Moving to Strengthen the Pro-Life Cause

January-February 1993

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Many seem to believe that the pro-life cause has been lost now that Bill Clinton is entering the White House. But what, precisely, did pro-lifers win while Ronald Reagan and George Bush were in office?

President Clinton might indeed give a temporary boost to those who want even more freedom for abortions than they now have. But political power-plays are not sufficient to resolve deep-seated human crises. Now is the time, therefore, to advance ever more serious political arguments that can help to change minds and redirect energies toward the protection of human life.

Nat Hentoff does as much in the November 30 (1992) issue of The New Republic (pp. 21-25) where he exposes the bigotry, inconsistencies, and blindness of pro-choice liberals. And a wide-ranging group of political and academic figures, led by Pennsylvania Governor (Democrat) Robert P. Casey, have added a very constructive declaration, published in the November issue of First Things: "A New American Compact: Caring about Women, Caring for the Unborn" (pp. 43-46). Here are two additional voices.

President Clinton: Pro-Choice Does Not Mean Pro-Abortion

By Kenneth W. Hermann

Mr. Clinton, you opened a potentially constructive approach to the debate over abortion last July in your nomination acceptance speech when you insisted that your support of the pro-choice plank of the party platform did not mean that you supported abortion as a desirable form of birth control.

Surely there is an important distinction between upholding the principle that significant moral responsibilities inherently belong to individuals, on the one hand, and approving the decisions people actually make when they exercise those responsibilities, on the other hand. The pro-choice position has capitalized on the bedrock political claim that there should be limits to the government's intrusion into people's lives. The vast majority of Americans support this claim. That is why so many pro-life advocates feel uneasy about challenging what they agree is a fundamental mark of our democracy.

The pro-choice position has, however, seemed to argue that because the decision about abortion entails individual responsibility, the public should therefore remain both powerless to disapprove of any decision a pregnant woman makes and powerless to prejudice its public policies toward a particular decision. By insisting that government should support a woman's right to choose regardless of the choice she makes, this argument implies that government should treat both the decision to abort and the decision to carry the unborn to term as morally equivalent decisions.

This simply does not follow. Neither an individual nor the government should feel compelled to approve abortion as a major public policy even if an individual or the government believes that the abortion decision involves personal choice. You are the first public official to make this distinction clear. Government is continually debating which personal choices to encourage and which to discourage by means of administrative orders, legislation, legal rulings, and tax policies.

Stressing this important distinction could enable your administration to build a broad coalition of pro-life and pro-choice proponents who want public policies that significantly reduce the number of abortions and enhance the wellbeing of the already born.

[Dr. Hermann teaches in the Honors College at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio.]

Republicans: It's Time for a Post-Roe Agenda

By Jasper S. Wyman

While activists during the past two decades have shouted past each other, most people have continued to reject the stark terms and harsh rhetoric of the abortion debate. They see themselves as both pro-choice and pro-life.

We have failed to make any progress in resolving the issue of abortion because, in our label-laden and histrionic battle over "rights," we have failed to perceive the larger question. That larger matter has less to do with "rights" than it does with shared responsibility. It is to that larger issue that we should now address our emotional energies. To end abortion in America we must eliminate the root causes of abortion.

I cannot say what pro-choicers might be prepared to do in working constructively toward this goal. But here are several things that pro-lifers should do.

1. Drop unreasonable and indefensible opposition to birth control.

2. Publicly support specific measures that offer real choices for pregnant women including job protection and continuing education.

3. Renew the commitment to facilitating adoption.

4. Recognize that life does not end at birth. Our welfare programs must be pro-work and pro-family as well as pro-life.

5. Talk candidly to our children about sex, encouraging them to act responsibly.

6. Work together toward the goal of full equality for all women. If we are to "bind up the nation's wounds" after 20 years of battle over abortion, each side must cease condemning the other. We must stop questioning the motives of our fellow citizens.

If we are to end abortion in America, both sides must unite in helping to build the kind of humane, compassionate and just society where abortion will no longer be the first and only choice of desperate women. We must work to create a society where all women have better choices.

[Mr. Wyman is Executive Director of the Christian Civic League of Maine and an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. These excerpts are drawn from his "Better Choices: A Post-Roe Agenda," available from the CCL of Maine, 70 Sewall St., P.O. Box 5459, Augusta, ME 04332; (207) 622-7634].