Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey spoke last year to the Fifty Anniversary convention of the Christian Coalition. What follows is an edited, abridged version of his remarks. The pro-life Democratic governor opened his address by quoting Thomas Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence: "[T]hat all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
January 1995 – It’s a good bet that if Jefferson, the first Democrat, were among us today, he would find himself the subject of editorials scolding him for being so “narrow” – so hopelessly “dogmatic.” For although much in our founding documents leaves room for quarrel, these words do not. They were written not to open a debate, but to close one. They say what they say: that rights come not from the state, but from the hand of God, and, therefore cannot be taken away by man or the state. When they say “all” are created and all are equal – they mean all.
Much of our history, of course, has been a working out of these first principles.
Surveying our national politics today, a gnawing question keeps coming up. What has happened to that resolve, that sense of shared purpose, those noble struggles?
Just when we have prevailed in the “long twilight struggle,” we find ourselves enduring a “darkness at noon,” beset by increasingly bitter cultural quarrels.
What we thought the hallowed ground of American life, to be nourished and defended, some of our fellow citizens would quarantine like some deadly virus.
Theirs is a strange view of life that sees liberty in big-screen pornography, and tyranny in a small-town creche or menorah.
A child praying in school is an occasion for distrust and rapid-fire lawsuits. A child conferred his or her first condom at school inspires high-minded editorials and almost sacramental solemnity.
A church or synagogue is viewed as a backward place, even a threat to the social good, while an abortion clinic is seen as a mark of enlightenment and place of freedom.
I cannot claim to bring any special prophetic gifts to these cultural problems. But I do know this. A nation is no different from a person in his need for fidelity to his calling. When he turns from his vocation, it brings grief. No matter what comforts and distractions life offers, deep down he will always be uneasy. He will know he is not being true to himself.
And America was born with a calling. It was the noblest destiny to which any society can be called. As George Weigel has so eloquently put it, ours has been the story of inclusion, of extending rights and opportunities, of raising up the powerless, of widening the circle of the commonly protected, of acknowledging a sense of duty toward God and man. This was our common faith, our civil religion; wars were fought in its name. We have always had our political quarrels. But these debates mostly centered on how to achieve those noble ends, not on whether they were worthy ends. They were a dialogue with destiny, not a betrayal of it.
Let others, who seem to have forgotten this history, fret over your vigorous participation in our democratic process. Let them go on trying to marginalize you. Let them mock you, impugn your motives, caricature your beliefs. At a time when so many other groups want to get something from government, maybe these critics simply do not understand people who ask only to give something. But I am here to say: Be strong and of good courage. Be who you are. Press on.
Where, today, is conscience calling us? What is the deepest source of unease? I believe the great majority of Americans know the answer.
The silent figure at the center of our great cultural debate is the unborn child.
For a generation now we have lived with abortion on demand. Twenty-one years ago, it was sold to America as a kind of social cure, a resolution. Instead, it has left us wounded and divided. We were promised it would broaden the circles of freedom; instead, it has narrowed the circle of humanity. We were told the whole matter was settled and would soon pass from our minds; 20 years later it tears at our souls.
It is, for me, the bitterest of ironies that abortion on demand found refuge in the national Democratic Party – my party, the party of the weak and the powerless. To me, protecting the unborn child follows naturally from everything I know about my party and my country. Nothing could be more foreign to the American experience. It is inconsistent with our national character – with all that we have done, with everything we hope to be.
The abortion debate is not about how we shall live, but who shall live. And more than that, it is about who we are.
The fundamental question posed by abortion is this: Once a child has been conceived, what is the proper response of a good society – of America at her best? If pregnancy presents a challenge, do we, as a society, rise to that challenge or do we steal away, dispensing with the challenge by dispensing with the child? And when a pregnancy comes at a difficult time, what is the worthier response? Do we surround mother and child with protection and love, or do we hold out to her the cold comfort of a trip to an abortionist? Where is our true character to be seen, in an adoptive home or at the abortion clinic?
Since when does America abandon in despair an entire class of people, the most defenseless, innocent, and vulnerable members of the human family? How can we justify writing off the unborn child in a country that prides itself on leaving no one out and no one behind?
Throughout history, all our great causes have been advanced in proud, strong, unequivocal words. This one goes under the banner of eerie, elusive euphemisms – “choice,” “procedure,” “termination.” Other ages faced the tragedy of abortion, but they at least saw it as a tragedy. Ours alone has dared to call it a social good. Ours alone has dared to call the victim a “thing,” the act a “service,” the perpetrator a “provider.” Ours alone has made abortion not only a right, but a lucrative industry. And what decent society can live with that?
Quietly, slowly, painfully, inexorably, the American people are answering that question: We cannot live with abortion. We know there is a better way.
That is why the Freedom of Choice Act, that grand design to enshrine abortion on demand once and for all, failed.
That is why 83%of the counties of America have no abortion clinic, and only 13% of public hospitals will perform abortions.
That is why fewer and fewer medical schools are teaching abortion – most doctors themselves want nothing to do with it.
That is why, when President Clinton lifted the ban on abortion at U.S. military bases overseas, every single American military doctor in Europe and Asia refused to participate in abortion. They simply refused to do it.
And that is why we find ourselves here today, four thousand strong, joined in common cause and our firm conviction that in America, every child deserves a chance to be born.
And indeed that is why we heard from President Clinton himself last year these words: “Very few Americans,” he said, “believe that all abortions, all the time, are all right. Almost all Americans believe that abortion should be illegal when the children can live without the mother’s assistance, when the children can live outside the mother’s womb.”
In other words, almost all Americans reject the president’s own abortion policies. We remember his promise to make it “safe, legal, and rare.” But we see our national government doing all in its power to make sure abortion is safe, legal, and everywhere.
And note the president’s unguarded reference to what we are really talking about: “children.” He was not making a theological claim, or even a controversial claim. He was just saying what we all know by instinct and common sense; this is how a man sounds when he is letting his heart speak, without regard to ideological etiquette. Such moments are, I believe, a basis for hope, and yet they reveal the terrible contradiction at the center of it all: We call the unborn “children,” and yet we end their lives a thousand times a day. We recoil from the word; we put our motives in the best light. But there is only one word to describe the deliberate, premeditated ending of a child’s life.
How sad, then, to see so many political leaders adopting a strategy of avoidance when the power of truth is on their side. Better, they seem to feel, to face the disappointment of tens of millions of Americans who believe in the protection of human life, than to face the browbeating of Planned Parenthood. In my party, we all know the situation. To people who oppose abortion on demand, the national leadership offers a simple message: Don’t organize. Don’t object. Get away from the microphone. Break it up. Move along!
There is a new intolerance abroad in the land that will not abide doubt or dissent on this issue – which claims it stands for freedom of choice, but stifles freedom of speech. And so a movement that began by saying let every person decide, has ended up by trying to silence anyone who disagrees.
This absolutism, the imposed conformity, that treats the right to life as an idea beyond even the pale of discussion, has peer and precedent in our national history. In 1860, at Cooper Union, Lincoln warned of an established opinion which would tolerate nothing short of saying that slavery is right – which “will grant a hearing to pirates and murderers” but not to opponents of slavery. Are we now to tolerate, in whole segments of our society on campuses, in many mainstream journals, in a great political party, only those who agree to say abortion is right?
To my own party, I would say simply: Why is the pro-life position, firmly held by so many Democratic members of Congress and elected Democrats at all levels of government across this country, now so unacceptable that it must be unspoken among us?
And what about the Republicans? I am not so sure the Republican Party isn’t edging away from its own conscience. There, too, in the higher counsels, we observe a party in the throes of an identity crisis – unsure of its calling. There, too, we hear the familiar, anxious warnings: Stay away from all that cultural stuff. Forget about abortion. It’s just too risky. Too divisive. Not winnable. Drop it. Move on.
Listening to the Republican leadership’s comments of late, one is left wondering if the right to life is now suddenly negotiable; to be held firmly until it’s time to deal. I cannot understand why the Republican leadership appears suddenly to be backing away from a principled stand on the most important value issue of our time. And an issue that was crucial to the election of the last two Republican presidents.
It is easy enough to assail the Clinton administration for its role in abortion and other cultural ills. But such criticism cannot serve in place of genuine leadership. On the great question of our day, where exactly are the leaders in the party of Lincoln? In the end, will they stand and be counted? Or will they cut and run, seeking refuge in the grey shadows of a “Big Tent?”
So let us not hear talk of “lost causes.” My friends, such causes are not only “winnable” – they are the only causes worth winning.
There is, without question, something stirring across the heartland of America. Something that gives me great hope and confidence for the future.
For that is who we are: a people who recognize that no nation, however strong, can ever prosper if it does not protect the powerless – before and after birth; a progressive society, precisely because we know that no nation can truly progress by leaving behind its most vulnerable members; a caring community that offers women meaningful alternatives to abortion, and children and families the help they need to have a real chance to live decent, healthy, and happy lives.
Let me end by sharing a letter with you. It is from a little girl in Hollsoppie, Pennsylvania, a small town in Somerset County. It carries a message for all who would be leaders.
Dear Governor Casey,
Hi! My name is Jessica Stobaugh. I am ten. I was adopted. My birth mom chose life for me. I would stand up like you for life. I think what you are doing is right. I would do the same thing if I were governor.... Thank you for fighting for unborn children, even when it’s a hard thing to do. From your fan and friend, Jessica
And that is the message that I want you to carry with you when you leave this place: We must continue to fight for unborn children – even when it’s a hard thing to do. 
