FROM THE PRESIDENT
By Wanda Franz, Ph.D.
It's the Supreme Court, Stupid
--Headline in New York's Village Voice (8/30/2000)
By the end of the next President's term, six of the current members of the Court will be over 70 years of age. The average age of retirement over the past century has been 71--and so we are likely in for an unprecedented wave of retirements. It is entirely possible that whoever is elected next November will have the power to appoint a new majority of the members of the Supreme Court.
As president, I will only appoint Supreme Court Justices who will uphold a woman's right to choose.
--pro-abortion presidential candidate John Kerry (10/3/03 & 3/8/04)
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 (9/2/04)
The Village Voice headline above was written for the 2000 presidential election, but it is even more applicable today. If pro-life President George W. Bush gets re-elected along with enough new senators who will support his judicial nominees, then the days of judicial arrogance and over-reaching will come to an end. And social policy once again will be set by the elected branches of government.
If John Kerry wins, he will fill the vacancies on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary with pro-abortionists, and the out-of-control courts will continue to override popular will and set social policy by judicial dictate--for years, if not decades, to come.
The pro-abortion pressure groups are organizing and spending money as never before in this election to make sure that it is John Kerry who will fill federal judicial vacancies.
Pro-lifers must understand what's at stake and outwork the pro-abortionists.
* What we must understand above all things is that elections are not the time to make a self-satisfied "statement" but to make a difference in advancing the right to life. While our goal is to protect all innocent life from conception to natural death, our progress toward that goal must not be derailed by an irrational insistence that candidates must be perfect in every aspect before we vote for them. There are very few "absolutely perfect pro-life" candidates--just as there are very few perfect pro-life voters. By insisting on the "perfect" over the "good" we shrink the number of acceptable pro-life candidates. The likely result of such a short-sighted strategy would be the political irrelevance of the right-to-life movement.
* First of all, the point is to elect pro-life candidates: a pro-life president, a pro-life Congress and pro-life state judges and legislators. After the presidency, electing a pro-life Senate is especially important. The anti-life Democratic Senate leadership, in particular, has been responsible for (1) denying President Bush's judicial nominees an up or down vote in the Senate and (2) blocking pro-life legislation passed by the House of Representatives.
* Second, defeating 100%-pro-abortion politicians or replacing them with candidates who oppose most abortions weakens the pro-abortion side and advances the right-to-life cause. We need allies along the way because we don't have an overwhelming majority--yet. And politicians who start out being with us part of the time are more likely to join us "all the way" once they are educated and begin to understand the depth and power of the right-to-life movement.
* The law teaches. Without participation in the political process and a hand in the appointment of the judiciary, pro-lifers cannot influence the making of law. (In making law, too, the quest for unattainable perfection can sabotage the achievement of the good.) Hence, to become part of the political process pro-lifers must be successful in elections.
* Pro-lifers must educate their fellow voters. In June 2000, about 70% of poll respondents either did not know or misidentified the presidential candidates' position on abortion (Los Angeles Times poll, 6/13/2000). How many of your relatives, friends, and acquaintances know John Kerry's radical record on abortion? Give them NRLC's comparison sheet on President Bush vs. John Kerry (available from NRLC, your local chapter, and at www.nrlc.org).
* Get pro-life voters to the polls. A Los Angeles Times exit poll for the 2000 election revealed that 14% of voters identified abortion as the first or second most important issue influencing their vote. That means that out of over 105.4 million votes cast, about 14.8 million were influenced by the candidates' stance on abortion. Of these votes, about 8.6 million votes went for Bush and 6.1 million went for Gore--a pro-life increment of 2.5 million votes! Al Gore led the popular vote by 543,895 votes (because of huge margins in California and New York). George W. Bush won the all-important electoral college 271 to 266 by winning Florida with 537 votes. President Bush also won Gore's home state, Tennessee, by 80,229 votes; Bill Clinton's home state, Arkansas, by 50,172 votes; mostly Democrat West Virginia (where I live) by 40,978 votes; and so on.
Did the pro-life increment of 2.5 million votes make a difference? Just think what a mess we--and the whole country--would be in if these pro-lifers had stayed at home on Election Day or voted for unelectable third-party candidates for the sake of "principle"--and made Al Gore president.
* Don't pay too much attention to the polls. In the 2000 election, George W. Bush had a lead in late October, but his polling lead evaporated by early November, as last-minute charges and rumors were dished out by the Democratic dirty tricks department. That and the massive turnout engineered by Democratic-leaning groups nearly produced a win for Gore. Believe me, they are planning a repeat performance.
Pro-lifers have no choice but to make sacrificial, and I mean sacrificial, commitments in money and time and plain hard work to overcome the advantages our opponents bring to this election.
Paid for by the NRL Political Action Committee. Not authorized by any candidate.