As part of our local right-to-life memorial, I was honored to speak to the crowd about this year's legislative agendas for the National Right to Life Committee and our own state affiliate, Ohio Right to Life. When I spoke about federal legislation, I told the crowd that the terms that they will hear the most in the media will be "obstruct", "obstructionism", and "obstructionist". Many chuckled, for they know that those words are becoming integral elements in the political lexicon for 2005.
Political activists raised in the pro-life movement do not expect that anti-life Democrats will, first, stop attacking pro-lifers like President Bush and members of Congress and, second, surrender their hatred of life. That the Democratic Party is the party of abortion is now well-known to the general population after the 2004 elections. What is becoming more evident to the general public in this new year, though, is that anti-life Democrats are so vehement that they would rather destroy the normal function of government with their strident obstructionism than argue their positions in Congress. Of course, there are some Republicans who are as anti-life and as obstructionist as the Democrats, but their political force is negligible. Besides, it's the Democratic Party which is vowing obstructionism this year, so this essay will focus on them.
Most three-issue pro-lifers (those who focus on abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia) can leave the matter of political issues like the privatization of Social Security and the war in Iraq to others. One can hope that obstructing the president's legislative initiatives will not be viewed as a proper strategy for legislative disposition of those issues. All pro-lifers should strongly object, however, to obstructing some rather important pieces of pro-life legislation and pro-life initiatives. After I discuss that legislation (and suggest a minor rhetorical tactic we can use), I will propose a major tactic to break the obstructionism that we will see this year.
What pro-life initiatives are anti-life Democrats obstructing? The National Right to Life Committee encourages pro-lifers to lobby their congresspersons and senators on two major bills. The first bill is The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, which would require an abortionist to inform the mother about the pain that would be inflicted on the unborn baby. This bill will educate the public like the partial-birth abortion law did: to sensitize born Americans so that they recognize that the unborn child is as human as they are.
One tactic to break anti-life obstructionism of this bill is to ask: who wants to admit that he or she desires to inflict pain on a defenseless human being? If anti-life Democrats object to this bill and obstruct its passage, then the Democratic Party will have another nickname added to it. Besides being the party of abortion, it will become the party for sadists.
The second bill, The Child Custody Protection Act, would make it a federal crime to take a minor across state lines for a secret abortion in violation of the parents' right to be notified. As suggested in the previous paragraph, breaking anti-life obstructionism of this bill can be as simple as asking: who wants to admit that he or she supports kidnapping children? If anti-life Democrats object to this bill and obstruct its passage, then the Democratic Party will have a third nickname added to it. The party of abortion and sadists now becomes the party for kidnappers.
I can only touch on anti-life Democratic opposition to a ban on human cloning. Perhaps the reason why anti-life Democrats want cloning is that, since they can't win over voters by means of logic, they'll have to make voters in their own anti-life image. Ridiculous, I know, but then who would have thought that a nation whose charter document of freedom contains an explicit reference to the first civil right to life would have nine-month legalized abortion?
Nor have I mentioned what everybody else knows is the reason behind anti-life Democratic opposition to Bush's judicial nominees. It truly is a scary world for anti-life Democrats. What they see as the destruction of a judicial decision which guaranteed some category of "right", we see as the overturning of a judicial decision which destroyed equal rights in the first place and whose overturning will be a step towards the restoration of equal rights. Scary? What's frightening about respecting the rights of the mother, the father, and the unborn child? What's frightening about supporting judges who believe in mothers, fathers, and unborn children?
Given the pro-life legislation briefly summarized above that anti-life Democrats will obstruct this year, I propose this solution, especially intended for those of us who are neither major donors to campaigns nor significant forces in the political world. Last year, when I realized that special interest groups were pouring millions into the defeat of President Bush, I decided to donate a mere twenty-five dollars every month to my state right-to-life political action committee (Ohio Right to Life PAC) and the same amount to the National Right to Life PAC. I wanted my PACS to receive what Soros and a few other anti-life billionaires would not give them: cash -- electronic cash -- but cash nonetheless. I wanted my donations to work for pro-life candidates of both parties -- particularly urgent since pro-life Democrats are not financially supported by their own leaders.
It was easy to do. A form here and a form there, and my favorite Discover card would automatically send the money to the PACs. Margaret, who handles such credit card donations at National Right to Life, was happy to hear from me, and I enjoyed speaking with her. Her email address is muglow@nrlc.org. Lorraine, who handles such matters at Ohio Right to Life, was similarly happy to speak with me. Her email address is lorraine@ohiolife.org. You might want to email them and discover how happy you can make them. Other state pro-life PACs can be located on the web or through nrlc.org.
Two terms used in a preceding paragraph must be clarified here. First, a donation of "a mere" twenty-five dollars each month may seem insignificant against Soros' millions, but then, how many millions of pro-lifers are there in the country? If only one million pro-lifers donated twenty-five dollars a month for a year, then a right-to-life PAC would have $300,000,000.
Margaret would love to hear from 999,999 pro-lifers.
Second, these are "my" PACS because I feel pride in supporting our pro-life groups, as all of us should. Granted, sometimes we disagree with policies or strategies or tactics or personalities. We should refuse to let anti-lifers succeed because we don't like how some pro-lifers talk or walk or eat or whatever. I have a religious duty to accept my fellow pro-lifers as my brothers and sisters in Christ. However, this duty is more often a privilege. I am proud of the people who work in Columbus, Ohio and Washington, DC, laboring for the movement with their skills, their talents, their time, and their lives.
Of course, we know that there are other forces that help win elections. One strategy, prayer, is utterly meaningless to the vast majority of Democratic Party members whose religious devotion is either irregular or nonexistent. We pro-lifers have always had prayer. Now, it is time for us to develop what is perhaps the only strategy that anti-life Democratic senators and congress people understand. It's a shame that our PACs don't have massive amounts of money like anti-lifers. Imagine a world where television ads in an election year promote instead of attack pro-life candidates every few minutes (as happened last year during every commercial break).
Three hundred million dollars is a good start to obstruct the obstructionism that we will see this year.