c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Charles W. Colson, former special counsel to Richard Nixon, served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal. He now heads Prison Fellowship International, an evangelical Christian ministry to the imprisoned and their families. Contact Colson via e-mail at 71421.1551(AT)compuserve.com.)

(RNS)-President Clinton’s veto of a bill outlawing abortions in the last stages of pregnancy is another one for the history books-but hold the fireworks.

Who would have imagined even 10 years ago that an American president could not bring himself to oppose the act of crushing a fetus’ skull in the birth canal (the rest of the child already having been delivered) and vacuuming out its brains? The veto is especially ironic because the president has so often professed a desire to make abortion rare. The veto has brought us dangerously close to full-blown infanticide.

From a moral standpoint the president’s veto is nothing less than tragic. In political terms, however, it may have rescued the Republican Party from what appeared to be an inevitable crack-up.

The moral aspect, of course, is the most important. A nation’s laws and habits reflect the state of its soul. It is not only that an American president refuses to draw the line even at these so-called”partial birth”abortions. The most terrifying aspect of this veto is that it came naturally in our political climate, which regards choice as the predominant value-a value more precious than life itself.

So strong is the pursuit of the unencumbered self, millions of Americans believe the government has no right telling them how to live their lives, no matter how despicable the practice the government might seek to ban. Add to that the full force of radical feminism, which considers any attempt to limit abortion as an attempt to place women in chains, and we can see that the president’s veto is not without core support.

But even in these morally hazy times, there are some acts that are so disagreeable as to make people stop and wonder: Is this really what we are about? Can we abort babies in the last months or weeks of pregnancy and still call ourselves a civilized nation?

These late-term abortions are so gruesome that defending the option may tip the political scales. Republicans may discover that, for the next election at least, the abortion issue is no longer the loser they once believed it to be.

The GOP’s abortion debate, basically, has centered around the pro-life plank in the party platform, which supports a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion. Pro-life activists-including myself-understand that the Supreme Court will not overturn its decisions supporting a woman’s right to abortion. A constitutional amendment is the only remedy to this moral horror.

We also understand that abortion is about more than abortion. One cannot, after all, logically say that exterminating human life is acceptable, but that other assaults against traditional morality-gay marriage, polygamy, incest between consenting adults-are somehow out of bounds. Those who charge us with trying to uphold an ancient moral code are absolutely correct.

There are Republicans who believe the pro-life plank weakens the party by scaring away both potential supporters and economic conservatives who are social liberals. Most Republicans have said the plank must go. Sen. Bob Dole, a skilled political operative, has often bragged that he would follow Richard Nixon’s advice: Move right for the nomination and then rush to the center in the fall. Dole insiders assured moderates that he would abandon the plank.

But Buchananites, conservative Catholics and much of the Religious Right would never have stood for it. I have long argued that religious conservatives would bolt the party. That rupture has now been avoided. With his veto, Clinton has united the Republican Party on this issue.

Even pro-choice Republicans can campaign against the president’s abortion extremism. The GOP can read the polls. Most Americans are moderate on abortion in general but not on abortions in late pregnancy: 71 percent oppose the practice, according to a recent survey by the Tarrance Group. Thus the GOP can take the high ground.

Before the veto, the extremists in this debate were the pro-lifers, whose alleged desire to inculcate Victorian morality in the population at large was cast as the sin of sins. Now they appear in a new light, as people whose support of the right to life is in direct contradiction to those who will not draw a line anywhere, not even at the birth canal. With a flick of his veto pen, the president transformed himself from a”reluctant”pro-choicer into an aggressive Planned Parenthood partisan.

The president’s veto is, indeed, a defining moment. It forces Americans to once again ask themselves a critical question: What are we about as a nation? I continue to believe that Americans cannot consider the gruesome implications of late-term abortions permissible. If there are moral lines to be drawn any more, surely this is the place to do so.

MJP END COLSON