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Reagan Championed Pro-life Causes Jon E. Dougherty, NewsMax.comOn the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court's controversial 1973 decision legalizing abortion, President Ronald Reagan wrote a treatise celebrating life and challenging the nation to examine its soul regarding the procedure. It was a book that, had his advisers gotten their way, would never have been written. William P. Clark, a national security adviser and secretary of the Interior Department under Reagan, told CNSNews.com the 40th president insisted that the publication of "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation," a tome that began as an essay, was essential. "He said, 'No, it's the truth, and we're going to go with it," said Clark, who wrote the book's foreword. The book was a first in many ways. For one, it was the first book ever published by a sitting president. For another, it was a bold step politically. At the time of its publication, Reagan and his vice president, George H.W. Bush, were struggling to rebuild the nation's slumping economy and set to launch a re-election effort. Polls showed about half the nation backed abortion.
That didn't matter to Reagan, who, regardless of his political aspirations, was regarded by many who knew him to be a man of principle. Clark said Reagan came to realize abortion was morally wrong while serving as California's governor.
'Sanctity of Life'
"Every legislator, every doctor, and every citizen needs to recognize that the real issue is whether to affirm and protect the sanctity of all human life, or to embrace a social ethic where some human lives are valued and others are not," Reagan wrote in his book. "As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the 'quality of life' ethic."
Reagan's awakening came after he signed a bill as governor liberalizing California's abortion laws. That, of course, led to a surge in abortions. "When he realized that it helped open the gates to abortion in California, he was very upset," Clark told CNSNews.com. "He said it was the biggest mistake he made in government. He tried to square it away as time went on." Since that legislation, Reagan made his commitment to the "integrity of the human person," as he wrote in his book. Other pro-life organizations have praised Reagan for his opposition to abortion. "It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our dear friend, President Ronald Wilson Reagan. There is little question that Ronald Reagan will be remembered as one of the greatest presidents in our country's history," said Judie Brown, president of American Life League, the nation's largest pro-life grassroots educational organization. "We are particularly grateful for his steadfast effort to restore the dignity inherent to each and every human being's life through his Personhood Proclamations in 1984 and 1988," Brown said. "It is our sincere hope that as President Reagan enjoys his rest in that eternal 'shining city' he often spoke of, that God will allow his courage and leadership to serve as an inspiration to a new generation of leaders who are willing to take up the cause that is at the heart of liberty and prosperity: the undeniable personhood and right to life of every human being, born and pre-born." Joe Scheidler, national director of Pro-Life Action League, said he had hoped Reagan could have done more for the pro-life cause, but he was able to sign a number of bills curbing abortion and, at the end of his second term, expressed dismay that Roe vs. Wade was still the law of the land. Record of Accomplishment Still, Reagan did many things to support pro-life causes. Among them:
Abuse of Life Legacy Reagan himself once said, "My administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have meaning." In a piece for Human Life Review, he wrote, "Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution ... No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the court's result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right." Yet now, after his death, many are using his battle with Alzheimer's to argue against President Bush's executive order banning the creation of stem cells from human embryos, including his widow, Nancy Reagan. Opponents of such research say it's an immoral abuse of life because the human embryos are destroyed. Some observers note that pro-abortion forces are using the issue to attack the president. "Serious people have serious disagreements about the balancing of the hope stem cell research holds for curing Alzheimer's versus the misuse of human life, but to leading media figures it presents just another way to bash Bush," says Brent Baker of Media Research Center. Steven Ertelt, news editor for LifeNews.com, wrote Tuesday that Washington Post television reviewer Tom Shales complained in a piece Sunday about how "Bush has refused to reconsider his opposition" to making taxpayers fund additional research on human embryos and ridiculed how "Bush thinks he hears Jesus giving him orders." Ertelt speculates that Reagan, as president, would have adopted a policy similar to Bush's. Baker concludes the major media are piling on. "Leading journalists are exploiting Ronald Reagan's death to push for wider embryonic stem cell research as they emphasize how President George W. Bush is out of step with Nancy Reagan on the issue," he wrote. Stand on Principles At the end of the day, however, it was Reagan's staunch opposition to abortion that inspired millions of Americans to join him, pro-life advocates say. "Reagan did not think in terms of risks. This is what was so awesome about him as a man. He did what was right," Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, told CNSNews.com. "That was Ronald Reagan. If he believed it, he said it. And if he said it, he acted on it." The Rev. Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, said that Reagan made a tremendous contribution to the pro-life cause because of his beliefs. "He had a saying on a paperweight on his desk that said, 'It's amazing how much we can get done when we don't care who gets the credit,'" Pavone said. "And that was his spirit when dealing with [abortion]. If criticism comes, if political prices have to be paid, the number one thing he needed to do was bear witness to this moral truth."
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