KINDER'S COMMENTARY: CLINTON BECOMES ABORTION PRESIDENT

Any doubt that the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. heads up the most pro-abortion White House in American history went out the window this week.

In a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, President Bill Clinton made it clear this week that he will veto the ban on partial-birth abortions passed last year by both houses of Congress. The president claimed in his letter that this was a decision he reached "after much prayer." Most unfortunately, this decision means the grisly abortion procedure, used in the eighth and ninth months of pregnancy, will continue.

Americans shouldn't forget that although this is the president who said he wanted abortion to be "safe, legal and rare," he won't name even one abortion out of 1.5 million each year that he would restrict. President Clinton's is an extreme position that is rejected by the overwhelming majority of Americans. The fall election campaign will turn, in part, on social issues such as this one. I believe that on balance, the pro-life issue will help defeat Clinton Democrats this fall.

One key lawmaker's vote is worth noting. Even House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt voted for the partial-birth abortion ban. Readers will recall that when Gephardt went to Congress from conservative south St. Louis back in 1976, he was pledged to the pro-life cause. Gephardt remained pledged to this "deeply felt commitment" until he went national in his 1988 presidential campaign, when he jettisoned pro-lifers to appease the abortion industry that has a veto over who gets nominated by his party. (It was somehow fitting that Democratic primary voters rather quickly aborted the Gephardt candidacy. When in 1990 Gephardt topped this off by opposing the Gulf War, it became abundantly clear that the man who once thought darkening his eyebrows would help elect him president will never make it there.)

Still, even Dick Gephardt came home to the pro-life cause on this one. Citing this helps to explain just how far Clinton has himself hanging out on this volatile social issue.

Speaking of abortion, two facts have helped to ensure that the Republican Party will remain pro-life in our platform commitment at the national convention this summer in San Diego. The first is the abject failure of the presidential candidacy of Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, a self-styled "pro-choicer" who quit months ago after nearly a year of fruitless thrashing about. The second is the early if limited success of candidates Pat Buchanan and Alan Keyes.

As one who believes the GOP should remain pro-life, this is all to the good. America is a great, continental nation of 250 million people. We have a party -- the Democrats -- that has declared itself the party, not just of abortion on demand through the entire nine months of pregnancy, but also of compulsory taxpayer funding of same. Taxpayer funding is deeply offensive to millions of Americans and violative of a vast consensus among Americans. And now a Democratic president is fighting for an abortion procedure too far out even for liberals such as Gephardt.

Surely, in a country as large and diverse as ours, there is room for a great, Grand Old Party whose members choose life and feel called to speak up for those who have no voice -- for the tiniest and most defenseless of God's creatures. I am proud to belong to it.

~Peter Kinder is the associate publisher of the Southeast Missourian and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.