I have encountered them in Boston, Washington, Cleveland, San Francisco, and they are, overall, a formidable lot: alert, savvy, doggedly loyal, with the imagination to look ahead and see the dangers lurking beyond the bend in the road. They are, in short, the readers of this magazine. And they seemed to have become quite attuned … Read more
A wise maxim teaches, with a sly turn, that “anything worth doing is worth doing . . . badly.” That maxim was borne out, all too amply — and all too sadly — by Gov. Robert Casey, in his late presidential campaign, which was celebrated, staffed, funded, buoyant — and short. I reviewed in this … Read more
As we went to press, Governor Casey announced the sudden end of the candidacy he had only recently declared. The following piece, written in the interval, may stand as an account of the perils foregone by that announcement — but also of the real possibilities, and the political advantages, that were dissipated by the way … Read more
The mind of the establishment media was reflected, as ever, by Mr. Peter Jennings of ABC News on the night that the White House was moved to fire the Surgeon General, over her remarks on sex for the single person: “Joycelyn Elders,” he reported, “has finally rubbed President Clinton the wrong way.” But character is … Read more
The scenes arranged around the abortion clinic in Brookline might have been staged by the old Monty Python troup in Britain. To the raw event of the shootings there was now added the hand of artifice: the attempt to shape the meaning of the event by staging scenes, and choreography, outside the clinic. There were … Read more
The Republican sweep came on the tenth anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s landslide re-election, when the Gipper carried 49 states. After the election, my friends at the National Review began their next issue with this lead: “Heh, heh, heh.” Pro-lifers would be amply justified in permitting themselves the same, full savoring of these latest results. For … Read more
I come to you from one of those places that is in America, but not quite of it; and by that I mean, of course, an academic enclave, a college town. In my own case, the People’s Republic of Amherst, Massachusetts. This is a town that flies the UN flag, and it refuses to accord … Read more
It was said of Woody Allen’s neighborhood near Coney Island that Himmler could be elected to Congress from that district if he ran as a Democrat. In this electoral season, pro-lifers have faced a scaled-down version of this problem, as they have been compelled to incorporate, in their judgments, the strategic place of the political … Read more
[Ed. note: This letter responds to criticism of the statement on homosexuality published by the Ramsey Colloquium of which the author was a signatory. Deene Clark is the Protestant advisor to the students of Amherst College.] As you were sending on your piece denouncing the Ramsey Colloquium, you wrote to me, in a separate letter, … Read more
Headline: Supreme Court Strikes Down Bans on Anti-Abortion Demonstrators. Subheads: Restraints Said to “Sweep More Broadly Than Necessary.” High Court Leaves Only One, Narrow Restriction in Florida Case. These were not the headlines you were likely to have read on July 1 if you read the Washington Post or New York Times, or almost any … Read more
It caused, in Washington, what Henry James would have called a “minor tremor of the public tail,” but in the camp of the pro-life movement it set off explosions throughout the landscape: Two of my own friends, George Weigel and William Kristol — both ardent defenders of the pro-life cause — sought to offer some … Read more
I have been putting out the call for suggestions and counsel on the strategy of the Modest First Step, and from all parts of the country the calls and letters have come. One interesting call, bearing news as well as advice, came from an old friend in the pro-life movement, Richard Stith from Indiana. Richard … Read more
Richard Doerflinger converted to Catholicism when he was a student at the University of Chicago, and from there he moved almost at once, with his high seriousness and unsinkable wit, to become a Catholic civil servant: For many years he has been a mainstay in the Office of Pro-Life Activities of the National Conference of … Read more
I saw Jack Willke in the offices of the National Right to Life in July 1989, on the day that the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. Willke had been, for many years, the president of National Right to Life, shuttling between Washington and his medical practice in Cincinnati. … Read more
Almost 20 years ago, the Bishops’ Committee for a Human Life Amendment was a whirl of activity, and in the middle of that whirl, in the Washington office, one could find on any day a boyish figure with a cardigan sweater, treading softly through the office in slippers. That was the estimable Mark Gallagher. His … Read more
I suggested last month that the pro-life movement ought to invite prospective candidates for office to ponder the strategy of the Modest First Step: It was one thing for candidates to commit themselves to a grand constitutional Human Life Amendment that they know has no chance of passing — and then remain silent on the … Read more
It is hard to recall now the euphoria felt in the pro-life movement nearly five years ago, in July 1989, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. For it appeared that the Court had taken the first step in the overruling of Roe v. Wade. Chief Justice Rehnquist … Read more
“If we could first know where we are,” said Lincoln, “and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.” When he spoke those words, Lincoln was convinced that the “tendency” of the country was being formed by a concert of politicians and judges, to remove every … Read more
The scene might have arisen in a comic novel: professors of classics and political philosophy crossing swords in a court of law, arguing over whether the Greek word tolmema means merely an act of “daring” and “enterprise,” or whether it refers to an act of “audacity,” of shamelessness, of deep immorality. But this is exactly … Read more
Aristotle taught us that no action taken in ignorance was a truly free, or voluntary, action. It seems all the more curious, then, that the party that claims, as its leading principle, the “freedom of choice” on abortion, should set itself so firmly against supplying to pregnant women the most rudimentary information about the surgeries … Read more