This piece concludes a short series of reflections: anniversaries.
The prolife movement in 1994, thirty years ago, hit a low point in public opinion polls. Reporters played up the murder of one abortionist and ignored the killing of one and a half million unborn children in the US that year. And yet, in 1994, at just the time when the prolife movement needed a break, it got one.
Until then ultrasound was something mainly for doctors to use. It was hard to discern what exactly what going on in the murky pictures early ultrasound produced. Then 3D ultrasound emerged. It was a game-changer. Before, women could look at pictures or plastic models and see a baby. Now they could watch on a screen my baby or our baby. That made a huge difference.
In 1994 also I started meeting with George W. Bush and talking with him about compassionate conservatism. It became his campaign slogan as governor and then as a presidential candidate. In 1999 I asked for one thing in return. Large crisis pregnancy centers were buying ultrasound machines but small ones could not afford them.
My proposal: the federal government as part of health spending could pay for ultrasound machines that every pregnancy resource center could therefore have. Bush during the 2000 campaign planned to give a speech committing to that. When that did not happen and I later asked why, campaign people told me Pat Buchanan, a fiery pro-life advocate, announced his candidacy for the presidency the day before the speech was to be given. Bush did not want to seem to be responding to that.
One postponement led to another, and he never to my knowledge made that pledge, not in 2000 or 2004. Nevertheless, Bush emphasized “Promoting A Culture of Life.” Bush kicked off his 2004 campaign by saying,” In the debate about the rights of the unborn, we are asked to broaden the circle of our moral concern.” That year he became the only Republican presidential candidate in the past 35 years to win a majority of the popular vote—three million more than John Kerry.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Staecker