Anything New Under the Sun?

Anything New Under the Sun?

In the very first sentences of her introduction to "Team of Rivals," her very fine new Lincoln biography, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin writes the following:

"In 1876, the celebrated orator Frederick Douglass dedicated a monument in Washington, D.C., erected by black Americans to honor Abraham Lincoln. The former slave told his audience that 'there is little necessity on this occasion to speak to length and critically of this great and good man, and of his high mission in the world. That ground has been fully occupied…. The whole field of fact and fancy has been gleaned and garnered. Any man can say things that are true of Abraham Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln.'"

Needless to say, having just written a 757-page tome, Goodwin politely begs to differ. Her approach is ingenious. She has "coupled" her account of Lincoln's life, she writes, "with the stories of the remarkable men who were his rivals for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination."

In case the reader may not initially be persuaded, Goodwin quickly adds, "Just as a hologram is created through the interference of light from separate sources, so the lives and impressions of those who companioned Lincoln give us a clearer and more dimensional picture of the president himself."

I mention this by way of posing this question. After nearly 33 years of trench warfare, has the "ground been fully occupied," or can something new be "gleaned and garnered" about Roe v. Wade?

Well, since I've edited a monthly publication for 24 years that plows new ground each and very issue, my answer is yes. My response is more emphatic than ever in light of the special January 2006 NRL News Commemorative Edition--"Roe v. Wade: A Decision Under Siege." (To order, call us immediately at 202-626-8800, ext. 128.)

As I wrote that sentence it occurred to me that our task as much as anything is to sift the wheat from the chaff. Sounds almost easy, doesn't it?

But the problem is that the chaff--in this instance the airy (and erroneous) insistence that the unborn is a moral cipher whose demise has always been a bloody part of the American landscape--carries more weight than the wheat. Why is that so?

Largely because the power institutions in our culture, led by the "mainstream media," are mesmerized by a narrative that insists that abortion on demand is just the latest example in a long line of changes that have "enlarged" freedom. Luckily, more and more people are seeing this for the one-sided (and upside down) treatment of the controversy that it is.

Late last night, my youngest daughter finished the rough draft of the paper every junior at high schools in our city must write to attain "proficiency" in eleventh grade English. Her topic is starving and dehydrating vulnerable people to death, done either against their wishes or in the absence of direct evidence they would want to die such a horrid death. It's largely about Terri Schindler Schiavo.

By this stage in my life as a parent, I've gotten much better at what I should have been doing all along with my older kids--prodding and clarifying and just waiting for them to reach his or her conclusion--instead of practically dictating an answer. Watching her think her way through the debate; observing her powers of observation grow; and seeing her indignation mount as the injustice of it all sweeps over her gives me great hope for the future.

Unlike many adults, adolescents are not tone-deaf to calls for mercy and justice, nor are they color-blind to the subtleties of the dehumanizing portrait pro-abortionists paint of the unborn. The certainties that the Planned Parenthoods of this world have counted on are crumbling.

By turning the tables on the defenseless--by focusing on what the unborn must demonstrate before we grant them inclusion in the family of man--we conveniently skirt the real question. And that is what we, as responsible moral agents, owe them. These are the big questions--the timeless questions--that we have managed to avoid candidly discussing.

Will we get to them quickly? No. For many people, the staging grounds may be important yet peripheral issues.

For example, how solid is the legal foundation? (the grounds are shifting). Or, shouldn't the decision-making on abortion be returned to the 50 states, rather than stifling a democratic discussion, as the Supreme Court has done for nearly 33 years? Or, has abortion truly been good for women, or has it been more like an unmitigated disaster?

I would just encourage you to call us [202-626-8800, ext. 128] or go directly to the website to order your January 2006 Commemorative NRL News edition. [www.nrlc.org/news/Jan22Ad2006.pdf]

Our message of love and support for both mother and child is resonating in a way that we could not have imagined possible only a few years ago.

Please send any comments to me at dandrusko@nrlc.org.