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Look at me. I was a 21 -year -old college student when I first heard about the Supreme Court decision called Roe v. Wade. I actually remember where I was at the time. I was sitting next to my handsome young fiancé in his 1957 Chevy when the announcement came over the radio that, in a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court had, in effect, legalized abortion on demand. I remember thinking, “Oh, that’s too bad.” It wasn’t until about 6 years later, when a doctor offered me the choice of having an abortion, that I began to have an inkling of what that decision actually meant. And, I had entirely missed the companion decision, Doe v. Bolton, in which the court determined that abortion could be obtained by any woman at any time right up until the onset of natural labor. After all, it didn’t affect me personally. Now look at me again. I have been married for 35 years and am the grandmother of 8, the 9th on the way. How time flies! I am still taken aback by how many people have been fighting the legalization of abortion since January, 1973. We in the Pro-Life movement are nothing, if not determined and persistent.
It would be very easy to become discouraged following the elections this year. We have a President who promised Planned Parenthood, which is the largest abortion provider in the country, that he would sign the Freedom of Choice Act as his first action as President. While it was not legally possible for that to happen on the first day after the election, it is possible in the near future. The FOCA must be passed by Congress before he can sign it. It is all too possible, given the Democratic majority in Congress. He will enjoy the privilege of having the support of the Congress during his administration, at least during the first two years, and will have a very smooth path for most of the policies that he wants to enact.
Yes, it was a historic election, and to me, it was one filled with irony. We saw a black man and a woman seriously contesting each other for the nomination to the Presidency. An even more interesting addition to the mix was Sarah Palin, who ran for the Vice-Presidency and was openly championing the cause of the disabled and the unborn. When have we seen more minorities represented at once? I found it ironic, however, that once Hillary Clinton was no longer in the running, the National Organization of Women chose to endorse, not the ticket with a woman, but the ticket that vowed to permanently eliminate regulation on abortion. Both Clinton and Obama vowed to promote and sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would effectively nullify all current legislation that regulates abortion. How is it in any woman’s interest to return to unregulated, unrestricted, unsupervised abortion, by legalizing it? Wasn’t that what women were trying to eliminate when they demanded an end to back-alley, coat- hanger abortions? What they expected and what they were promised by Roe v. Wade was abortion that was safe, legal, and rare. Now Obama promises us no more laws requiring parental consent for abortions in minors, no more laws requiring that abortions be performed by a physician, no more laws calling for informed consent, telling women of the risks and details of this so-called medical procedure. How does legalizing exploitation of women protect them?
Further ironies come to mind. Do you remember, a little over a year ago, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had a public quarrel over who had done more to advance the cause of minority rights, Martin Luther King, Jr, or President John F. Kennedy? (If I remember correctly, it was Lyndon Johnson who signed the Civil Rights Act.) Nonetheless, consider this. We had a black man and a woman arguing over the fine points of who helped minorities more, and each of them enjoying a historical opportunity to run for the President of the United States. Both of them have overcome discrimination to aspire to the most powerful office in the world. But they have not risen above it discrimination. Barack Obama has successfully stepped into a unique place in history. He has the opportunity to advance the cause of minorities like no one else ever could. Instead, he has chosen to intensify and make permanent, discrimination against the most helpless minority in the human race. Obama, our first African-American President, has promised to perpetuate discrimination by legallizing this version of lynching. He has determined that the unborn shall not now, nor will they ever, enjoy the original civil right. The right to be born. The right to live. The right to exist. Could you or I or George Orwell have ever conceived of a more unbelievable irony! We have a new segment of humanity that has been defined as non-persons. Although blacks make up only an eighth of the population, African-American women have more than a third (37%) of the 1.2 million abortions performed in the United States. That a black man could attain the presidency over the obstacles of prejudice, and then vow to bring down the hammer of injustice on the unborn is beyond incredible. There has never been a segment of the human race that has been so cruelly and viciously oppressed by those in power as the unborn. I have been told that there is no worse tyrant, than a former victim of tyranny. Now I believe it. It is no wonder that some of us are discouraged.
At the same time, we have had those among us who have been true defenders of human rights, those who would truly acknowledge the humanity of the smallest and most helpless of minorities. I would like to recognize three of our most ardent, courageous, and articulate champions for the cause of the Right to Life. Senator Henry Hyde died a little over a year ago. He has been said to have saved more than a million babies through the legislation that he sponsored and promoted. His greatest sorrow, I am told, was that he failed to gain passage of the Human Life Amendment, which would have guaranteed the legal right to be born to every human being once conceived. He settled, quite often, for incremental regulations on abortion to limit the amount of pain being felt by both the mother and the child during an abortion. He was as concerned for the safety of women, as he was for the life of the child.
Second, I would like to thank President George W. Bush. He has been a true advocate for human rights and for the rights of the unborn. He signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, and funded prenatal care under the CHIPS program. He appointed two new Justices to the Supreme Court who cast key votes to uphold the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. He prohibited government funding for stem cell research which requires the killing of human embryos, choosing instead to fund more promising and ethical alternative stem cell research which does not require the killing of human embryos. This alternative research has already begun to show promise in the treatment of numerous diseases. He enacted the Mexico City Policy, which withheld funding for abortions in foreign countries. His administration was characterized by the tenet that, “Unborn children should be welcomed in life and protected in law.” He will be remembered for those words and his valiant efforts to make them a reality. He did not give lip service to the principle that all are created equal.
Finally, I would like to refer to Father Richard John Neuhaus who died shortly after Christmas this year. He made many effective arguments against legalized abortion, and was a powerful writer and speaker on behalf of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly. I would like to quote Neuhaus, from a speech that he made in 1982, with thanks to Dave Andrusko whose commentary I have excerpted from:
“The authentic vision of America, he said, is one that ‘is hospitable to the stranger, holding out arms of welcome to those who share the freedom and opportunity we cherish.’ But, tragically, America, a land of immigrants, has closed its doors to the ultimate immigrant Neuhaus said: the unborn child. ‘I do not know if there will again be a new birth of freedom – for the poor, the aged, the crippled, the unborn. We commend this cause to the One who is the maker and the sure keeper of promises, to the Lord of life. In that commendation is our confidence: confidence that the long night of Roe v. Wade will soon be over; confidence that the court will yet be made responsive to the convictions of a democratic people; confidence, ultimately, in the dawning of a new and glorious day in which law and morality will be reconciled and liberty will no longer war against life.’
‘I suppose no one can be a part of this Movement for decade after decade and not occasionally wish that someone else could take over for them in the greatest movement for social justice of our time. Is there some law that says we cannot lay that burden down when it is heaviest, ask for a substitute when we are bone-weary? Actually there is. Only it is not some statute found on the books but a law written on our hearts. You and I could no more abandon the little ones than we could voluntarily stop breathing. It is what we were put on this earth to do. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every unborn child is protected in law and welcomed in life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until all the elderly who have run life's course are protected against despair and abandonment, protected by the rule of law and the bonds of love. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every young woman is given the help she needs to recognize the problem of pregnancy as the gift of life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, as we stand guard at the entrance gates and the exit gates of life, and at every step along the way of life, bearing witness in word and deed to the dignity of the human person--of every human person.’ The cause of life--the greatest human rights cause of not just our time but all times--is rooted in a deep understanding of the dignity of the human person. ‘We contend,’ Neuhaus told his audience, ‘and we contend relentlessly, for the dignity of the human person, of every human person, created in the image and likeness of God, destined from eternity for eternity--every human person, no matter how weak or how strong, no matter how young or how old, no matter how productive or how burdensome, no matter how welcome or how inconvenient. Nobody is a nobody; nobody is unwanted. All are wanted by God, and therefore to be respected, protected, and cherished by us.’ “
I have been discouraged and disappointed by the outcome of the election. It has made me wonder if all our hard work will have been for nothing. And I have been at it for a relatively short time, compared to some others. It is all right to be disappointed at the end of an election season, but one must never walk away. Somewhere beneath that discouragement and disappointment is hope. Barack Obama wants change, and we will give it to him. We will change our strategy and we will make a difference in the way that America sees abortion. We will keep moving toward a truly humanitarian and Pro-Life America, with true equality and justice for all, including the unborn, and we won’t stop until we get there.
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