“Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, noted that the last time abortion rights supporters rallied in Washington, the nation elected her husband to the presidency just six months later.
" ‘We didn't have to march for 12 long years because we had a government that respected the rights of women,’ she said. ‘The only way we're going to be able to avoid having to march again and again and again is to elect John Fonda-Kerry president.’”
Sunday's New York Times Sunday Magazine.
An article very much worth reading chronicled in elaborate detail President Bush’s brilliantly conceived and executed grassroots campaign to win a second term.
(The address for the article is www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/magazine/2 5GROUNDWAR.html.)
A couple of hours later at Dulles International Airport my wife and I ran across a number of women preparing to board flights to go back home. One of their tee-shirts read, “March for Women’s Lives.”
Last week we wrote in anticipation of the rally assembled by a ton of pro-abortion organizations that would take place April 25 on the Mall. There were reportedly 1,400 sponsors, including the ACLU and Planned Parenthood.
In the bigger picture, it may not mean much, but it’s instructive that the foul language often on display was mentioned only in the Washington Post’s account.
But then again, if the intent of reporters was to clean up the rally-–make it appear to be a wholesome, family gathering–-it wouldn’t help to detail some of what was uttered.
The article that runs in today’s New York Times offered two interesting insights in consecutive paragraphs.
First, “The march came at a difficult time for the abortion rights movement, after months of legislative setbacks.
The movement's leaders hoped to use the march to rouse voters who are sympathetic to their cause, to galvanize younger women and to build support among minorities.”
In other words, thanks to your faithfulness, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act are now law.
But it's important not to overlook that the other reason these laws passed is that they are mainstream proposals supported by a huge majority of Americans.
Put another way, the Movement, led by National Right to Life, has put forward an agenda of which both the American public and elected officials overwhelmingly approve.
One of the most important lesson pro-lifers will ever learn is that once a heretofore reluctant elected official decides to vote for a protective measure, he or she finds it much easier to do so the next time around.
The second insight in the Times article today came immediately afterward. “In fact, there was a changing-of-the-guard tone to much of Sunday's program.
Ms. [Gloria] Steinem, noting that she is now 70, declared proudly that by her estimate, ‘more than a third of the women in this march are women under 25.’
“Kate Michelman, soon leaving her post as president of Naral Pro-Abortion America, one of the sponsors of the march, took the stage with her granddaughter and declared, ‘It's your generation that must take the lead.’"
Indeed, the fate of millions of unborn children does rest in the hands of young people. This is as obvious as it is important.
But it is the pro-life Movement that is winning the fight for the hearts and minds of younger people. Public opinion polls tell us that, day-to-day conversations tell us that, the growth of campus pro-life organizations tell us that.
Pro-abortionists can trot out the usual Hollywood celebrities, but that doesn’t change what is, from their perspective, a grim truth.
The American people have turned a corner in a debate that extends back more than thirty years.
The can have a hundred marches, but as long as we continue to gently and lovingly make the case for life, it is only a matter of time before we carry the day for unborn children and their mothers.
“Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, noted that the last time abortion rights supporters rallied in Washington, the nation elected her husband to the presidency just six months later.