the last few weeks of the campaign. The attempt to stampede voters in the direction of pro-abortion true believer John Kerry will be ferocious. Likewise, no matter how above board, completely within the rules our efforts to educate Americans will be, pro-lifers will be the target of a ruthless campaign to stifle you. And, of course, at the very same time they are attempting to undemocratically muzzle your voice, they will clamor that it is you who are doing something untoward. Such has it been with the pro-abortion and anti-free speech forces, such will it always be.

Such elites, busily at work painting an entirely false portrait of us as antediluvian reactionaries at the same time they are shredding the First Amendment, hate us precisely because your efforts have prevented the abortion culture from sinking deep roots. Killing unborn children was supposed to be universally accepted as "liberating" women. Without your vigorous response, that verbal chicanery might have carried the day.

If you listened to the President's acceptance speech, nothing could be clearer than that there will be no slackening in his commitment to the unborn, should he be re-elected. Unlike Sen. Kerry, who slid his support for abortion in under the prime time radar, President Bush received his longest applause when he told the nation, "Because a caring society will value its weakest members, we must make a place for the unborn child."

A man of convictions which do not waver, President Bush also reprised his promise made four years ago: to "continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law."

To his great credit, Mr. Bush placed our issue in its proper context: "Our society rests on a foundation of responsibility and character and family commitment." Responsibility...character...family commitment - - societal threads which abortion rips to shreds along with the bodies of the unborn children.

In making his case for life, President Bush appealed to the better angels of our nature. "Because a caring society will value its weakest members," he said, "we must make a place for the unborn child." Not should, but must. To do otherwise is beneath us as people.

Finally, the irony would be hard to miss, even if it didn't come from the editorial page of the New York Times. Responding to the President's speech, the Times wrote, "There was no hint that he realizes his 'uniter, not a divider' vow ran aground on the administration's insistence on right-wing judicial nominees and inflexibility on social issues like stem cell research."

But it is precisely because President Bush demands judges who do not believe the Constitution is their personal etch-a-sketch that people who are not necessarily pro-life agree with his call for judicial restraint. And it is precisely because Mr. Bush refuses to turn human embryos into fodder for lethal experimentation that he is on the right side of this issue. Geez, talk about missing the point!

Please keep in touch by going to www.nrlc.org each and every day. And if you are not receiving NRL News, please call us immediately at (202) 626-8828 and we'll get your subscription started the same day.

Sen. Kerry may be wrong on everything else, but he was right on the money when he told the Democratic National Convention, "My fellow Americans, this is the most important election of our lifetime."

Dave Andrusko can be reached at dandrusko@nrlc.org.