The Radical Change in the Conscience of America| National Catholic Register

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COMMENTARY: Revisiting Ronald Reagan’s 1983 essay ‘Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation.’

In the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter in a landslide victory, amassing 489 electoral votes to become America’s 40th president. Four years later, he was re-elected, defeating Walter Mondale, carrying 525 electoral votes. Reagan captured every state except Minnesota, Mondale’s home state.

In the decade of the ’80s, Reagan was truly America’s president. It might be said that he personified the conscience of the country he was chosen to lead. Three years into his first term, he wrote Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation , in which he stated his firm commitment to the sanctity of life. That included those human beings residing in their mothers’ wombs.

In 2024, Kamala Harris ran for president stating forcefully and univocally that a national abortion law was first and foremost on her agenda. She accorded it top priority over economic and foreign policy concerns. Her running mate Tim Walz shared her view on abortion and argued for a national abortion right, stripping all states of their right to decide the abortion issue in the voting booth. When he was president, Barack Obama was a forceful proponent of abortion while President Joe Biden promoted abortion as if it were the most important thing in the world. He called the perfectly legitimate overturning of Roe v. Wade, “outrageous.”

In the 40-some years between Reagan and Harris, has the conscience of America undergone such a proportionate change in its attitude toward the sanctity of life? It may be of some interest to revisit Reagan’s essay and assess how far apart one president and a presidential candidate are over a span of 40 years on the issue of the sanctity of life. Culture is dynamic, constantly shifting in its attitudes and convictions. The change concerning the attitude toward the sanctity of life can serve as a barometer indicating where the nation is headed.

Time magazine noted, “An essay by a recent sitting President is rare.” But is even more rare for a president to make a strong pronouncement on a moral issue. Reagan was concerned that his essay might be judged as pontificating on a single issue. With this possible criticism in mind, he explained, “Abortion concerns not only the unborn child, it concerns every one of us.” And indeed it does, being intimately involved with marriage, the family, the medical and law professions, education, society in general, as well as posterity. Abortion bears upon the future.

It was appropriate that the president should release his statement on the 10th anniversary of Roe v. Wade . It was an auspicious time for Americans “to pause and reflect.” The infamous 1973 decision was not voted for by the American people nor was it enacted by their legislators. At that time not a single state permitted unrestricted abortion.

The Roe v. Wade decision did not reflect the conscience of the nation. “Make no mistake,” Reagan added, “abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the constitution.” The 1973 ruling was, in the biting phrase of Justice Byron White, “an act of raw judicial power.”

In the field of medicine, the unborn child is regarded as a patient. This is a fact that should not be ignored.

In one remarkable case, an unborn child underwent brain surgery six times during the months before his birth. “Who is the patient ,” Reagan asks, “if not that tiny unborn human being who can feel pain when he or she is approached by doctors who come to kill rather than to cure?”

The abortion mentality presents a slippery slope that slides into infanticide. In the case of Baby Doe, which was brought to national attention, a child was allowed to die even though a routine surgical procedure would have saved his life because he had Down syndrome. A doctor, testifying during court procedures, stated that Baby Doe would have a “nonexistent” possibility for “a minimally adequate quality of life.”

“In other words,” Reagan writes, “retardation was the equivalent of a crime deserving the death penalty.” The judge permitted Baby Doe to starve to death and the Indiana Supreme Court approved the decision.

President Reagan went into action. He directed the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services to protect newborns. After the Baby Doe incident, all hospitals receiving federal funds would be required to post notices clearly stating that failure to feed handicapped babies is prohibited by federal law.

Reagan cited a former president who had an unflagging respect for the Declaration of Independence that spoke of all men being created equal and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” including life, and liberty. Abraham Lincoln praised the framers of that noble document stating that “In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on.”

Lincoln wisely understood that if rights were denied to one group (Blacks) they could very well be denied to another group (the unborn). Therefore, as the Declaration states, the God-endowed right to life should extend to everyone, healthy or handicapped, born or unborn.

President Reagan concludes his essay with an impassioned commitment to honoring the right to life of all human beings:

“My administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important than affirming the transcendent right to life without which no other rights have any meaning.”

In what state do we find the conscience of America at this moment in history?

It is a state of unrest oscillating between a Reagan/Lincoln model and one concocted by Biden and Harris. May God bless and protect the former model as the United States moves into an uncertain future.

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The Radical Change in the Conscience of America| National Catholic Register

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