The state of Alabama still carries the guilt and shame of its
legacy of oppression in the civil rights wars of the twentieth
century. Images can be recalled at a moment’s notice. Bull Connor
and his vicious police dogs. George Wallace barring the entrance to
the University of Alabama with an axe. Martin Luther King, Jr.
writing from a Birmingham jail cell. The place called “the heart of
Dixie” paid a price for being on the wrong side of history. Atlanta
took Birmingham’s spot as the capital of Southern economic
development and now has a population equivalent to the entire
citizenry of Alabama.
But history is full of tales of redemption. Perhaps that’s why
it is fitting that a white Attorney General from the state
nominated himself to strike a major blow for a new civil rights
movement on Wednesday, June 11, 2003. When Bill Pryor faced hostile
questioning about Roe v. Wade from Democrats on the Senate
Judiciary Committee, he was expected to do the dance perfected by
scores of Republican judicial nominees answering similar questions.
Even the adamantine Clarence Thomas resorted to the old shuck and
jive when pressed on Roe during his confirmation hearings.
Pryor chose a decidedly different strategy.
Having referred to Roe v. Wade as a constitutional
abomination in the past, the nominee surely expected to be
hard-pressed by the Bowery Boy Combo of Schumer and Kennedy. When
Schumer asked whether Pryor stood by his previous comments about
Roe, Pryor did something astonishing. He told the truth.
“I do,” he said simply. In later questioning, he went even further
out on the limb to say, “[Roe] has led to the slaughter of
millions of innocent unborn children.”
Although he assured the committee of his commitment to upholding
the current law (as a member of a lower court, he would be bound to
do so anyway), Pryor’s surprise performance marks a new day in the
most important civil rights battle of the past thirty years, the
right of unborn children to be recognized as Constitutional
persons. Schumer said he appreciated Pryor’s candor, perhaps
believing the nominee was mortally wounding himself in an attempt
to be honest. But that view would be a misreading of the situation.
Pryor was not allowing himself to be crucified for the sake of
refusing to tell a white lie or to hide the full implications of
the truth. Instead, his answer represented the confidence of a man
certain he is standing on the right side of history.
Ultrasound technology’s widespread use has already planted the
seeds of destruction for the abortion on demand movement currently
dominating the Democratic Party. Al Gore’s campaign consultant and
super-feminist Naomi Wolf admitted as much in an article she wrote
for the New Republic back in 1995 warning of cognitive
dissonance from personalizing wanted babies in ultrasound films and
dehumanizing unwanted children as “masses of protoplasm.” Grainy
black and white ghost images floating across a screen are being
replaced by the crystal clarity of unborn baby photos like the ones
seen in last year’s astonishing General Electric advertisements. A
stark, pro-choice position is beginning to assume an ugliness that
will only deepen with time. This is the dynamic that emboldens a
man like Bill Pryor.
So why do the Democrats insist on making abortion a litmus test
for judges? Wouldn’t they be better off hedging their bets by
protecting abortion legislatively, but allowing judges to rule
based on the law and their own consciences? The smart money might
rest there, but the party can’t do it. The continued legality of
unfettered abortion is a block in an abstract edifice of happiness
liberals believe they’ve constructed for humankind through their
ceaseless project of “reform.” They can’t walk away from it and
they’ll be damned if a bunch of unenlightened Catholics and
Evangelicals (like Pryor) are going to undo their work.
But regardless of their hard-set jaws and refusal to see a world
beyond the parameters of Ted Kennedy’s clouded vision, maybe a
reminder will help. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky
has brothers Ivan and Alyosha debating life’s biggest questions. In
talking about the evil in the world, they grimly discuss balancing
the happiness of many for the suffering of a few:
Ivan:
[L]et’s assume that you were called upon to build the
edifice of human destiny so that men would finally be happy and
would find peace and tranquillity. If you knew that, in order to
attain this, you would have to torture just one single creature
… and that on her unavenged tears you could build that
edifice, would you agree to do it? Tell me and don’t lie!
Alyosha:
No, I would not.
Ivan:
And do you find acceptable the idea that those for whom you
are building that edifice should gratefully receive a happiness
that rests on the blood of a tortured child and, having received
it, should continue to enjoy it eternally?
Alyosha (softly):
No, I do not find that acceptable.
Like Alyosha Karamazov, Bill Pryor has asked and answered that
question for himself and is not afraid to tell the world. The
Democrats need to re-examine their own answer to the question and
not in the wishy-washy Dennis Kucinich style. If more nominees show
the same gut-level conviction Mr. Pryor did when they face “Grand
Inquisitors” of the left, who knows how quickly concrete blocks
will begin to fall like so many dominoes?
