Cards, letters, e-mails, phone calls, waves, thumbs-up and “V” signs even in Church, remind us that the right to free speech is still alive and well in America. Happy as we are with the Scheidler v. NOW eight-to-one Supreme Court victory, it is still only a mild foretaste of the joy decent Americans will experience on the day when abortion is removed from the land and takes its rightful place in the homicide statutes.
Abortion Will End One Day
Skeptics say that day will never come, but it will come just as surely as the day came when slavery was outlawed. Now we have to go after FACE, all bubble zones and laws that impede access to women going into mills to have their babies killed and their lives ruined. But overturning use of RICO against pro-life activists is a start, and is probably even more powerful than we realize.
Pro-life attorneys think this Supreme Court victory will open new action against other unconstitutional restrictions on pro-life activities. The court must recognize that it is unconstitutional to have special laws against people who disagree with abortion, laws created to accommodate baby killers and punish baby savers. As long as these laws stand the First Amendment is still in jeopardy.
Meanwhile, we are determined to use this victory to help reactivate the whole pro-life movement. I stress activism because that is what brings about change. No social movement has ever succeeded in this country without protesters taking to the streets. And activism causes the baby killers the most grief. Who is it the abortionists sue, lie about and try to get rid of? That tells us something.
Pro-Life Law Passes in Virginia
There’s good news out of West Virginia. A new law there requires abortionists to give women all the facts about abortion’s risks and alternatives, twenty-four hours before a scheduled abortion. Such a requirement reduces abortions by as much as 16%.
Chicken Bob
What is pitiful, though, is the way Governor Bob Wise handled the bill. He let it become law without signing it. This brave heart remained neutral and politically safe. Six hours before the deadline, Chicken Bob sent word that he would neither sign nor veto. But that’s better than last year when Gov. Wise vetoed the bill just as the legislature left town, so they couldn’t override his veto.
This year pro-life lawmakers hurried the bill though, leaving them ample time to override a veto if Bob did that again. The Governor said he didn’t see any need for the new law, but acknowledged strong majority support by both parties in both houses. The West Virginia Secretary of State said if he were Governor he would have signed the bill in five minutes.
Pro-lifers have worked for fifteen years to get the Woman’s Right to Know Act into law. Karen Cross, West Virginia pro-life leader, said women are now going to have full information. As for Chicken Bob, he’s just another candidate for a chapter in “Profiles in Courage.”
Tune in to The Walsh Forum
A talk show you Chicagoans should tune in is Richard Walsh’s The Walsh Forum hosted by Dick Walsh and Ron Roscoe. It airs Sunday afternoon on WYLL, AM 1150 at 4:30 p.m. Tim Murphy and I are on this Sunday discussing the Court Ruling and Fay’s use of perjured witnesses during the 1998 trial. Tune in.
Congratulations Pour In by E-mail
We close this Weekend Action News with excerpts from some e-mails we’ve received :
Wonderful news, your getting out of RICO-land . . .
Welcome back to your home . . .
Praise God for his guidance . . .
God is in control . . .It’s encouraging for us all . . .
Congratulations from your friends in Ireland . . .
A stunning victory . . .
Restores some faith in our legal system . . .
I’ll join your Te Deum . . .
The ruling gives me much happiness . . .
I’m sure Jesus sustained you . . .
Alleluia . . .
We have prayed four Rosaries every day for you . . .
I would like to be an active member of the Pro-Life Action League. I have just moved here from the United Kingdom . . .
Where’s the party?
. . . And many more. People are excited. And there will be a party, early in June. You are all invited to “Bring America Back to Life.”