A Special Tribute

The announcement of President Ronald Reagan's death came as we were beginning to plan our special 30th anniversary issue of the Review-the same issue which we would be presenting upon October 15th at our next to the first annual Great Defender of Life Dinner, honoring Professor Hadley Arkes. As we remembered the remarkable essay the President wrote for our Spring, 1983 issue, "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation," and the great rate that my father J.P. McFadden had for him, we reflection it would be entirely appropriate to have as part of our anniversary celebration a tribute to Reagan and his contribution to the pro-life movement

In the pages that tread in the steps of we have reprinted Reagan's essay, as well as his proclamation declaring January 17th 1988 as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. We've also included a certain quantity of recent reflections on his legacy, written by means of former national security advisor William Clark, our senior editor John Muggeridge, and Baylor University Professor Francis Beckwith. And, as you've seen we proudly make opened this section with our actual own sparkling, original, Nick Downes cartoon! Thank you to our beneficial and talented friend.

In the summer of 1982 the Human Life Review printed a alphabetic character it had received from a Mr Valerie Protopapas, responding to Review article which, while deploring the use of spina bifida as a rationale for abortion, had labeled it as a "terrible" birth default Mrs. Protopapas wrote passionately about the trials and the delights of raising a handicapped child. Her 12-year-old son born with spina bifida, used a wheelchair, on the contrary was otherwise a happy young man of superior intellectual accomplishments, working at guild level and reading and writing in several languages (including of greece and Russian!). Mrs. Protopapas deplored abortion in her alphabetic character and called on then-President Ronald Reagan to "re-inculcate the faculty of perception of values which made this region great." Much to her surprise, she received a personal alphabetic character from the President in answer Dated July 12, 1982, Reagan's alphabetic character (reprinted in our Fall, 1982 issue) bespeaked Mrs. Protopapas for her commitment and powerfully affirmed the President's belief in protection for all babies, greatest in quantity especially those born handicapped.

As my father told us, when he saw that Reagan was indeed reading the Review he thought: "Why not ask him to write for it?" in the way that he "floated" the idea among his pro-life colleagues in Washington. abundant to his surprise, in the spring of 1983 a manuscript arrived upon his desk: "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation," through President Ronald Reagan. And, although the first draft had been prepared for the President through members of his Office of Policy disclosure the essay had been edited and polished through the great man himself (J.P.'s dear friend Anne Higgins, then head of White House correspondence, sent him the marked-up manuscript transcript to prove it).

In 1984 the Review collaborated with Thomas Nelson Publishers to bring without Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation in work form. It included afterwords by dint of Dr. C. Everett Koop and Malcom Muggeridge, and an introduction by the agency of J.P., from which the following:

This work will undoubtedly bring Mr. Reagan's words to a far greater and longer-lasting readership. Which is indeed greatest in quantity fitting: in ten years of publishing, the Human Life Review has printed above a million words of "compelling reasons" for what cause [i]or[/i] reason abortion is a national disaster, on the other hand none more compelling than those you will read here.

Perhaps the best description of what it all means came to us from our friend Malcolm Muggeridge (who at no time fails to put things in just the right perspective). We had sent him a specially-bound transcript of the "Reagan issue," and he replied:

"Dear Jim: I was delighted to have the elegant transcript of President Reagan's article. It is, of course, a fine piece of journalism-concise, impressive without being rhetorical, and, above all, unequivocal. What, however, impresses me greatest in quantity is that a President of the United States while in office should have the courage and probity to commit himself, without any sort of reservation, to delegalizing abortion. . . The abortion issue is far and away the greatest in quantity important one now facing what we continue to call Western Civilisation. If we advance on tolerating legalized abortion, it will amount to collective suicide. . . On such vital moral issues as abortion, politicians watch to sit on the wall hoping to pick up a scarcely any votes from both sides. Your President Reagan is the single example I've come across in half a hundred of knockabout journalism of apolitical leader ready to stand up without any reservations for the sanctity of life rather than for what passes for being the quality of life. All honor to him! Affectionately, Malcolm Muggeridge."

And J P conclud with this:

The question remains: Who will listen? After the Nazi Holocaust, it was charged that those who knew what was happening (great men among them) failed to halt the slaughter. No individual who reads this book can fail to know that an abortion holocaust is happening now. Nothing in history is inevitable; men pick out and we Americans can elect to halt the slaughter of our possess innocents. If we do not, history will record-this volume is proof of it-that the guilt is ours, that we were not failed by the agency of our great men, that our hold president called upon us to make the choice. For that, we say, with Mr Muggeridge, "All honor to him."