The Human Life Foundation's Defender of Life annual award
dinner this month was an eye opener. The award recipient was Rep.
Chris Smith of New Jersey, and in the brochure noting his
accomplishments I learned that the congressman is co-chairman of
the bipartisan pro-life caucus. Bipartisan? In amazement, I asked
him if there really are pro-life Democrats in Congress. "Oh
yes," he assured me, "about 30." He went on to
name one, but I'm not going to repeat the name because he and the
others probably get enough grief from other congressional
Democrats.
A senior editor for National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru, introduced
Mr. Smith. In his book, "The Party of Death" Mr.
Ponnuru makes no bones about which political party deserves that
description. I'm not sure whether it's wise to use such
hyperbolic language about the nation's majority political group,
and yet maybe strong words are overdue in describing the culture
that's being promoted today. Abortion on demand, embryonic
destruction, euthanasia, and animal rights now displace human
rights. It wasn't the GOP pulling the plug on the disabled Terry
Schiavo.
My sisters are Democrats, and one refuses to vote for any
Republican. They are also Catholics, and Catholics have
traditionally voted Democrat. I'm still amazed by how loyal
Catholics are to a political machine that champions causes
directly opposed to church teaching. Although I have never been a
registered Democrat, I've voted for and campaigned for that party
because it once fought for basic human rights. That is no longer
the case. Senator Miller, who formerly represented Georgia in the
upper chamber, had it exactly right when he wrote his book,
"A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative
Democrat." He frequently says that he did not leave the
Democratic Party. It left him.
The Human Life Foundation, based in Manhattan, publishes a review
of essays and reprints of articles exploring all aspects of
respecting life. A self-described Jewish atheist, Nat Hentoff,
was honored by the foundation a few years ago, and he declared
that respect for life is not a religious issue: It is a
fundamental human rights issue that has been clouded and
deliberately distorted for a left-wing political agenda. The real
horror of the Terry Schiavo case, Mr. Hentoff insists, is the
danger it unleashed to the rights of the disabled.
Soon after President Bush signed the ban on partial birth
abortion, the Staten Island Advance ran on the front page a
confession by a woman dubbed Rita who admitted to having this
procedure after learning she was giving birth to a child with
Down syndrome. Her real identity was kept anonymous and with good
reason: Her explanation that the decision to kill a Down syndrome
baby was the best thing for her family enraged many parents of
such children who regard their children as blessings.
One of the altar girls at Our Lady of Good Counsel church has
Down syndrome and she is also a Eucharistic minister, which means
she could distribute along with priest the sacred host to
communicants. Her relative youth meant that her mother had access
to prenatal testing that would have disclosed her syndrome, but
she either chose not to have the test or refused to abort her.
She also clearly adores her daughter.
The annual fund-raiser at Blessed Sacrament Church in Staten
Island is a performance of a famous Broadway play and under the
brilliant direction of Edward Callahan; amateur parishioners
perform like professional actors. In every show, extra parts are
given to children with this syndrome who carry out their acting
chores perfectly. Poor Rita doesn't understand what she's lost,
but she's certainly not the only one to be pitied. After Arthur
Miller's death, it was recently reported that he had a Down
syndrome child, Daniel, whom Miller committed to a Connecticut
institution and never acknowledged while he was alive.
What was emphasized throughout the evening and in Mr. Smith's
speech is that the elemental right to life supersedes all other
rights. George Mckenna wrote an article for Human Life Review
that delineates the Democrat / Catholic symbiosis and why the
abortion issue now makes that connection invalid. In his essay,
"Criss-Cross: Democrats, Republican, and Abortion," Mr.
Mckenna writes, "the Democratic Party and the Catholic
Church have always been on the same wave length as regards social
and economic rights, particularly the rights of the poor, weak,
and vulnerable members of society."
When Democrats decided in 1980 to ignore the rights of the most
vulnerable humans - those still in the womb - and endorsed a
license to abortion, the Reagan Democrat was born. If Catholics
ever wake up to which party is really on their wave length, a new
type of Democrat may emerge next year.