BILL CLINTON IS LEAVING OFFICE AND THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT IS STRONGER THAN EVER.(Brief Article)

The time is up for Bill Clinton; and that is very good. He was the nation's first pro-abortion president--for eight very long years; and that was very bad. But the anti-life "legacy" that he and the pro-abortion lobby achieved could have been far worse.

With the inauguration of Bill Clinton on January 20, 1993, the pro-abortionists' most extravagant dreams seemed to have been realized. They couldn't ask for much more: The pro-abortion leadership of the Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress, and in the White House sat a president publicly committed to a woman's "right to choose." And he meant it. Unlike so many other "principles" that Bill Clinton would conveniently forget later on, making and keeping abortion on demand legal in any shape or form was very important to him. In his second term, he proved his fierce support for abortion rights when he single-handedly prevented the ban on partial-birth abortions from becoming the law of the land--twice.

In January 1993, twenty years after the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, the pro-abortionists had every reason to believe that abortion on demand would finally become "legal" in the true sense. Instead of the Court illegitimately "legislating from the bench," Congress would pass and Bill Clinton would sign the "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA). A clean legislative act, a proper law covering the whole country. There could be no more complaints about the Supreme Court having unconstitutionally invented a right to privacy encompassing abortion on demand. Congress would speak on the matter as the definitive voice of the "pro-choice" majority. And that would be the end of it.

But there was more. There would also be the "co-president's" great project: Hillary Clinton's new federal health care plan that would mandate coverage of abortion on demand as routine medical care, no questions asked. And with medical care costing so much money and all that, the plan had another truly progressive touch: Medical care would have to be rationed. That this would inevitably lead to nonvoluntary euthanasia was denied in that brazen, Clintonian fashion that we all have become accustomed to.

The scheme was breathtaking--and utterly chilling. The "Freedom of Choice Act" would give the culture of death a sound legal footing, and Hillary Clinton's health care plan would speed along the cultural transformation by making killing through abortion and denial of care a routine aspect of mainstream medicine.

The quick realization of that scheme seemed inevitable. The pro-abortion Speaker of the House, Tom Foley (D-Wa.), had announced at the beginning of the Clinton nightmare that the FOCA would quickly become law. And Congress had listened with abject deference as Hillary Clinton testified about her extreme health care plan. As they say inside the Beltway, it was a "done deal."

That is what the pro-life movement faced at the beginning of the Clinton presidency. It was a scary time. On January 22, 1973, a young woman ...