Working on a project whose deadline was rapidly approaching, my wife and I were still able to listen to hours and hours of television coverage commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-Day. Early on Saturday, we heard the sad news that former President Ronald Reagan's health had taken a turn for the worse.
Within a couple of hours, we learned that "the Gipper" was near death. When Fox News broke in on one of its very moving D-Day profiles, I knew instantly that a great American had died.
In the two days since the man who brought the Soviet Union to its knees passed away, there have been tributes from around the world, including from many who opposed everything President Reagan stood for. In spite of immense policy differences, they admired a man who stood on principle, who brought this nation back from the brink of "malaise" and self-doubt, and who disarmed his fiercest critics with charm, wit, and genuine compassion.
Mr. Reagan's second term ended in 1988. As we all know, he wrestled valiantly with Alzheimer's for the last ten years. Not the least of his many contributions is that because Reagan was a beloved former President who was very candid about his condition, people are finally able to forthrightly discuss Alzheimer's, which had replaced cancer as the disease no one talked about.
Having left office 16 years ago, it's not surprising that Mr. Reagan's many contributions to the cause of life are not well known to many pro-lifers. But they were immense and must not be forgotten.
Mr. Reagan was our first unashamedly pro-life President. Those fresh to our Movement may be completely unaware of an extended 1983 essay later turned into a book that he wrote while President: "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation."
When he composed the book, it was the first ever written by a sitting President. Mr. Reagan took a lot of heat. But--like a true pro-lifer would--he wore the criticism as a badge of honor.
The book was subsequently reissued by New Regency Publishing, complete with an introduction by NRLC President Wanda Franz, Ph.D., and forewords by the Honorable William P. Clark and Brian Johnston, NRLC western regional director.
(You can purchase one or more copies by going to www.californiaprolife.org/reagan/reagan.htm)
In her introduction, Dr. Franz reminds us, "The Reagan Legacy included a wide range of pro-life actions--actions that defied the pro-abortion culture and often had to be passed over the objections of a hostile leadership in Congress." Mr. Johnston observes in his foreword that President Reagan was a protector of the fundamental rights common to a civilized society, adding that Reagan's assertion of "the preeminence of the right to life will, I believe, eventually gain him history's enduring recognition as a great statesman."
The Honorable William Clark served as then-Governor Reagan's chief of staff and later as a justice of the California Supreme Court. Under President Reagan, Judge Clark served as Deputy Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, and Secretary of the Interior. In other words, he knew Mr. Reagan, a very private man, very well.
Judge Clark writes in his foreword, "[M]any people in both political parties have attempted to walk away from the predominant human rights issue of [President Reagan's] agenda, as they did from the similar issue of slavery a century and a half ago. Some contend that the life issue, like slavery, has been settled by the Court, or, acknowledging that abortion is an evil, have rationalized that it is a necessary evil. But evil it is, and the President felt the overriding obligation of his office was to cure this terrible wrong."
President Reagan's genius was an uncanny capacity for cutting through superficialities to get to the core. Mr. Reagan demonstrated that the abortion fight is not over when life begins--that was old hat even then; everyone understood that human life begins at conception--but what value we place on that vulnerable life.
President Reagan understood fully that in the final analysis we either accept or ascribe. That is, we either accept that our equality before the law is an endowment to all of us from our Creator, or we hold that we can ascribe worth/value/protection of the law to whomever we please based on some arbitrary and ever-shifting criteria.
Another way of saying this is that President Reagan believed fervently in the equality of life ethic while pro-abortionists subscribe to the quality of life ethic. President Reagan bravely and tenaciously fought infanticide, which reared its ugly head in a public way with "Baby Doe." In that tragic 1982 case, a newborn child was starved to death because the little one was born with Down Syndrome.
In my 24 years in the pro-life Movement, sitting helplessly by as that little child died a ghastly death was the most wrenching experience I've ever gone through. The President sprang to action and an all-out war was fought over whether facilities receiving federal dollars could discriminate against babies born with disabilities.
President Reagan understood what was really at issue: "The basic issue is whether to value and protect the lives of the handicapped, whether to recognize the sanctity of human life. This is the same basic issue that underlies the question of abortion."
One final thought that is very, very important. I am indebted to Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard who wrote about this last November.
After it was announced that President Reagan had died, Tom Brokaw of NBC declared that when he was governor of California, Reagan signed a permissive abortion law. All of Reagan's instincts told him otherwise, but he was persuaded (in Barnes's words) that "the measure would have little impact. Instead, it prompted a surge in abortions."
According to Barnes, "Within a year after signing the abortion bill, Reagan told political writer Lou Cannon that he'd never have done so if he had been more experienced in office. It was 'the only time as governor or president that Reagan acknowledged a mistake on major legislation,'" as Cannon wrote in one of his books. Barnes adds, "By 1980, Reagan was campaigning for president in favor of banning abortion in all but rare cases."
This is significant for two reasons. First, like countless others, Mr. Reagan was duped about abortion. Once he saw his mistake, he worked to rectify his tragic error. His turnaround and what it accomplished is a great lesson for our Movement.
Second, President Reagan's pro-life stance was immensely important. As Barnes pointed out in the Weekly Standard, he was not only President but "undisputed leader of America's conservatives." Reagan "defined conservatism."
Why was that important? In the early years, there was no "full-throated" conservative opposition to abortion. Initially, Barnes writes, conservatives were mostly upset by Roe v. Wade's goofy legal reasoning. Only later when Roe was unpacked and they discovered that it meant abortion on demand did the Conservative Movement make common cause with the Catholic Church and assorted Evangelical leaders.
But even in 1976, the Republican Party's convention platform "had a lukewarm plank on abortion that praised foes of Roe v. Wade," Barnes wrote. Four years later--when Reagan was running against incumbent pro-abortion President Jimmy Carter--the Republican platform plank was staunchly pro-life.
This was because of Ronald Reagan.
Although he had been out of the public eye for a decade, Mr. Reagan's death stung me--and hundreds of millions of others--far more than perhaps many of us had anticipated.
But even this lengthy tribute would be incomplete if we do not elaborate on one phase of President's contribution which has never been given the attention it deserves which I touched on above: opposing infanticide. I'll shall do this another time.
Working on a project whose deadline was rapidly approaching, my wife and I were still able to listen to hours and hours of television coverage commemorating the 60th anniversary of D-Day. Early on Saturday, we heard the sad news that former President Ronald Reagan's health had taken a turn for the worse.