Election Results Show U.S. Turning Against Abortion
by Ray Kerrison reprinted from New York Post where It first appeared in November 1994
Lost in the right-wing euphoria flooding out of the November elections is a signal of the most profound social change spreading throughout the nation.
Believe it or not, the United states is rapidly, astonishingly and mercifully revolting against abortion. The election result is only one sign of the new climate taking hold, but its impact is blockbuster.
It is part of the biggest news story today: America is yearning to go back to basics.
A study of the election returns is stunning. Not one single pro-life incumbent Senator, member of the House or Governor of either party was defeated by a pro-abortion challenger. But pro-life challengers defeated nearly 30 hard-core pro-abortion incumbents. If these results had been reversed, they would have been Page One news across the country Instead, the incredible pro-life victories have been muted by a liberal media that refuses to accept them.
Perhaps the biggest single surprise of the electoral season was First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s flat, unequivocal condemnation of abortion. In an interview with "Newsweek" magazine, she said abortion was "wrong".
Radical feminists have not yet recovered from the shock. Hillary was the high priestess of the movement and her desertion on the eve of an election has left them speechless. We’re still waiting for Hillary’s gushiest media disciple, Anna Quindlen, to explain to New York "Times" readers Hillary’s defection.
Hillary has joined Kate Michelman, head of the National Abortion Rights Action League, who, in a rare moment of candour, told a Philadelphia "Inquirer" reporter last December, "We think abortion is a bad thing".
Kate’s slip of conscience triggered such a furore in the ranks that she was forced to deny having said it. Unfortunately for Kate, the reporter taped the conversation.
Resistance to abortion is rising everywhere. The shortage of doctors prepared to perform them is becoming an industry crisis. Research papers in numerous prestigious medical journals pointing to a link between breast cancer and abortion have alarmed many women.
One of the most potent factors in the defeat of the Clinton health-care Bill was its abortion provisions. The huge influx of pro-life Senators and representatives into the new Congress will now make it harder than ever for the Clintons.
As Doug Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, put it, "No matter what kind of health-care Bill President Clinton proposes, it will not pass if it does not explicitly exclude abortion".
At the UN Conference on Population and Development in Cairo last month, the Clinton administration s primary goal to enshrine abortion as a universal family planning tool was repudiated. Events of the past month do not portend the elimination of abortion. Far from it. But they strongly reject the social values promoted by President Clinton, Governor Cuomo, Edward Kennedy, the National Organization for Women, ACT UP and the New York "Times. Americans have weighed the harvest of 30 years of permissive social behavior - skyrocketing divorce, single parents, epidemics of AIDS and herpes, soaring illegitimacy, bloody school violence rampant drug addiction, hideous crime, condoms for kids - and found it wanting.
Reaction against the destruction of 1.5 million babies in the womb every year is an integral ingredient in the social rebellion now sweeping society.
The amazing thing is that one of the first shots in the revolt was fired here in New York City We just didn’t recognize it at the time.
It occurred when angry parents stormed the streets in protest against the "Rainbow" curriculum and the kiddie condom craze launched by then Schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez and then Mayor Dinkins. They blew Fernandez out of town and Dinkins out of office.
That was the forerunner of what happened across the whole nation three weeks ago, when tens of millions of Americans went to the polls and voted for the restoration of traditional values.
The media may ignore its massive pro-life content, but the message is clear: The abortion tide is turning. The nation, like Hillary Clinton, thinks it is wrong.