TOKENISM AND BLINDNESS
by Thomas A. Droleskey
January 16, 2002
The twenty-ninth annual March for Life will take place in
Washington, D.C., on January 22, 2002. Between 100,000 and 200,000
pro-life Americans will gather to participate in what has become
one of this country's saddest annual pilgrimages, which starts
from the Ellipse and makes its way up to Capitol Hill. Thousands
will have come the night before for a Mass held on the vigil of
the March at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate
Conception. Many of those thousands will spend at least part of
the eight or nine hours after the conclusion of the Mass in solemn
prayer before the exposed Blessed Sacrament in the Crypt Church of
the Basilica. This army of prayer will be joined by thousands more
by the break of the first rays of light on January 22 as busloads
of marchers make their way to the nation's capital city. The fact
that so many thousands of Americans make so many sacrifices to
participate in the March for Life (as well as the Mass and all
night vigil) should be a source of great encouragement at a time
when abortion is as firmly entrenched in our national life as it
ever has been.
Sadly, though, many of these good people (some of whom make the
trip to Washington on buses from the Midwest and Southeast) are so
desperate for any kind of good news that they will cheer wildly
when President George Walker Bush gives them his annual pro-life
crumb to keep them on his administration's reservation, which is
composed of so many out-and-out pro-aborts. Last year, for
example, the newly sworn-in President authorized Rep. Christopher
Smith (R-N.J.) to read a letter stating that it was his goal to
"welcome every child in life and to protect every child in law," a
remarkably meaningless statement in light of the simple fact that
George W. Bush does not believe that every child should be
protected by law. He believes that certain babies may be executed
under cover of law in the cases of rape, incest, or alleged
threats to the life of a mother. However, the crowd assembled on
the Ellipse cheered wildly as Smith read those meaningless words.
The crowd cheered also when Smith said that the president would
restore the Ronald Reagan-era "Mexico City" policy of banning U.S.
tax dollars for the funding of "family planning" programs and
agencies that perform abortions or counsel women where to kill
their babies. As Howard Phillips demonstrated a few months later,
the actual Bush policy is so porous as to be void of any real
meaning. In point of fact, you see, employees of such "family
planning" agencies are free to counsel women on "their own time"
(during a lunch break, after hours) without jeopardizing their
agency's funding. And what is left entirely unexamined by the
average pro-lifer, so desperate to find political heroes, is the
nasty little fact that this government continues to fund chemical
abortions by means of those international family-planning programs
and by means of Title X funding in our own country. Little
embryonic human beings are put to death by means of chemical
abortifacients just as surely as they are put to death by the
suction machine or saline solution or by the use of scalpels or
scissors. George W. Bush is not pro-life. His administration is
not a champion of the babies whatsoever.
Nevertheless, George W. Bush is as clever as his predecessor,
former President William Jefferson Blyth Clinton. He knows that he
can provide meaningless tokens to various segments of his
political base while doing nothing of any real substance to
threaten his attempt to broaden his electoral appeal beyond that
base. This January 22, for example, the president will announce
that he has been convinced that the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA) is no longer eligible to receive the $34 million allotted
to it in the Foreign Aid Bill he signed into law on January 11,
2002. Citing the evidence provided by pro-life organizations --
and thousands of phone calls made to the White House by committed
pro-lifers to convince him to use his discretionary power to issue
an Executive Order to deny funds to agencies that engage in or
support coercive "family planning" activities, the president will
indeed use his discretionary power to deny UNFPA the monies
allotted to it in the Foreign Aid Bill. The thousands gathered on
the Ellipse will cheer wildly as some surrogate, probably Rep.
Christopher Smith, announces the president's decision.
While the decision will be a good thing as far as it goes, it is
nothing other than a carefully planned exercise in political
tokenism, especially in light of the fact that this country
continues to fund those chemical abortions with complete and total
impunity in this "pro-life" administration. Contraception is
simply not an issue that most "establishment" pro-life officials
and self-anointed leaders want to deal with. Indeed, the National
Right to Life Committee, which is actually a pro-abortion
organization in that it supports the execution of the innocent
unborn in cases where it is alleged that a mother's life is at
risk, takes no position on contraception whatsoever, even though
Pope John Paul II pleaded personally with Dr. John Wilkie, the
long-time head of the National Right to Life Committee, to oppose
this grave moral evil (which is responsible for undermining the
integrity of the family, helping to feminize poverty, and
promoting promiscuity among the young, and whose cultural
acceptance led inevitably to the acceptance of surgical abortion).
While I agree that it is very important for pro-lifers to call the
White House, as many solid pro-life organizations urged us to do
in the last few days, anyone with a modicum of common sense knows
that a truly pro-life president would not need to be "pressured"
in order to make the right decision. He would simply do the right
thing without any phone calls having to be made at all. Among
other things, this is an attempt prior to the March for Life to
show pro-lifers how much "clout" they have with their "friend" in
the White House. Again, the decision to defund UNFPA will be a
good thing if it happens. However, this nation is still funding
chemical abortions here and around the world in "voluntary"
family-planning programs. And a truly pro-life President would
issue an Executive Order barring any American individual or
company from contributing to UNFPA or UNICEF or Planned Parenthood
(and its allied agencies). If presidents can issue Executive
Orders to prevent Americans from contributing to organizations
with suspected ties to terrorist organizations, they can issue
Executive Orders to ban contributions to organizations that make
war upon the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity of marital
relations and upon the innocent unborn, both chemically and
surgically.
No, the thousands gathered on the Ellipse on January 22 will
convince themselves that they have a true pro-life champion in the
White House. Most of them will either ignore the president's
support for some abortions or seek to justify his intellectual
shallowness and philosophical inconsistency. Most of them will not
say a word of criticism about his horrendous decision to permit
limited federal funding on the stem-cell lines derived from
embryonic human beings who were killed prior to 9:00 p.m. on
August 9, 2001, specifically for the cultivation of their stem
cells, a decision that was based on the president's blithe
acceptance of the evil of in vitro fertilization as a necessary
means to help infertile couples who desire to have children of
their own. They will try not to think too hard about the fact that
the "pro-life" administration contains numerous pro-aborts within
its ranks and that the president himself has lent his political
support to pro-aborts, including the pro-abortion Republican
candidate Michael Bloomberg to succeed the pro-abortion Republican
Catholic mayor of the City of New York last year, Rudolph William
Giuliani.
Oh, no, most of the thousands gathered on the Ellipse and who will
participate in the March for Life will not want to think too
deeply (or at all) about the fact that the emerging Republican
strategy for dealing with the life issue is to simply say
gratuitously that one is pro-life while at the same time saying
that Roe v. Wade is settled law and that there is nothing we can
do to unsettle it. And many of these good people, most of whom are
indeed on the front lines of the abortion battle by praying our
Lady's Most Holy Rosary regularly in front of the killing centers,
will say nothing about the fact that the one thing Bush said he
was going to do -- sign a bill that conditionally restricted the
killing of babies by means of partial birth abortions -- is
nowhere on the political horizon. The "thousands of babies" we
were told by Bush apologists who were going to be "saved" by a
Bush administration remain on the chopping block each and every
single day.
The tokenism of the likes of President George W. Bush takes
advantage of the political blindness caused by abortion's
institutionalization in every fabric of our national life. This
political blindness is one of the many consequences of the heresy
of Americanism, the belief that the specific cultural milieu of
the United States necessitated a response from Catholics that
accepted religious indifferentism and naturalism as the
foundations of public policy while eschewing any effort to
subordinate our national life to the Social Kingship of Jesus
Christ as exercised by his true Church. This heresy was condemned
in no uncertain terms by the great Pope Leo XIII on, of all dates,
January 22, 1899, just seventy-four years before Roe v. Wade. The
more Catholics convince themselves that it is somehow an exercise
in preconciliar triumphalism to proclaim the truths of the true
Faith as the only basis for personal sanctity and hence all social
order, the more they will permit themselves to look the other way
as those who support one abject evil after another rise to the
forefront in America politics.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom among pro-lifers, things are
not better now than they would have been in the horror of an Al
Gore administration. Things are actually worse. Why? Precisely
because good people are blinding themselves to programs and
policies they would never be silent about in a Gore
administration. The current administration is getting a free pass
from good people who do not realize that most of what a Gore
administration would have done is actually being done by the Bush
administration.
This is what has happened with former New York City Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani. Even though he did, as I have pointed out in recent
commentaries, spend himself tirelessly to demonstrate his support
for the survivors of those killed in the September 11 terrorist
attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center, Giuliani
himself supports state-sponsored terrorism upon the innocent
unborn in our own country, making us more and more vulnerable to
attacks from foreigners who have no more regard for own lives than
we have for our own innocent unborn. How scandalous, therefore, it
was for Edward Cardinal Egan, the Archbishop of New York, to tell
Giuliani at the Christmas Midnight Mass that TIME Magazine, which
had named Giuliani "Person of the Year" for the year 2001, "got it
right." No man who supports the destruction of the innocent unborn
is anyone but Satan's man of the year. For a man who supports the
slaughter of the innocent unborn under cover of law has no
credibility when he talks about the value of the innocent lives
killed in terrorist attacks. None whatsoever. Cardinal Egan thus
continues to feed into the notion that it is simply a matter of
acceptable political expediency for Catholics in public life to
support abortion in order to enable them to do the sort of work
they would not be able to do if they did not hold the offices to
which they have been elected. This is irresponsible and leads the
average Catholic into thinking that support for the destruction of
the innocent unborn does not disqualify one from holding any
office of public trust, whether elected or appointed.
Giuliani's star power is such, however, that it blinded many
Catholic New Yorkers into voting for Michael Bloomberg to succeed
him as mayor in the November 6, 2001, elections. Bloomberg had
pronounced himself to be as thoroughly pro-abortion as Giuliani.
Alas, Giuliani's hold on the electorate was such that many
Catholics of Irish and Italian and Polish descent, grateful to the
mayor for the support he showed to the families of the
firefighters and police officers and rescue workers killed in the
terrorist attacks, just followed his lead without giving the
matter of abortion any thought whatsoever. After all, these voters
had supported Giuliani himself in 1989 (when he lost narrowly to
City Clerk David N. Dinkins) and 1993 and 1997 despite his
unapologetic pro-abortion stance. Why should they abandon their
political hero and cast a vote on the Right to Life Party line for
mayor of New York when could show their solidarity with and
gratitude to Giuliani by voting for the man he endorsed, Michael
Bloomberg? What difference did it make that Bloomberg is alleged
to have said, "Kill it! Kill it!," to a pregnant employee of his
Bloomberg media and financial empire whose services he did not
want to lose to maternity leave? No, Bloomy was Rudy's boy. That
was good enough for most of the ethnic Catholics who remain as
residents of the five boroughs of the City of New York.
Well, the new mayor is proving his pro-abortion bona fides very
early on in his new administration. He is advancing a plan to
require all residents (recent graduates of medical colleges)
serving in the city's 11 publicly run hospitals who specialize in
obstetrics and gynecology to receive training in how to kill
babies as a mandatory part of their residency program. Oh, he
would provide a "conscience clause" for those who would want to
opt out of such a program. However, it should come as no surprise
that a man who supports abortion so militantly as Bloomberg would
seek to curry favor with his political base by proposing a program
that was actually drafted by the National Abortion and
Reproductive Rights Action League (NARRAL) itself.
Even the New York State Right to Life Committee, an affiliate of
the National Right to Life Committee, found this too much to
ignore. Although the New York State Right to Life Committee has
given the pro-abortion Republican Catholic governor of New York,
George Pataki, a free pass by refusing to endorse Right to Life
Party gubernatorial candidates Robert Walsh in 1994 and Michael
Reynolds in 1998, it is pretty hard for its leaders to ignore
Bloomberg's blatant effort to continue the process of politicizing
the training of doctors for purposes of making them killers of
innocent human lives. However, it is doubtful that even
Bloomberg's outrageous decision is enough for the New York State
Right to Life Committee to abandon its reflexive support of pro-
abortion Republicans while actually opposing candidates of
conscience who run on the New York State Right to Life Party line.
Indeed, if Bloomberg had taken the lead of the pro-abortion Rick
Lazio and said he was opposed conditionally to partial-birth
abortions, that would have been good enough for the New York State
Right to Life Committee to endorse his candidacy. For, sadly, all
it takes for a candidate to receive the endorsement of the
National Right to Life Committee's political action committee (or
the endorsement of its state affiliates' political action
committees) is to proclaim himself conditionally opposed only to a
certain form of child killing in the later stages of pregnancy.
That is all it takes to be considered "pro-life" by the National
Right to Life Committee and its state affiliates. Thus, the
dumbing down of what it means to be pro-life makes it easier for
out-and-out pro-aborts to trade upon the reputation of other pro-
aborts whose support for abortion is ignored by prelates (such as
Cardinal Egan) or rationalized by "pragmatic" organizations (such
as the National Right to Life Committee).
Some pro-lifers, who must be living in a fantasy world worthy of
Al Gore, said that Bloomberg had "shown his true colors." What are
these people using for brains? Bloomberg said he was pro-abortion.
Isn't that enough? Have we reached such a nadir in our cultural
life that we refuse to be outraged when an aspirant for elected
office says matter-of-factly that he supports child-killing under
cover of law? Does such an aspirant, once elected, have to do
something to stir our outrage? When are we going to accept the
simple fact that anyone who supports even a single abortion under
cover of law is not pro-life, and those who support Roe v. Wade
unconditionally are the sworn enemies of objective justice founded
in the Splendor of Truth Incarnate?
Bloomberg said quite unapologetically during the course of the
campaign that he was a "straight male" who liked to womanize. As a
man who is an unrepentant violator of the Sixth and Ninth
Commandments, Bloomberg has a vested interest in promoting
abortion. His own personal pleasure depends upon it. However, once
one accepts the public scandal of the married Catholic mayor of
New York consorting with a mistress in public, what's the big deal
about accepting an admitted Jewish playboy who believes that a
violation of personal purity is not a matter for the confessional
and thus a call to amend one's life by attempting to live
according to the precepts of the Divine positive law and the
natural law? The unwillingness of Catholics to think and to act as
Catholics is astounding.
As if the proceeding was not enough, State of New York Attorney
General Elliot Spitzer, attempting to re-do the work of one of his
nefarious predecessors, Robert Abrams, is busily issuing subpoenas
to those who run and staff Crisis Pregnancy Centers. This is
really not new. Abrams, who was New York State Attorney General
between 1975 and 1992, waged war on Crisis Pregnancy Centers in
1987 and 1988 after many of them first started operations. Spitzer
is attempting to prove himself to be as militantly pro-abortion as
Abrams, who came very close to defeating Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato
for reelection in 1992. Spitzer is positioning himself to run for
higher office, perhaps governor of the State of New York in 2006,
especially if the Democratic nominee for that office this year
loses to the expected Republican nominee, incumbent Gov. George
Pataki. However, it should be pointed out that Spitzer got elected
in 1998 because his predecessor, Attorney General Dennis Vacco,
refused the Right to Life Party line and refused to take a clear
position against abortion. Vacco took the advice of D'Amato, who
counseled any number of aspiring Republicans in New York to avoid
the issue of abortion or to say that they were "pro-choice," and
ran away from the most important moral issue of the day. Spitzer
would be in private law practice today if Vacco had had the
courage to take a clear stand against baby killing.
Again, the political blindness of those who fear the evil more
than they love the good, more than they believe in the power of
God's grace to effect the conversion of hearts and minds and
souls, is resulting in another needless attack upon the brave and
selfless volunteers who seek to direct women into giving birth
rather than dealing death to the fruit of their own wombs. How
very tragic that the state in which most of the deaths caused as a
result of the September 11 terrorist attacks is busily attacking
innocent lives (and those who defend them) quite terroristically.
None of the proper lessons from September 11 have been learned.
None at all. And no amount of bombs dropped in Afghanistan is
going to make us more secure as a nation as long as we continue to
protect and further institutionalize legalized baby killing in our
own midst.
Tokenism and blindness know only one antidote: a defense of the
primacy of the Divine positive law and the natural law as those
laws are protected and explicated by the Church the God-Man
founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. It will not be until
Catholics take the truths of their Faith seriously and actually
believe that it is possible to Catholicize this land and to
establish the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ and the Queenship of
our dear Blessed Mother that will stand a chance, humanly
speaking, of replacing this culture of death and cynicism with a
culture of eternal life.
Our Lady of Life, pray for us to see clearly through the eyes of
the true Faith and to act courageously in defense of the standard
of your Divine Son's Holy Cross as the only foundation of personal
sanctity and hence all social order.
Copyright 2002 Griffin Internet Syndicate
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Thomas Droleskey, speaker and lecturer, is a
professor of political science, the author of CHRIST IN
THE VOTING BOOTH and THERE IS NO CURE FOR THIS
CONDITION (www.hopeofstmonica.com), and editor of
the CHRIST OR CHAOS newsletter.
This column is distributed and archived by Griffin
Internet Syndicate, http://www.griffnews.com. All rights
reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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