What We Know and Why That Matters.

As you read and make use of this edition of National Right to Life News, there will be only a few short weeks before our great nation will go to the polls to elect the next President of the United States. Voting is an enormous privilege, one for which hundreds of thousnads of men and women have died to protect.

Four years ago, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 89% of registered voters took a few minutes out of their schedules to vote. But note that many people didn't bother even to register: only 64% of those old enough to vote cast a ballot. Likewise in 2000 86% of those registered to vote (and only 60% of those eligible to vote) participated in an election so close that its final outcome was not determined for 35 days afterwards.

If polling data are to be believed, for much of the general public, the abortion issue will not rank highest in their thoughts on November 4. After all, it is one of "those" issues that make most Americans uncomfortable. They prefer not to think about it.

And yet we know that it is no exaggeration to say that Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin comprise a pro-life presidential ticket that has the Abortion Establishment up in arms. By contrast, for NARAL and Planned Parenthood, the duo of Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden constitute their "dream ticket."

Senator Obama and Senator McCain could not take more diametrically opposed positions on the question of extending protection to unborn children. In the case of Sen. Obama, as an Illinois state senator he also played a major role in killing legislation to protect born-alive survivors of abortionsand has spent four years trying to cover up his involvement.

We know that a President Obama would mean vetoes of any pro-life legislation that passes Congress, the appointment of solidly pro-abortion judges (he has already pledged to appoint only "pro-choice" justices to the Supreme Court), a constant din of pro-abortion rhetoric, and the loss of millions of innocent unborn lives. In a 2007 speech to the Planned Parenthood Action Council, Obama vowed to make his first priority as President passage of the "Freedom of Choice Act." FOCA is so radical it would extinguish virtually every state and federal law limiting abortion in any way and would re-legalize partial-birth abortion!

We know that Sen. John McCain is pro-life and that his administration would continue to be guided by that principle.