My friend Tom Ciesielka shared something with me recently about former President Ronald Reagan that, since I proudly worked for his election in 1976 and 1980 and later served as one of his executive branch appointees, immediately caught my eye.
That something was his recent column on the recollections by American Life League President Judie Brown entitled “First Presidents’ Day Post-Dobbs Prompts Reflections Presidential Pro-Life Positions.” For those who don’t remember, President’s Day — likely the least celebrated holiday on the calendar — is Feb. 20.
Brown and her husband Paul were personal friends with Reagan, and the approach of the holiday brought back memories for her about the fervency of the 40th president’s commitment to life.
That Reagan was pro-life is certainly no secret, though I suspect the depth of his commitment has been somewhat obscured by the fact that as California’s governor, he signed a 1968 law that liberalized abortion.
Tom quoted Brown as having recalled:
President Reagan rued the day that, when as governor, he signed the 1968 abortion law in California, and he said so many times, not necessarily for publicity but because he had genuinely changed his mind. Having spoken with him about this, I believe he was sincere.
What should be much more widely appreciated is Reagan’s 1983 essay, “Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation,” which appeared in The Catholic Lawyer. Brown points out that this Reagan essay is “the only presidential pro-life work on the record.”
Reagan, in his characteristically thoughtful and eloquently concise way, expressed the core issue in the abortion debate in a way that focused it at its most critical point:
What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives – the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother? I have also said that anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt …
The real question today is not when human life begins, but, what is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law – the same right we have.
My enduring interest in American history and politics began one night in 1964 when, as a 14-year-old, I just happened to be in the living room with my family watching TV when Reagan came on the screen and delivered The Speech — “A Time For Choosing.” So I am a bit biased when it comes to RR.
What struck me about Brown’s memories, however, were her comments on another, earlier, chief executive, who was also pro-life, though not as publicly or intently as Reagan. That was President John F. Kennedy, the nation’s 35th president, elected in November 1960, and tragically murdered on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.
Tom points out that “JFK Conservative” author Ira Stoll quoted Kennedy as saying, “Now, on the question of limiting population: As you know, the Japanese have been doing it very vigorously, through abortion, which I think would be repugnant to all Americans.”
Abortion had not yet become the white-hot issue in 1963 that led to the Roe v. Wade decision a decade later, so JFK is simply not commonly thought of as a pro-life president, just as he is similarly not well-remembered as a tax-cutter.
Even so, Tom reports, Brown recognized one contribution to the pro-life cause by JFK that was tremendously important, the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Byron “Whizzer” White, the former professional football star from Colorado.
“White’s words support the 2022 decision of the nation’s high court in overturning Roe, which he labeled an ‘improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review.’ He wrote about the great moral wrong that was being imposed on the United States through the Roe decision because, ‘The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life . . . that she carries.’ Though Justice White had to grapple with the evil of abortion, Brown points out that Kennedy did not have to contend with the politics of it.”
Kennedy, Tom quotes Brown as saying, “was a scoundrel,” but “President Kennedy chose to be quietly pro-life.”
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