Presidential Pen

Reagan writes on abortion

Among the most fervent of Ronald Reagan's campaign supporters were far-right special-interest groups, particularly antiabortion activists. Yet the Reagan Administration has worked only halfheartedly in Congress for laws that would permit organized school prayer, stop busing and ban abortion, and none of that social agenda has been passed. Still, the President periodically pays lip service to the right wing's priority issues.

Now he has taken up the pen to reaffirm his commitment to at least one of those issues: in the spring 1983 edition of the Human Life Review, an eight-year-old conservative quarterly, Reagan's byline appears over a rambling but passionate pro-life article called "Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation."

The ten-page, 3,000-word essay's most memorable passages, if only for their high-pitched earnestness, graphically express Reagan's strong views. He attacks Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws prohibiting abortion. Since then, the President says, "more than 15 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions." Turning almost harrowingly explicit, Reagan writes: "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." Another passage: "But how many Americans are aware that abortion techniques are allowed today, in all 50 states, that burn the skin of a baby with a salt solution, in an agonizing death that can last for hours?"

If the Reagan article was ghostwritten, no one at the White House is saying so. Two staff members of the Office of Policy Development did the research and first draft. But, the White House says, Reagan reviewed the material and polished it. The nonprofit Human Life Review, which has a circulation of some 10,000, did not pay the President, nor, according to Editor J.P. McFadden, was Reagan edited. McFadden suggested last summer to presidential aides that Reagan contribute an essay, and the manuscript arrived in the magazine's New York office only five weeks ago.

An essay by a recent sitting President is rare, but has precedent. Gerald R. Ford, among others, in 1976 explained "What America Means to Me" over two pages in the Reader's Digest. Richard Nixon wrote an 800-word piece for FORTUNE in 1970 on the natural environment, and then, having warmed up, turned out in 1972 the unquestioned record setter for a White House incumbent, a detailed analysis for U.S. News & World Report of U.S. foreign policy that ran a long 10,000 words. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.