Among the Pro--Lifers.(PAul Greenberg)(Column)

Editor's note. This column appeared just after Mr. Greenberg spoke at the 2006 NRLC Convention.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.The last time I was asked to talk at a Right to Life convention, I got to deliver the keynote on the opening day. Ho boy. Having grown up listening to various spellbinders on the lawn of the Caddo Parish courthouse in Shreveport, La., including the late great Uncle Earl K. Long, I always wanted to deliver a real stemwinder of a keynote to a responsive crowd.

And, believe me, these pro-lifers respond. But that was seven years ago in Milwaukee, and this year in Nashville, they've put me at the tail end of the conventionon the program for the final dinner. It's simpler being a keynoter at the beginning of the festivities, when everybody's still fresh.

But to speak on the last night of a convention, and offer some kind of summation of the past year, and a glimpse of what the future holds, that's a challenge. So I did what I do at work when that blank screen starts staring me down like a cobra. I try to conjure up the spirit of some writer I admire, and imagine how heor shewould approach such an assignment. Somebody like Nat Hentoff, the renowned jazz critic and liberal columnist for the Village Voice.

Nat Hentoff must have scandalized the Village Voice's usual readers when, early on, he came out on the pro-life side of this issue in his casual, unpretentious wayas if unaware that he was defying all the household gods of his particular slice of the political spectrum.

Maybe it was his devotion to civil rights that led Mr. Hentoff to defend the rights of the unborn. Or maybe he was just following his fascination with life and the creative process, which is probably what made him an aficionado of American jazz. He must be the only Jewish, atheist, jazz-loving, pro-life newspaper columnist in the countryto all of which I can only say: God bless him!

Mr. Hentoff not only saw what was at stake in each life-and-death case he covered, and began to seek out, but he could see where it was all leading. Sure enough, abortion on demand now is reflected on the other end of life's spectrum by an enthusiasm for euthanasia.