What do you get when you focus on the wrong issues and take a poll asking all the wrong questions? Would you believe the real truth about the real issue? That's exactly what has accidentally happened these last two months. It's ironic that it took a sex scandal in the White House breaking in the fourth week of January to do this. Please let me explain.

As you know, there has been a constant debate about the approval ratings for the president in the midst of this scandal. At times the ratings are higher than ever. The one thing everybody agrees on is the fact that these high ratings are linked to our present strong economy. Herein lies the truth. The true answer is our strong economy but the real issue isn't sex scandals, it is abortion. After all, our present strong economy hasn't been built on presidential scandals, but on abortion. The real fear right now is the possibility of ending abortion, and the champions of abortion happen to be President Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party.

My teachers in high school would always point out that the economy of the pre-Civil War South was built on the backs of slaves. They feared abolition, even to the point of going to war, because their whole economy would collapse without slavery. They certainly would not be able to keep the same standard of living. Today we have a similar situation. The present economy has been built on the backs of dead babies and those who support abortion fear that its abolition will mean that they will not be able to keep the same standard of living that they have grown accustomed to. Is it fair for me to make this dramatic claim? Consider the following and decide for yourself.

Imagine a family with two children, one in 7th grade and one in 10th. Mom and Dad both work, he earns 60% of their income and she earns 40 %. Mom becomes pregnant. The first issue is whether she can or will continue to work after the baby is born. If she quits, this means a 40 % cut in income right off the top. Even if she can continue to work, now there are five people to support instead of four; three to send to college instead of two; and a child living at home for eighteen more years instead of five. Now consider the nation as a whole. In the last 25 years we have killed one-third of all babies before they were born. Without abortion, whatever resources and income we have as a nation would have to be spread around over 35 million more citizens not to mention the babies the 16- to 25-year-old women would have had by now. Think of the added cost for the programs being touted now by the president in education, day care, health care, energy usage, etc.

Plug in these extra dependents over the years and add to it a slower economy and you get even less tax dollars in government hands. Can you really deny that legal abortion has played a major role in the present standard of living in the US, both for in families that have killed a child or two and for all of us as a whole? What of my claim that there is a fear today of the possible demise of legalized abortion? The people in the South knew that there was trouble coming when states in the North abolished slavery. It was just a matter of time if one part of the nation ended slavery that it would be ended throughout the country. In other words, once the humanity and rights of Negroes were recognized in one part of the country they would eventually be recognized for the whole country. That's why the South fought a war of secession. They needed their own nation that was completely slave oriented.

The same thing is happening today with abortion. The country has been on the verge of ending one type of abortion, partial-birth abortion. In fact, Congress has twice passed bills to criminalize this procedure. Only the president's veto and the Democratic minority in the Senate have kept this from becoming law. Pro- abortion people have rightly understood that such a law would mark the beginning of the end of legalized abortion in this country. In other words, once the humanity and rights of unborn babies are recognized during birth, it is just a matter of time before they are recognized before birth. Jan. 22 marked the 25th anniversary of the legalization of abortion in our country. With the media circus over the presidential sex scandals the rallies, marches, and prayer vigils that week in January went almost completely unreported. The subsequent touting of the strong economy as a reason to overlook the personal scandals of our president has in fact unmasked the true motivation behind the real scandal in this country: legal abortion.

How much longer will we as a people be able to accept the fact that our high standard of living in the United States today is not due only to the many valiant soldiers who have died in our many wars and the great genius and industry of a hard working people, but also is due to the 35 million babies we have sacrificed to the god of money these past 25 years? May the true God in heaven have mercy on us all.

Father Jerome Pilon

Pastor Of St Anthony's Parish in Hoopeston, IL 05/98

First Published in the Catholic Post.