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NRL News
COURAGE,
AND FULL SPEED AHEAD! For pro-lifers these are trying times. So let’s keep a clear mind. The right to life once again was not the overriding issue in the national election campaign—not yet. But it did play a major role in the presidential, congressional, and state races. In fact, the “pro-life increment” was very big. In a post-election poll commissioned by NRLC, 65% of respondents said that the abortion issue did not affect their vote (overwhelmingly reflecting fears about jobs and the economy). Yet, 25% of voters replied that the abortion issue affected their vote and, therefore, voted for pro-life candidates. In contrast, only 9% voted for a candidate favoring abortion because the abortion issue affected their vote. And who delivered that “pro-life increment” of 16%? You! You, who sacrificed your time and treasure for the sake of the babies. You, who distributed literature and volunteered to spread the pro-life message. And you, who have life already, but put aside your personal interests and voted for someone else’s rights, the rights of the unborn. We thank you and are proud of you. As usual, we are getting all kinds of “advice” after the election. Advice that reveals confusion about the obstacles the pro-life movement faces. n “President-elect Barack Obama and other Democrats have promised to work to make abortion rare, so long as it remains legal” (Stephanie Simon, Wall Street Journal, 11/11/2008). There are a few things wrong with this assertion. Senator Obama has promised (1) to appoint only justices who will perpetuate the Supreme Court’s current abortion regime and (2) sign the so-called “Freedom of Choice Act” that would “sanitize” the Court’s extra-constitutional action and justify the horror by congressional mandate. In Doe v. Bolton the Supreme Court removed medical review and hospitalization requirements for an abortion as “unconstitutional”—in other words, it established the free-standing, profit-making abortion clinic. What are the chances that the abortion clinic industry will agree to make abortion “rare”? The “Freedom of Choice Act” would strengthen this industry of death by removing any controls of it on the federal, state, and local level—and this will make abortion “rare”? Don’t forget, your tax dollars would underwrite the federally-mandated expansion of the abortion “rarity.” Common sense suggests that the proposition of “keeping abortion safe, legal, and rare” is inherently devious and nonsensical. Let’s make robbery (or any other activity once prohibited by law) safe and legal, and see how rare it becomes. n Once again, we are being asked to compromise and “seek a middle ground.” And how would a compromise be possible when our opponents insist on the so-called constitutional right to an abortion being non-negotiable? A Solomonic judgment where we are supposed to accept half a baby? n “The pro-life movement must stop putting all its eggs in the Republican basket. Even with control of the White House and Congress, the party did little to restrict abortion.” (Greg Erlandson, president and publisher of Our Sunday Visitor, 11/16/2008.) Where to begin? The National Right to Life PAC and the PACs of its state affiliates have endorsed pro-life candidates from both parties for years. The reason there has been no “Democratic basket” on the presidential level for the pro-life eggs, is that for decades all Democratic presidential candidates have resolutely supported abortion rights. Has the religious—especially Catholic—press generally, openly, and clearly communicated this fact to its readers? Bishop Emeritus Bernard Schmitt (Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston) said this in an editorial before the 2004 election: “The right to life is not the only issue; it is the most important issue.” Gratifyingly, this election season an impressive number of bishops raised their voices in defense of the unborn. Unfortunately, we still read a lot of wishy-washy nonsense about there being “other” issues? Moreover, let’s compare the last two presidents in office. President Bill Clinton overturned the pro-life executive orders of Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush, promoted abortion overseas with his UN policies, appointed justices and judges pledged to perpetuate Roe and Doe, introduced the abortion drug RU 486 into this country, wanted to “mainstream” abortion with his health care plan, and vetoed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban—twice. In contrast, President G. W. Bush issued pro-life executive orders regarding polices here and abroad, signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban into law, appointed Constitution-oriented justices (which made the Supreme Court more favorably disposed towards Congress’s right to ban partial-birth abortions), and signed into law any other pro-life initiative that we could get through Congress. As to “restricting” abortions, let’s not forget that there is no way for Congress actually to prohibit abortion in general, as long as the “constitutionalization” of the abortion right persists. There are only two possibilities: either there is a constitutional amendment reversing the Court, or the Court reverses itself—Democratic presidential candidates have opposed both approaches for decades. Karl Marx, the founder of Communism, ridiculed the likes of us (“oppressed creatures”) as partaking of “the opium of the people.” In his ”Discreet Charm of Nihilism” (New York Review of Books, 11/19/1998), the late Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz retorted: “A true opium for the people is a belief in nothingness after death—the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.” We all know that we will be held accountable for our actions and our failures to act the way we should act. This is the time for faithfulness. This is the time for clear thought. The two most burning issues facing us—President-elect Obama’s determination to strengthen the pro-abortion majority of the Supreme Court and to sign a “Freedom of Choice Act”—will test pro-lifers once again to the extreme. And we will have to reach deep within us, collect our strength, sacrifice, and act. |