Washington, DC -- The Family Research Council (FRC) responded Friday to the interview granted by next-First Lady Laura Bush to NBC's Katie Couric, in which Mrs. Bush acknowledged her view that the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade should not be overturned. Jan LaRue and Teresa Wagner, FRC attorneys on sanctity of life issues, noted the irony in the line of questions some media commentators and Senators have pursued as we approach the 28th anniversary of Roe on Monday, Jan. 22.
"Eight years ago this week," LaRue said, "Bill Clinton entered office proclaiming his desire to make abortion 'safe, legal and rare.' Eight years later, his Administration closes with the loss of more than 10 million lives to abortion in the United States, with an unprecedented positioning of the United States as an international advocate of abortion on demand, and with the barbarity of partial-birth abortion -- fleetingly, we can only hope -- enshrined as the law of the land. This is the shameful legacy we trust and hope the new Bush Administration will begin, at noon tomorrow, to reverse."
Wagner added, "During his campaign for the White House, President-elect Bush stated time and again his determination to do all he can to ensure that unborn children are welcomed in life and protected in law. The illusion that abortion can be 'rare' while it remains legally available up to and even past the moment of birth has been shattered by the hard reality of the past eight years of Clinton-Gore policy-making. The vast majority of American women remain deeply troubled by abortion and want to find ways to uphold the rights of women without pitting those rights against their own children in the womb."
FRC president Ken Connor expressed confidence that the incoming Bush Administration will carry out the promise of the President-elect's successful campaign and embrace at every level and in every agency of government a "culture of life" that will safeguard the unborn, the elderly, and disabled people. "Tomorrow President and Mrs. Bush will embark on a great journey together, a journey that will confer upon them an incredible opportunity to restore moral leadership to this nation," Connor said. "If they seize that opportunity, the hollow and calloused shell called Roe v. Wade will inevitably collapse. It is up to all of us to hasten the dawning of that day."