Definite Progress

Let me give you several reasons why I'm optimistic about the ultimate end of abortion. First of all, the number of abortions in the US peaked at 1.6 million only a few years ago. It has dropped to 1.3 million. This means that, for every 6 who were killed, only 5 are now being killed.

The RU 486 abortion pill, introduced after so many years and with so much fanfare, has proven to be an almost total flop. At most, 1% or 2% of abortions in the US are done with it. It's turned out to be too expensive, takes too many visits, has less privacy and as recent reports have shown, more dangerous.

Another reason – very few hospitals now do abortions. Thirty years ago, 50% of all US hospitals did; now it's down to 6%. In addition, there are fewer and fewer abortionists available to commit abortion nowadays. There are fewer in training who want to learn how, which is a great triumph for us because the reality of blood and gore has helped to maintain the image of a shoddy, back alley abortionist, even though it's legal.

Today we seldom hear abortion supporters deny that this is truly human life. They still argue about the first few days, but mostly they admit that this is a child who is being killed, merely leaning on their one remaining major argument – a woman's right to choose to kill.

Public opinion has changed. In a 1995 Gallop poll, 56% were "pro-choice", 33% pro-life. But five years later, in October of 2000, the 56% had dropped to 47% "pro-choice". And the 33% who were pro-life had jumped to 45%. Now it's almost a dead heat. That's a substantial move in our direction.

Another development – young people, those who have never known anything in their life except abortion as legal, are coming up out of the ashes, so to speak, and are now the age group most likely to favor limits on abortion.

The abortion industry has responded by spending the one thing they have, and that is lots of money. They have begun expensive advertising and expensive public relations campaigns. I think we can read this as a sign that they're getting very worried, even desperate.

All of this pro-life progress, friends, has been occurring in the face of a hostile, highly committed and highly motivated secular media, which has given us no quarter at any point in this game. And yet, in spite of all of this, we clearly are slowly winning. Every one of you who has had a part to play in this bears some of the credit for this.

So, color me optimistic. I don't think I'll live to see it, but I'm increasingly convinced that my children will live to see the day when almost all babies are once again protected.

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Recently, a friend sent me the following. I thought you might enjoy it as much as I did. It's called, "The Meaning of Being a Mother."

"We're sitting at lunch when my daughter casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of starting a family. 'We're taking a survey,' she says, half-joking. 'Do you think I should have a baby?' 'It will change your life,' I say carefully, keeping my tone neutral. 'I know,' she says, 'no more sleeping in on weekends; no more spontaneous vacations.'

"I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that, no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub; that an urgent call of 'Mom!' will cause her to drop a souffle or her best crystal without a moment's hesitation. I feel that I should warn her that no matter how many years she's invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood.

"She might arrange for childcare, but one day she'll be going to an important business meeting and she'll think of her baby's sweet smell, and she'll have to use every ounce of her discipline to keep from running home just to make sure her baby is all right. Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she'll never feel the same about herself – that her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child; that she would give it up in a moment to save her offspring. But she'll also begin to hope for more years, not to accomplish her own dreams but to watch her children accomplish theirs.

"I want her to know that a Caesarian scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honor. My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she thinks. I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to powder the baby and who never hesitates to play with his child. I think she should know that she'll fall in love with him again, but for reasons she now would find very unromantic.

"I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout history who have tried to stop war and prejudice and drunk driving. And I hope she understands why I can think rationally about most issues, but become temporarily insane when I discuss the threat of war to my children's future.

"I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike. I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or cat for the first time. I want her to taste the joy that is so real it actually hurts.

"My daughter's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes. I finally say, 'You'll never regret it.' And then I reach across the table, squeeze my daughter's hand and offer a silent prayer for her–and for me–and for all of the mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings – this blessed gift from God – that of being a mother." Author unknown.

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Victory at UN Child Summit
By J. C. Willke, MD

The final document does not promote abortion, and many countries put in excellent reservations at the end, affirming the right to life from conception and stating that the family has the primary responsibility for its children. I am so grateful that pro-life President George W. Bush is in charge of the US. He is the best hope for obtaining a culture of life in the world.
-Peter Smith
Society for the Protection of Unborn Children &The International Right to Life Federation

During the 1990s, those of us who were active on the international scene would have asked what you were smoking had you predicted the above quote would someday accurately describe a UN meeting.

The story during the 90s was a dreary repetition of succeeding UN meetings. Anti-life, anti-family officials had taken control of most of the United Nations delegations. They were radically pro-abortion feminists, for abortion-on-demand from childhood, without parents' knowledge or consent, in every nation in the world. They saw motherhood as demeaning and marriage as enslavement of women. Teenagers should be supplied with any and all types of contraceptives, for they were to be given total sexual freedom. All of these radical policies were embraced and aggressively promoted by Clinton appointees, Canada, and the nations of the European Union, who led the assault on time honored, traditional values.

During the 90s, there were a series of major international meetings called by the UN. The first, onpopulation, was in Rio, the second, a major Women's Summit in Cairo. This was followed by Beijing, then Istanbul, Copenhagen, Rome; and in the last few years the action has centered at the UN itself in New York. The pattern at every one of these meetings was the same. The radical forces above had previously set the agenda. The halls swarmed with NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) which had been credentialed and permitted to lobby at these meetings. Prominent among these was the International Planned Parenthood, International Women's Health Coalition, Non-Catholic "Catholics for Free Choice," Center for Reproductive Law and Policy and others. Also arrayed on the radical side were major UN agencies. The most prominent agency was the UN Population Fund but also UNESCO, UNICEF and others.

Holding the fort was a disparate coalition of some unlikely allies. This began to come together at the Cairo conference when, in a totally unprecedented and spectacular move, the Holy See sat down with Muslim nations and worked together with them to try to halt the radical pro-abortion onslaught. A rapid influx into the coalition of pro-life lobbyists from around the world soon produced an informal but very functional and highly effective lobbying counterpart to the radicals. These were almost entirely volunteers, who came at their own expense or were funded privately. They quickly learned how to effectively stall and sometimes block the radical initiatives being proposed. Since the UN reports out of such meetings required consensus, it only took a small number of nations to effectively slow down and sometimes prevent radical statements from emerging. These volunteers were true heroes, on more than one meeting, staying up all night and still lobbying the following morning and afternoon in order to hold together loose coalitions of pro-life nations. The 1990s, overall, were a dreary time. The powerbrokers, the US, Canada and European Union were relentless in pursuit of their radical goals. On a few occasions the US Clinton delegates did pull back when our folks were able to produce a sharp letter from the US House (Chris Smith) or the US Senate (Jessie Helms), which served to somewhat temper the aggressiveness of the Clinton delegates. However, Canada would simply step in to continue the attack.

A Momentous Change
Then, President George W. Bush was elected. Since almost all of the US delegation is appointed and does not need Senate confirmation, Mr. Bush was able to fairly quickly replace the Clinton people. An exception was the US Ambassador to the UN. Mr. John D. Negroponte was promptly nominated but his confirmation hearing languished until a few days after the September 11th tragedy when the new war brushed aside partisan political concerns and resulted in his prompt confirmation. Pro-life UN lobbyists were pleased and surprised, as one by one the new Bush appointees arrived. Almost without exception they were pro-life, pro-family and determined to maintain the values directed by President Bush. This resulted in a dramatic, 180-degree change in the policies that the US pursued at the United Nations, to the amazement and total consternation of the radical policy initiatives undertaken during the 90s by the Clinton administration, Canada and the European Union.

And now came the Child Summit. The World Summit for Children was to be held in the fall of 2001. In the several months before that, preliminary negotiations had become bogged down. Then in a June 2001 meeting, a Canadian delegate inadvertently admitted publicly that the term "reproductive health services" in fact did include abortion. It was unheard of that their treasured phrase would have been so openly and accurately defined by one of their own. At the time it led to pandemonium in the negotiating room and everything came to a halt. Negotiations later proceeded, but were abruptly stopped by the September 11th tragedy, which postponed everything for the next six months.

Negotiations on the Child Summit document resumed in April 2002. Again there was a deadlock over abortion-related terms. The standoff was the same as it had been in the past, except this time, the leader of the pro-life forces was the United States. Against tremendous pressure from its former allies, the US delegates fought to exclude language from the outcome document that recognized the right of adolescents to abortion, abortion-on-demand, etc. The US delegates fought determinedly to keep the phrase "reproductive health" out of the document. They also fought against previous wording that would have been destructive of the traditional family, and they sought to delete the phrase "various forms of the family." While deleting the negatives, the US tried to introduce a totally different way to address reproductive issues. Allied with the US were the previous co-combatants of a number of other nations, plus Muslim countries, including Sudan, Iran, Pakistan and the Holy See, which has no formal vote but nevertheless has influence at the UN. As the time grew short and the deadline of May 10th loomed, frustration grew among the radical delegates while, at the same time, the pro-life, pro-family delegates dug in their heels and held on. Their goal was to negotiate, in good faith, a document that truly protected children. They wanted to and did succeed in largely providing strong provisions against child pornography and child prostitution, as well as protecting children from armed conflicts, all of which had been rejected by the other countries. Finally, of all things, the United States inserted into the document, arguments for sexual abstinence. In the end, the tables had been completely turned, and a major UN meeting had not only held the line on traditional values but had overturned a significant number of previously accepted radical statements from other meetings.

To the absolute delight of our International Right to Life representatives, after adjournment it was soon verified that UN officials now had doubts about future such meetings for fear that more damage would be done to their radical agenda, this being true at least as long as George W. Bush is President of the US. UN population officials have decided against holding a 10-year review to build on the depopulation moves made at the 1994 Cairo world conference.

When Clinton was in office, UN bureaucrats couldn't get enough of these meetings to advance their radical agendas. Now, with Bush's team at the UN, they are losing their taste for a fight. Major UN conferences are usually followed by five-and 10-year review meetings, e.g., Beijing+5 and Rio+10, etc. Now Population Institute President Werner Fornos has called for pushing the review back to 2005. "It is too late to plan for a major international event in 2004."

Others, however, admitted the real reason – it was the new pro-life/pro-family atmosphere created by the USA. The IPPF Director General-Designate said that "the political environment within which global sexual and reproductive health and rights policy is framed is becoming more hostile, with renewed attempts to remove reference to abortion from international consensus documents, global health goals, safe motherhood and other sexual and reproductive health rights-based agendas." One UN observer noted that 2005 would come after the next US election, when Bush might be out of the White House.

In conclusion, let's repeat Peter Smith's quote: I'm so grateful that President George W. Bush is in charge of the US. He's the best hope for obtaining a culture of life in the world. Our trust, however, should not be in princes but in the Lord God of the universe, who holds the nations in the palm of His hand.

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From The Executive Director
Bradley Mattes

 

Life Experiences Make
Positive Results

Being pro-life sometimes requires a person to do a self-assessment. What motivates our love for life and desire to protect it? It goes beyond our religious upbringing.

We all have experiences throughout our lives that mold us into the people we are today. I believe that every experience, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant, happened for a reason. God who counts the hairs on our head leaves nothing to chance. Granted, some of us give God fewer hairs to count than others, but he knows the total just the same.

If you were to look back on your life, I'm sure that you could note many examples of life experiences that helped make you the passionate pro-life person you are. Allow me, if you will, to share some of what I've found in my own life.

I grew up on a street where we knew all of our neighbors. Several of us attended the same church. It was a very traumatic experience, as a pre-teen, when one of the widow's seven children across the street was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. We rallied around the family and helped out wherever we could. I remember pushing Susan's wheelchair down the sidewalk on a sunny Montana afternoon, with her saying, "Let's go faster!" and, after we were out of view of her mother, we did. I learned about chemotherapy, hospitals and the mourning process. I'll never forget the day she died in a hospital bed in their living room, and watching from my house as the ambulance attendants took away her frail, lifeless form under a white sheet.

Who would have known that, a few years later in my late teens, we would relive this nightmare. Cheryl, Susan's older sister, was also diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. The initial surgery took away her beautiful, waist-length brown hair. Unlike Susan, Cheryl's speech was affected, so we learned patience in communication. I remember one trip to the mall with Cheryl and her sister, Diane. We lost one of the front wheels of the wheelchair and nearly dumped the poor girl out on her face. We all laughed until we cried.

I'll not forget holding the "sick pan" in the hospital, and sometimes Cheryl's head, as her stomach wrenched with the side effect of chemotherapy, nor the mother's sobbing for her dead children.

I can't begin to tell you how these experiences affected the way I look at life. I think it prepared me, in part, for my own diagnosis with cancer later in life.

Many formulating life experiences are positive ones. As the father of four sons, one of my most precious memories was the 5 AM feedings shortly after they were born. The only sound in the house was the ticking of the clock and the sup, sup, sup of milk being sucked out of the bottle. The newborn child would look up into his father's face with an expression of curious wonder, as if to say, "So, is this my dad?" It was a wonderful bonding time. I even fondly remember changing diapers that would curl your hair. It seemed to fill a need to have someone so precious depend upon me for everything, and it saddened me to think of how many parents unwittingly threw away an opportunity for such joy with abortion.

I became wiser when I went into one of the poorest areas of South Africa and looked into the faces of children orphaned by AIDS. I was surprised to see joy in their eyes instead of despair. Those who had nothing but a rickety wooden shack with dirt floors exuded a joy in life and living.

Yes, as we look back on our lives, we see how some of life's seemingly unimportant experiences were molding us. We see that God really did know what He was doing when He dropped us into the frying pan once in a while. Sometimes He even seemed to whack us over the head with the skillet. But all of these things were carefully done in love to make us who we are, still a work in progress.

So, what is expected of us after we have become older and wiser? It would be a crying shame if we hid it under a bushel basket. Let's take our newfound knowledge and compassion and share it with others in need, whether that be a counselor to a young, pregnant girl or a volunteer in the local hospice. Your desire for justice for innocent human life should extend into the voting booth, conversations with family, friends and coworkers, as well as the opinion page of your local newspaper. Pro-life organizations can use you to stuff envelopes, staff a fair booth or participate in peaceful protests against abortion. If God has richly blessed you with the resources to financially assist those on this life-or-death battlefield, please do so.

Whatever your status in life, God has instilled in you life experiences and motivation to help those too defenseless to help themselves. I hope you will answer the call and declare, "Here am I. Send me!"

 

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STATES EXCHANGE
A Gentle Light on the Subject

Are you familiar with the age-old custom of luminaria? If so, you know of its quiet beauty and pleasing, soft gentle light. Often done at Christmastime, it has become a cherished tradition that, without fail, elicits a positive response.

Chapter affiliates of Right to Life Committee of New Mexico are using this charming visual medium to shed light on the abortion issue. This year, for their January 22nd observance, Gallup Right to Life set up 1,000 luminaria in front of the Gallup Cultural Center. Each paper bag bore the names of five children, representing the 5,000 abortions performed in New Mexico during 2001.

That same evening, another 1,000 luminaria were displayed by Albuquerque Right to Life at the Mt. Carmel Cemetery. It was part of a memorial service held at sundown, which included a speaker and music.

The public’s reaction has been encouraging. Dauneen Dolce, Executive Director of Right to Life Committee of New mexico said, “People feel this is a positive way to talk about a negative subject. When we get the public’s attention, we are able to educate them. The number of abortions in New Mexico really opened some eyes.”

This positive display makes a soft, gentle statement, compatible with the image of babies and their mothers. An appealing message will reflect well on your cause and organization, while changing the hearts and minds of those who see it. If you would like more information on this pro-life luminaria, contact Right to Life Committee of New Mexico, 2800 San Mateo NE, Suite 107, Albuquerque, NM 87110. Phone 505.881.4563