President George Walker Bush signed the National Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act on November 5th, which had finally passed Congress after years of haggling. The 10:00 o?clock news showed the President with pen in hand stating:
“The right to life cannot be granted or taken away by Government?it is given to us by our Creator.”
President Bush appeared to be alluding to the Declaration of Independence, which contains these words:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty, etc.”
We Hold These Truths concurs, our name was chosen seven years ago from those same famous and noble words. Many of the founding fathers suffered and died for stating them. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush abuses these words by using them hypocritically, without conviction or consistency. Worse yet, he is taking the ?Creator?s? name in vain, for which his professed faith states he will be judged.
If life is a gift from our Creator, then what is President Bush?s authority to bomb and kill as many as 10,000 civilians in Iraq, many of them children who are as innocent as any child killed by abortion? In signing the partial birth abortion ban, Mr. Bush could rightfully claim the title of ?post-birth abortionist of Iraq.?
Based upon statistics drawn from Douglas Johnson, Legislative Director of the National Right to Life Committee, partial birth abortions, which Bush says he opposes, are performed in only 1 of every 500 abortions, perhaps fewer. Therefore, this procedure has probably claimed fewer innocent lives in it bloody history than Mr. Bush took in Iraq in one bombardment.
Organizations that favor abortion on demand claim the NPBABA is the ?camel?s nose under the tent? that will lead to invasion of the privacy of the bedroom. They say it will deprive doctors of a necessary procedure to save the mother?s life, but the bill includes a ?life of the mother? exception. It appears this lobby has little to fear from this President. Mr. Bush has made it clear in public statements that he would not support any total ban on abortion because, he says, ?the American public would not support such a ban.?
The Abortionist?s Victims
This writer is well aware that abortions have probably claimed more lives than all the wars in recorded history. We hold These Truths is consistently pro-life, as attested to in our statement made seven years ago in “Who We Are” WHTT advisors were committed then, and are committed now, to opposing elective abortion and elective wars (serial wars). Every American war in the last half of the 20th century has been 100% elective on our leader?s part.
We oppose those who promote or sell abortion, but we do not judge the victims of abortion lest we be judged. Victims often include mothers and fathers. We must love and sympathize with everyone who has made the mistake of undergoing elective abortion, and that includes those who do not consider it a mistake. But we do not have to love or sympathize with those who make their living selling abortions to vulnerable or frightened women and irresponsible men.
And we do not forget or forgive the Warmakers who commit genocide for political reasons. Bishop John Michael Botean, Romanian Diocese of St. George in Canton, Ohio, stated, after comparing war killing to abortion:
“any direct participation and support of this war against the people of Iraq is objectively grave evil, a matter of mortal sin. Beyond a reasonable doubt this war is morally incompatible with the Person and Way of Jesus Christ.”
This writer would be the first to recognize the educational impact of the often-gallant anti-abortion activists who take risks without hope of personal gain. Some have risked imprisonment to drive home the point that they consider the life of an unborn child worth personal sacrifice. Their efforts on the streets of America have surely been a contributing factor to what seems to be a trend toward larger families and fewer abortions.
Leafleting high schools and junior high schools about child development, revealing it as a continuum starting at conception, has been a powerful influence on the thought process of youth. In the long run, these education programs are bound to have an impact on the most influential age?youth–because they provide knowledge where there are gaps.
It is not our intent to discourage anyone from engaging in such positive programs. Our question is a practical one: “How can such a righteously-intentioned and morally sound program having so many dedicated adherents fail?“
For fail it has. So let us look to the answer, which is twofold:
First, it has failed because its leaders believe politicians who claim to be “pro-life,” including both George W. Bush and his father, who have swallowed the “no position” line of others, (e.g. Bill Clinton, who claimed to be associated with pro-life churches).
Second, it has failed because it trusted and depended upon Celebrity Christian leaders and mega-church pastors who betrayed the movement while claiming to be “pro-life.”
Trusting the Professionals of Politics
Mr. Bush says he is pro-life, but he and his father are both tools of Warmakers, skilled in ?double speak?. Bush talks of the inalienable right to life but never relates his own warmaking decisions to the murder of the victims. He is widely believed to have received most of the pro-life vote in the 1999 election largely because of his religious professions, like the one he made while signing the insignificant Partial Birth Abortion Ban. G. W. Bush, like his father, is a skin deep pro-lifer, and it is likely he could not tell you where the famous quote he read in his signing speech came from. Every student should know the source, but Mr. Bush was not a good student. He is a good politician, though, and he knows how to mouth words that will attract followers.
G. W. Bush cannot say he did not know the consequences of his actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The New York Times published an unchallenged story on July 19, 2003 that disclosed that Bush?s closest war appointee, Donald Rumsfeld, was called upon 50 separate times to approve missile strikes, each of which was believed by the military to be likely to kill 30 or more civilians. One wonders about the numbers of dead and maimed civilians resulting from the 7500 or so warheads that did not require approval because the military predicted fewer than 30 civilian deaths from each one!
Either Mr. Bush knew about these decisions, or Mr. Rumsfeld, his personal appointee, should be tried as a war criminal for not letting him in on it. Operation Shock and Awe in Iraq was simply too bloody for the military leaders to take responsibility without approval from the Commander-in-Chief; it left a trail to his doorstep. Mr. Bush is not alone in being selectively pro-life. He shares this dishonor with leaders of both the Republican and Democrat parties, as well as his predecessor, Bill Clinton.
Worse still, Mr. Bush?s hands are no less bloody than those of the evangelical church leaders who helped him slide into office and who continue to support him and his war policy even after the consequences are no longer deniable, while the rest of the civilized world has turned against his perfidious abuse of life in the name of a ?just war.?
Many veteran pro-life activists recognize that the evangelical churches have never done much to prevent the growth of abortion, even among their own members and their children. The roll of the churches and celebrity leaders will be the subject of Part II of this report.
Is the Pro-Life Movement a Failure?
This question was discussed obliquely at the ?Voices for the Unborn Conference? sponsored by Patrick J. Buchanan on October 4th of this year in Arlington, Virginia. Several well-known national pro-life leaders publicly admitted their frustration at the conference. One of these was Judie Brown, who should know. Her candidness, no doubt coming out of desperation, is appreciated. Mrs. Brown stated that the passed and signed NPBABA, supposedly to end partial birth abortions, is actually a sham, filled with loopholes.
This bill deals only with a certain procedure and in no way eliminates abortion. Most of Judie Brown?s presentation was about the difficulty in achieving any meaningful legislative progress. Others spoke of the obstacles presented by the courts. But no one made a real effort to identify why the pro-life movement does not achieve critical mass. This we would like to do.
Partial birth abortion is simply a convenience for the abortionist and is in no way the only way to tend a late-term pregnancy. Even if this procedure were banned as inhumane, it would only be a moral victory and would probably not save any lives in the long run.
Mrs. Brown?s frustration comes from her informed opinion that no meaningful abortion legislation can be forced past the courts, even if it is passed by Congress or by state legislatures. The impression left by her talk is that the movement is grabbing at straws to support the NPBABA. We agree. The potential victim of a partial birth procedure is protected from only one procedure–one that is done in open air outside the womb, where he is visibly a child. The same child may be aborted in even more gruesome ways at any time before birth. It is quite possible that enforcement of the ban will not save a single life.
Judie Brown is not alone in her declaration that not a single piece of legislation, either state or federal, that would effectively deter abortion has survived the so-called “legal” process of the courts.
Evangelical churches and their prominent leaders, as well as many nationally known and respected pro-life organizations, are for life—except when the lives are those of children in countries not predominantly Christian. Why would those who support the NPBABA not also oppose bombing and burning children in places like Iraq and Palestine where it happens every day? Isn?t a child a child regardless of race or parents? religion?
Such obviously irreconcilable positions have put President Bush on the defensive–some say on the ropes. He is scrambling to stay in office for a usually automatic second term. Moral people who do not engage in the pro-life struggle see easily through the hypocrisy of many of its adherents, and they instinctively oppose mass annihilation by American weapons of mass destruction.
It is this glaring inconsistency of thought that declares one child?s killing to be unconscionable while another child?s killing is an ?acceptable loss? that is destroying the right-to-life movement, though it has yet to realize it. It is this same inconsistency toward life that must eventually destroy the evangelical church, if its leaders do not repent and recant from the heresy of a selective right-to-life.
It is also because of its own inconsistency that the pro-life movement is on the ropes, and many of its leaders admit it. The passage of the Partial Birth Abortion ban is not a step in the right direction; it is a disgusting compromise. Judie Brown told the Buchanan Conference attendees that the bill was riddled with loopholes. All political moves to end or seriously limit abortion in America have been failures if one looks at legislation as a guide.
Pro-life leaders can point to very few high points along their path of descent. The current modest decline in abortion rates possibly reflects a slight improvement in the attitude of the general public. But the leaders know they are not winning; they just don?t know why. Or if they do know, they are afraid to say the words. We Hold These Truths is pro-life, and we are not afraid to say why we are losing. Politicians waste time and efforts and deserve to be ignored. It is the church that can make change. Those who doubt this should see the film, “Luther.“
Warmaker Lobby Attacks Islam
Both warmaking President Bush and the right-to-life leaders claim life is a God-given gift, but that this gift does not apply to the elective bombing of Muslim countries. This is a total contradiction, making God an accomplice to selective killing. Very few pro-life leaders opposed either the war in Iraq or the arming of the Israelis in their occupation of Palestine. How can one be ardently, dedicatedly and sacrificially pro-life and at the same time support American wars in foreign lands that admittedly take the lives of thousands?
This writer spent October 4th interviewing those present at the Buchanan conference, all avowedly pro-lifers. The results are a note of encouragement for any who think there is no hope to end serial wars or serial abortion in America. Just as the Union Pacific railroad was built from two ends that met in the middle, so today a tunnel is being driven from two sides of the same mountain. But the crews are passing each other in the dark; they have failed to connect. The pro-life movement is large enough to turn the tide on serial wars overnight. The anti-war movement is broad enough to end elective abortion.
What is keeping them apart? Churches and celebrity Christian leaders, as we will show.
One national anti-war group leaflets high schools opposing war, the draft, and aggressive recruitment of high school students for the all-mercenary military. Church youth groups should be included in this program. Recruits are trained to kill on command any man, woman, or child. Why should they not be informed about the morality of their acts? We Hold These Truths has produced two excellent audiotapes about America?s Mercenary Military and what they teach recruits about life and death.
A similar leafleting project started by an aggressive right-to-life group proved to be so successful that WHTT tested it in the field by leafleting eight or nine high schools in Phoenix, AZ in 1999. Action programs like these will bear fruit.
Question: Why don?t these movements join forces; isn?t it all about preserving life?
It should be noted that Pat Buchanan, the sponsor of the daylong conference, has proclaimed his opposition to Israel?s American support for genocide of the Palestinians and the elective killing of Iraqis, while consistently voicing a positive pro-life position. We Hold These Truths congratulates him but believes his position would be stronger if he asked those who worship the ground he walks on if they think they can be pro-life and pro-war at the same time. Many spoken to at the conference, including several college students, said they were both pro-life and pro-war. This vital disconnect was not made by even one of the speakers at this forum. Amazingly, the Achilles heel of the pro-life movement is inconsistency about life!
It is not our purpose to overhaul the anti-abortion movement, nor do we wish to dwell on its leaders? failings. We wish to expose the rarely discussed simple and transparent cause for the lack of support the movement has received. Readers should understand that this author has not abandoned the pro-life position in writing this critique. Nor are we defeatists who think we?ve gotten what we deserve.
The pro-life movement may be the most powerful and righteous movement ever to fail so miserably. Many have dedicated themselves with a fervor rarely seen in recent history. It is a mature movement and a sober one, far from the youthful mixture of the late 1960s anti-war movement or the civil rights crusades of a decade before. Many have their own mistakes to guide them; they are mostly fathers and mothers, churchgoers most, with above average education, gainfully employed.
It is a movement that attracts the voice of youth, some of whom have experienced the abuse of human life they now campaign against. This is the same youth who are now dying one at a time and slaughtering others in Iraq. It is not without its demagogues and hypocrites, but never have so many dedicated persons labored with more devotion over such a long period of time with so little to show for their efforts as the so-called pro-life movement. This author is one of them.
The anti-abortion movement in American is bigger, older, and broader than the anti-Vietnam war movement of the 1960s by many times. Anyone who doubts this should do a web search for “pro-life.” By comparison, the abolition movement of the early 1800s to eliminate slavery did not mobilize with anything like the intensity and perseverance of those who have for 30 years struggled to eliminate the practice of court-sanctioned abortion. And the literature, statistics, and general body of evidence supporting the pro-life cause far exceeds anything ever written against the immorality of slavery. The pro-life movement is a case study in frustration and national disaster.
The information presented at the Buchanan pro-life meeting would melt a stone. Testimonies were courageously presented by two young women telling of their life experiences as a result of being indoctrinated into the culture of abortion and literally shoved into abortions. This conference could have been life changing for students and churches?had the students and churches been there. The presenters included firsthand victims and sufferers, as well as highly informed and dedicated professionals. This writer even witnessed a lawyer with a genuine tear in his eye as he spoke of the frustration in dealing with the politically appointed judges.
For reasons already mentioned the pro-life and the anti-war movements should be one powerful winning cause in defense of all life everywhere. Both movements should win, and both are being frustrated before the agonizing eyes of their supporters. This is not a necessary or excusable defeat. Victory is within reach and can be won almost overnight.
The Positive Side
No law that we know of that actually legitimizes abortion has ever come close to passing in Congress. Congress knows the pro-life movement is a confused but powerful giant with truth on its side. The movement simply needs a pill for schizophrenia so it can lash out at its tormentor in righteous rage over the deaths of 40 million American children without trampling its natural allies. It must learn to circumvent the legislative process. It must ignore the politicians and work for principle, little of which exists in Washington.
The second thing it must do is to focus on the churches. This does not mean talking to the church leaders; we have already ?been there and done that.? It means confronting them in the street as if they were criminals. That means publicly exposing them before their own followers both for supporting serial wars and for failing to oppose abortion and its supporters.
Every member but one of the Patrick Buchanan conference panel on the church complained of the lack of support from respective church leaders. The lone exception was a Muslim lady who could honestly state that Islamic religious leaders can be depended upon to support the pro-life cause. Ironically, some who say they are working to save lives refuse to cooperate with Muslims and even display their lack of good sense (read bigotry) by picketing mosques.
Many pro-life leaders come from evangelical backgrounds and have already been disaffected from their local churches, but few of those I know understand why the church is not helping them. Other pro-lifers have failed to make the logical association that if one supports elective war he cannot say he is pro-life. Though pledged to preserving life, they fail to see that bombing a child and aborting one are equally guilty of ending the life of a child rather than preserving it.
The movements? failure to recognize this truth will be exposed in Part II, Why the Church Fails To Stand For Life.
