Bush Betrayed Pro-Lifers Again, But Did They Even Notice?

By Chuck Baldwin

March 4, 2003

Once again, President G. W. Bush has betrayed the pro-life cause. According to Knox News, "In a major policy shift, President Bush has decided to allow social service agencies in Africa and the Caribbean to receive U.S. funds under his $15 billion emergency AIDS relief plan even if they promote family planning and provide abortions, White House officials said."

The Washington Times added, "The new plan grows out of the 'Mexico City' policy-first declared by President Reagan at a 1984 U.N. conference in that city-which bars U.S. taxpayer money from going to groups that fund or promote abortion overseas."

Bush's initial decision to continue Reagan's policy to not provide funds for overseas abortion providers was about the only substantive pro-life decision so far in his administration. Now that he has reversed the policy, the sum total of Bush's commitment to the life issue is his carefully crafted, but meaningless, rhetoric!

However, what is more disheartening is the fact that most "pro- lifers" won't even notice. Because Bush talks pro-life, very few people bother to examine his record on the subject. We are living in a day and age in which the sum total of a politicians' accountability is reduced to thirty second sound bites on television news. President Bush is a living example of the old adage, "The man who has the reputation of rising early can sleep 'till noon."

Obviously, a few pro-lifers are paying attention. The Times quotes Connie Mackay from the Family Research Council as saying, "This is not acceptable to us." However, for the most part, pro- lifers seem oblivious to Bush's most recent betrayal.

Those who believe that President Bush is going to do anything to reverse the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion on demand are living in a dream world! They are also dreaming if they believe the Republican Party as a whole has any intention of making abortion illegal.

Until pro-lifers come to understand that at the national level neither the Republican nor the Democratic party represents them and begin mustering their forces behind genuine pro-life candidates from outside the establishment parties, there will be no end to legal abortions. Then again, that requires that people actually start paying more attention to what politicians do than what they say, and that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon, either.

© Chuck Baldwin