[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 90 (Friday, June 25, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7507-S7510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE REAGAN CULTURAL DOCTRINE
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on a topic called
the Reagan Cultural Doctrine.
Presidents are noted for foreign policy doctrines which they
articulate and put forward. President Reagan had his own noteworthy and
very successful foreign policy doctrine, the Reagan Doctrine, involving
the confrontation with communism that led to its ultimate demise.
President Reagan is to be credited and given great praise for it.
But President Reagan had another doctrine I want to speak about
today, the Reagan Cultural Doctrine, which I think it would be fitting
for us to acknowledge and press forward to its successful completion.
President Reagan respected each and every human life at whatever
stage of that life and wherever it was located. This was a unifying
theme that lay behind some of his most significant policy choices and
movements. It led him to insist that the Soviet empire was evil and to
demand of the new Soviet leaders that they ``tear down this wall.''
It was what led him to note that ``until and unless someone can
establish the unborn child is not a living human being, then that child
is already protected by the Constitution which guarantees life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all of us.''
That is a direct Reagan quote.
Toward the end of his Presidency on January 14, 1988, President
Reagan took the opportunity to clearly articulate the Reagan cultural
doctrine, a very simple yet profound Presidential Declaration.
President Reagan proclaimed and declared ``the inalienable personhood
of every American from the moment of conception until natural death.''
I ask unanimous consent that a copy of President Reagan's January 14,
1988 Presidential declaration on the inalienable personhood of the
unborn be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Proclamation 5761 of January 14, 1988
National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 1988
(By the President of the United States of America)
America has given a great gift to the world, a gift that
drew upon the accumulated wisdom derived from centuries of
experiments in self-government, a gift that has irrevocably
changed humanity's future. Our gift is twofold: the
declaration, as a cardinal principle of all just law, of the
God-given, unalienable rights possessed by every human being;
and the example of our determination to secure those rights
and to defend them against every challenge through the
generations. Our declaration and defense of our rights have
made us and kept us free and have sent a tide of hope and
inspiration around the globe.
One of those unalienable rights, as the Declaration of
Independence affirms so eloquently, is the right to life. In
the 15 years since the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v.
Wade, however, America's unborn have been denied their right
to life. Among the tragic and unspeakable results in the past
decade and a half have been the loss of life of 22 million
infants before birth; the pressure and anguish of countless
women and girls who are driven to abortion; and a cheapening
of our respect for the human person and the sanctity of human
life.
We are told that we may not interfere with abortion. We are
told that we may not ``impose our morality'' on those who
wish to
[[Page S7508]]
allow or participate in the taking of the life of infants
before birth; yet no one calls it ``imposing morality'' to
prohibit the taking of life after people are born. We are
told as well that there exists a ``right'' to end the lives
of unborn children; yet no one can explain how such a right
can exist in stark contradiction of each person's fundamental
right to life.
That right to life belongs equally to babies in the womb,
babies born handicapped, and the elderly or infirm. That we
have killed the unborn for 15 years does not nullify this
right, nor could any number of killings ever do so. The
unalienable right to life is found not only in the
Declaration of Independence but also in the Constitution that
every President is sworn to preserve, protect, and defend.
Both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee that no
person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.
All medical and scientific evidence increasingly affirms
that children before birth share all the basic attributes of
human personality--that they in fact are persons. Modern
medicine treats unborn children as patients. Yet, as the
Supreme Court itself has noted, the decision in Roe v. Wade
rested upon an earlier state of medical technology. The law
of the land in 1988 should recognize all of the medical
evidence.
Our Nation cannot continue down the path of abortion, so
radically at odds with our history, our heritage, and our
concepts of justice. This sacred legacy, and the well-being
and the future of our country, demand that protection of the
innocents must be guaranteed and that the personhood of the
unborn be declared and defended throughout the land. In
legislation introduced at my request in the First Session of
the 100th Congress, I have asked the Legislative branch to
declare the ``humanity of the unborn child and the compelling
interest of the several states to protect the life of each
person before birth.'' This duty to declare on so fundamental
a matter falls to the Executive as well. By this Proclamation
I hereby do so.
Now, therefore, I Ronald Reagan, President of the United
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by
the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby
proclaim and declare the unalienable personhood of every
American, from the moment of conception until natural death,
and I do proclaim, ordain, and declare that I will take care
that the Constitution and laws of the United States are
faithfully executed for the protection of America's unborn
children. Upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of
justice, warranted by the Constitution, I invoke the
considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of
Almighty God. I also proclaim Sunday, January 17, 1988, as
National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon the citizens
of this blessed land to gather on that day in their homes and
places of worship to give thanks for the gift of life they
enjoy and to reaffirm their commitment to the dignity of
every human being and the sanctity of every human life.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 14th
day of January, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and
eighty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the two hundred and twelfth.
Ronald Reagan.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, our Nation cannot be the ``shining city
upon the hill'' without the respect and recognition of the inalienable
personhood of every American from the moment of conception until
natural death. Reagan realized and declared this. The Reagan Cultural
Doctrine is synonymous with the culture of life. President Reagan's
commitment to the culture of life was evident from the first days of
his Presidency.
In recent days, some have implicitly questioned President Reagan's
commitment to the inalienable personhood of every American by
suggesting that destructive embryonic stem cell research should be
conducted in President Reagan's name. And here we are not talking about
adult stem cell research or umbilical cord blood which are supported by
virtually everybody and are producing true results--here we are talking
strictly about destructive embryonic stem cell research which results
in the death of a young human embryo after its conception.
To suggest that this should be conducted in President Reagan's name
is a completely contrary view of the Reagan Cultural Doctrine. It is a
misappropriation of President Reagan's legacy, and it is damaging to
the culture of life that President Reagan was so steadfast in
defending. It is an assault on the Reagan Cultural Doctrine.
As former Reagan National Security Adviser and Interior Secretary
William Clark noted in the New York Times recently,
Ronald Reagan's record reveals that no issue was of greater
importance to him than the dignity and sanctity of all human
life. ``My administration is dedicated to the preservation of
America as a free land,'' he said in 1983. ``And there is no
cause more important for preserving that freedom than
affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings,
the right without which no other rights have any meaning.''
One of the things he regretted most at the completion of his
Presidency in 1989, he told [William Clark], was that
politics and circumstances had prevented him from making more
progress in restoring protection for unborn human life.
Continuing in his New York Times piece, Clark then addressed Reagan's
early efforts to protect innocent human life through halting Federal
efforts on destructive research involving human embryos. Here we find
that President Reagan himself pushed to stop destructive human
embryonic research.
Clark says:
Reagan consistently opposed federal support for the
destruction of innocent human life. After the charter expired
for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's ethical
advisory board--which in the 1970s supported destructive
research on human embryos--he began a de facto ban on federal
financing of embryo research that he held to throughout his
presidency.
I ask unanimous consent a copy of William Clark's June 11, 2004, New
York Times op-ed piece titled ``For Reagan, All Life Was Sacred,'' be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, June 11, 2004]
For Reagan, All Life Was Sacred
(By William P. Clark)
Paso Robles, Calif.--Ronald Reagan had not passed from this
life for 48 hours before proponents of human embryonic stem-
cell research began to suggest that such ethically
questionable scientific work should be promoted under his
name. But this cannot honestly be done without ignoring
President Reagan's own words and actions.
Ronald Reagan's record reveals that no issue was of greater
importance to him than the dignity and sanctity of all human
life. ``My administration is dedicated to the preservation of
America as a free land,'' he said in 1983. ``And there is no
cause more important for preserving that freedom than
affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings,
the right without which no other rights have any meaning.''
One of the things he regretted most at the completion of his
presidency in 1989, he told me, was that politics and
circumstances had prevented him from making more progress in
restoring protection for unborn human life.
Still, he did what he could. To criticize the Roe v. Wade
decision on its 10th anniversary in 1983, he published his
famous essay ``Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation'' in
The Human Life Review. ``We cannot diminish the value of one
category of human life--the unborn--without diminishing the
value of all human life,'' he wrote. He went on to emphasize
``the truth of human dignity under God'' and ``respect for
the sacred value of human life.'' Because modern science has
revealed the wonder of human development, and modern medicine
treats ``the developing human as a patient,'' he declared,
``the real question today is not when human life begins, but,
What is the value of human life?''
In that essay, he expressly encouraged continued support
for the ``Sanctity of life ethic'' and rejection of the
``quality of life ethic.'' Writing about the value of all
human life, he quoted the British writer Malcolm Muggeridge's
statement that ``however low it flickers so fiercely burns,
it is still a divine flame which no man dare presume to put
out, be his motives ever so humane and enlightened.'' And in
the Roe v. Wade decision, he insisted, the Supreme Court
``did not explicitly reject the traditional American idea of
intrinsic worth and value in all human life; it simply dodged
the issue.''
Likewise, in his famous ``Evil Empire'' speech of March
1983--which most recall as solely an indictment of the Soviet
Union--Ronald Reagan spoke strongly against the denigration
of innocent human life. ``Abortion on demand now takes the
lives of up to one and half million unborn children a year,''
he said. ``Unless and until it can be proven that the unborn
child is not a living entity, then its right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be protected.''
His actions were as clear as his words. He supported the
Human Life Amendment, which would have inscribed in the
Constitution ``the paramount right to life is vested in each
human being from the moment of fertilization without regard
to age, health or condition of dependency.'' And he favored
bills in Congress that would have given every human being--at
all stages of development--protection as a person under the
14th Amendment.
Aside from the moral principle, President Reagan would also
have questioned picking the people's pocket to support
commercial research. He understood the significance of
putting the imprimatur of the nation, through public
financing, behind questionable research.
He consistently opposed federal support for the destruction
of innocent human life. After the charter expired for the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare's ethical
advisory board--which in the 1970's supported destructive
research on human embryos--he began a de facto ban on federal
financing of embryo research that he held to throughout his
presidency.
[[Page S7509]]
As for today's debate, as a defender of free people and
free markets, he would have asked the marketplace question:
if human embryonic research is so clearly promising as the
researchers assert, why aren't private investors putting
money into it, as they are in adult stem cell research?
Mr. Reagan's suffering under Alzheimer's disease was
tragic, and we should do everything we can that is ethically
proper to help others afflicted with it. But I have no doubt
that he would have urged our nation to look to adult stem
cell reserach--which has yielded many clinical successes--and
away from the destruction of developing human lives, which
has yielded none. Those who would trade on Ronald Reagan's
legacy should first consider his own words.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I mean no disrespect to anyone in
addressing this important issue, but we are talking about innocent
young human life. Someone must speak for those who have no voice and
for the great pro-life legacy of President Reagan now that he is no
longer with us.
I would like to share the stories and memories of some of the Reagan
revolutionaries who were privileged to interact with the President on
this particular vital issue.
Just 2 days after his January 20, 1981, inauguration as President of
the United States, Ronald Reagan made his personal commitment to pro-
life issues clear. At a time when hundreds of people were waiting to
meet the newly elected President in order to seek positions in his
administration, the President made time for an unrelated meeting with
pro-life leaders in Congress and the nonprofit sector. Senators Richard
Schweiker and Jesse Helms were present at that meeting, as were
Representatives Henry Hyde and Bob Dornan.
This meeting, which was to become an annual policy meeting on the
anniversary of Roe v. Wade, was tremendously significant. By 1980, the
pro-life movement had been largely marginalized by previous
administrations. But President Reagan's willingness to hold these
meetings and to annually address the March for Life meeting by phone
took the pro-life movement into the mainstream.
One participant in that first meeting noted that the President's
personal conviction on the right to life for unborn children was
obvious. The participant said:
President Reagan's deep commitment to pro-life issues was
very evident when he spoke of viewing an inutero sonogram
while he was Governor of California. It was moving to watch
him speak. Clearly, he understood the life issue; it could be
seen in his body language.
The quote continues:
There we were, two days after his inauguration. He didn't
have to meet with us or do anything. Yet, he turned our 15
minute meeting into a 45 minute meeting.
President Reagan truly had great zeal for pro-life causes. I share in
the sentiment made by long-time Reagan aide Michael Deaver, who made
this observation in his political memoirs. Deaver noted the President's
zeal in the section of his book dedicated to the March 30, 1981,
assassination attempt on President Reagan. This was in reference to a
meeting soon after with the late Cardinal Terrence Cooke of New York.
Deaver overheard the President's final words of this meeting with
Cardinal Cooke. Reagan said this:
I have decided that whatever time I may have left, is left
for Him.
``Him,'' referring to God. Anyone who knew Reagan has to acknowledge
that this statement was from the heart. It summed up his subsequent
involvement in the great moral issues of the day.
Deaver concludes this section with his own thoughts after the death
of Cardinal Cooke:
When Reagan was told of his friend's death, the president's
words from their earlier meeting echoed in my mind.
``Whatever time I may have left is left for Him.'' I would
never forget his promise, and I would see him deliver on it
time and time again.
President Reagan's interest in life issues was not just convenient
political positioning either. He actively wrestled with this issue. I
will read a passage from ``What I Saw at the Revolution,'' political
memoir of Reagan's speech writer Peggy Noonan.
Look at him on abortion. It took courage to oppose an
option that at least 20 million Americans had exercised since
Roe v. Wade, when the issue isn't a coalition builder but an
opposition creator, when the polls are against you and the
boomers want it and when you've already been accused of being
unsympathetic to women and your own pollster is telling you
your stand contributes to a gender gap. . . .
Let me continue now further with the book:
But he puzzled it out on his own, not like a visionary or
an intellectual but like a regular person. He read and
thought and listened to people who cared, and he made up
his own mind. And suddenly when they said, ``The argument
is over when life begins,'' he said, ``Well look, if
that's the argument: If there's a bag in the gutter and
you don't know if what's in it is alive, you don't kick
it, do you? Well, no, you don't.
He held to his stand against his own political interests (where were
the anti-abortion people going to go?) and against the wishes of his
family and friends. Nancy wasn't anti-abortion, the kids weren't anti-
abortion, and people like the Bloomingdales and his friends in Beverly
Hills--they did not get where they are through an overfastidious
concern for the helpless. He was the only one of his group who cared.
A lengthy quote from Peggy Noonan.
President Reagan did care deeply about the sanctity of life, and we
know that he was actively engaged on this issue. One example of this
was President Reagan's interest in the pro-life journal, the Human Life
Review. We know the President read this journal because he actually
wrote a letter responding to the heroic mother of a child with spina
bifida who had written a letter that was published in the journal in
the summer of 1982 edition.
In his letter to the mother the President wrote:
Your recent letter published in the summer issue of the
Human Life Review came to my attention. I want you to know
that I was deeply impressed by what you wrote and by the
obvious commitment you and your family have made to respond
to the affliction of a handicapped child with affection and
courage.
I strongly believe that protection of these children is a
natural and fundamental part of the duty government has to
protect the innocent and to guarantee that the civil rights
of all are respected. This duty is a special order when the
rights involved are the right to life itself. . . .
After learning of President Reagan's interest in their pro-life
publication through this letter, Jim McFadden of the Human Life Review
invited the President to write an essay for publication in the journal.
The President obliged, and thus his famous ``Abortion and the
Conscience of the Nation'' was published in 1983. In this essay,
President Reagan made some profound statements laying the groundwork
for the Reagan cultural doctrine.
A copy of this essay may be found on the Human Life Review website at
http://www.humanlifereview.com/reagan/reagan_conscience.html.
Mr. BROWNBACK. In the essay, President Reagan lays out the great
cultural issues surrounding abortion. In one place, he notes:
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human
life--the unborn--without diminishing the value of all human
life.
Embryo, fetus, infant, child, and adult are categories of human
development, and they are all human life. Whether one is physically
healthy or ill, emotionally healthy or ill, these are categories of
human beings, and thus deserve protection. We should heed the words of
President Reagan. All human life, no matter how it is categorized,
should be esteemed and valued.
In his essay, President Reagan correctly argues that:
[A]nyone who doesn't feel sure whether we are talking about
a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of
the doubt. If you don't know whether a body is alive or dead,
you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself
should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the
unborn.
This, again, a direct quote from President Reagan on the Reagan
Cultural Doctrine.
Then the President turns to discuss the real issue of the day. The
President commented:
The real question today is not when human life begins, but,
What is the value of human life?
That question remains today.
When President Reagan said, and those of us in the pro-life movement
say, that human life begins at conception, we are speaking about
biology, not ideology or belief.
I am concerned that there may be some confusion on this point today,
perhaps as a result of misinformation being disseminated by those who
favor destructive research on the youngest forms of human life.
A human embryo, an unborn child, or human fetus is, biologically
speaking,
[[Page S7510]]
a young human life. To assert that it is not a life or that it is so-
called potential life is not a scientific statement. To assert a human
embryo is not a human life is a belief not supported by the facts, much
in the same way that to say the Sun revolves around the Earth is a
belief not supported by the facts.
Science is about the pursuit of truth in the service of mankind.
Science tells us that the unborn child, from the moment of conception,
is a human life.
That is why, in the debate over embryonic stem cell research, I
continue to assert we must address the fundamental question of law: Is
the young human embryo a person or a piece of property?
Our country has gotten this issue wrong before--notably, the 1857
Dred Scott case--but our system gives us an opportunity to rectify past
wrongs. I suggest we base our laws on what science tells us, which is
that the young human embryo is indeed a human life.
Anybody watching now was, at one point in time, a young human embryo.
And if you were destroyed then, your life would not exist today. Those
are the facts.
Unfortunately, not everyone in this debate is looking at biology. But
once both sides acknowledge the scientific truth, that the young human
embryo or unborn child is a human life, then we can start to address
what Reagan posited as the real question: ``What is the value of a
human life?''
In ``Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation,'' President Reagan
lamented the case of Baby Doe, who was legally starved to death because
he was mentally handicapped. In more recent times, we have the case of
Terri Schiavo, who was saved from starvation. In that case, the
American public, along with Florida Governor Jeb Bush, let their voices
be heard that life is worth living. Those voices proclaimed that life--
even if not the ``quality of life'' many would deem acceptable--still
has incredible value. The value of every human life must be defended
without exception.
To deny that a human embryo is a human life is to disregard what
science tells us. It is to live willfully in ignorance.
In addressing his critics through the essay, President Reagan wrote:
Obviously, some uninfluential people want to deny that
every human life has intrinsic, sacred worth. They insist
that a member of the human race must have certain qualities
before they accord him or her status as a ``human being.'' .
. . Every legislator, every doctor, and every citizen needs
to recognize that the real issue is whether to affirm and
protect the sanctity of all human life, or to embrace a
social ethic where some human lives are valued and others are
not. As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life
ethic and the ``quality of life'' ethic.
President Reagan concluded his essay with these words:
My administration is dedicated to the preservation of
America as a free land, and there is no cause more important
for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent
right to life of all human beings, the right without which no
other rights have any meaning.
``Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation'' was written by a man who
was fully committed to the unalienable right to life from the moment of
conception. And that man was President Reagan.
However, President Reagan did not stop at ``Abortion and the
Conscience of a Nation.'' He had to withstand much political pressure
to maintain his stance in defense of life.
A Reagan aide recalled the President's 1987 meeting with leaders of
the pro-life movement. He wrote:
In January 1987 the subject of parental consent for
abortion came up as the groups met with the President in the
Roosevelt Room. As you know, Ronald Reagan was a prodigious
letter writer during all phases of his life and career, but
he was also a prodigious letter reader and keeper. If a
letter's contents appealed to him or struck a chord, he would
keep it, use it in speeches, quote it to the media, etc. The
letter he received from the young boy asking him if he was
going to do his speech to the Congress ``in his pajamas''
after his recovery from the assassination attempt was one
such example. Ronald Reagan loved to read samples of mail
from the American people and called Anne Higgins to ask for
it on Fridays if for some reason it was later than usual in
getting to him. Meeting with the pro-life leaders that
January day, he pulled from his left-hand jacket side pocket
and read a letter he said he had held onto for many years. It
was from a California mother who had written to him about the
parental consent issue when he was governor in the early
1970's.
Ronald Reagan read the letter to the entire group. The
mother described her own family and the daughters she had
raised, the sweat she had expended, the clothes she had
washed and folded, the hurt knees she had bandaged, etc. She
wrote that now the opponents of parental consent for abortion
were telling her that they had a right to perform surgery on
those daughters without so much as letting her know. ``Who do
they think they are?'' went her refrain.
The letter went on in this vein with other examples of the
worries and stresses of loving parenthood, and the abrupt
dismissal of that sacrifice by the [abortion providers] who
think they know better when a child gets in trouble. Ronald
Reagan read the letter through, folded it and put it back in
his pocket, and said softly, ``Who do they think they are?''
You could have heard a pin drop.
The record could hardly be clearer. President Ronald Reagan
vigorously worked to promote a culture of life, which included
consistent opposition to destructive research on human embryos. It was
and it remains the Reagan Cultural Doctrine. Witness after witness
affirms this. It is important that the great moral stance President
Reagan took be reaffirmed and boldly declared.
When we think of the great Presidential doctrines of the past, we
think immediately of the foreign policy doctrines of Presidents Monroe
and Truman--and, yes, Ronald Reagan. These doctrines have been and
continue to be significant in defining American interests.
On January 14, 1988, President Reagan declared a new doctrine: the
Reagan Cultural Doctrine. This doctrine is not about foreign policy; it
is about something that especially defines us as a people. This
doctrine speaks volumes, in the sense that it makes clear who we are
and what we stand for as a people. It reaffirms the Declaration of
Independence and the founding values that have been the source of
America's greatness.
It is my hope President Bush will reissue the Reagan Cultural
Doctrine on ``the unalienable personhood of every American, from the
moment of conception until natural death,'' and that the Congress will
reaffirm the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution by
passing laws that will guarantee the right to life to every American
conceived within the boundaries of this life-loving and freedom-loving
land. That is the Reagan Cultural Doctrine.
Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Dole). The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________