In the current issue of First Things, editor Joseph Bottum highlights some remarks by Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana and presidential candidate, who has made the news by keeping Indiana out of the oceans of the debt that have swamped other states.
But, Daniels says, all of us should put our disagreements aside for the time being and all get together to solve the economic crisis. He has been strongly criticized by family values groups and even rival Republican candidates like Mike Huckabee.
Will any true pro-lifer take a time-out on fighting abortion because someone thinks a truce on this and other social issues should be called?
Bottum says such a program would drive pro-lifers away from this kind of candidate. Besides, it can’t be done.
There will be Supreme Court issues on abortion, legislative issues like the Hyde Amendment denying tax money for abortion, the Mexico City Policy dealing with support for foreign abortions, new justices for the courts, and abortions on military bases. Besides, candidates who have tried to avoid the controversial issues like abortion have pleased nobody.
And, Bottum says, such a truce would kill the pro-life movement. If we take any time out at all in our mission of saving babies and trying to change the culture of death into a culture of life, we betray the babies, the abortion-bound women, our country, and most of all, God.
Bottum concludes with this powerful statement:
If the pro-life fight ever stops, even for a moment—if we ever accept a truce and let the status quo sit for a while undisturbed—we abandon the terrible path of providence that God has set for this country since 1973. We settle in, like Europe, and we surrender.
No, we cannot halt. We cannot falter. We cannot pause. We cannot agree to wait. No truce—not now, not ever.
We recommend Bottum’s article because we will be asked by even our own friends running for office to stop discussing and fighting to save the babies, and we can’t possibly do this.
To even request it puts a so-called pro-life candidate into the pro-abortion category. Such a candidate doesn’t have a clue.
