Originally published at National Catholic Register
COMMENTARY: Revisiting Ronald Reagan’s 1983 essay ‘Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation.’
In the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter in a landslide victory, amassing 489 electoral votes to become America’s 40th president. Four years later, he was re-elected, defeating Walter Mondale, carrying 525 electoral votes. Reagan captured every state except Minnesota, Mondale’s home state.
In the decade of the ’80s, Reagan was truly America’s president. It might be said that he personified the conscience of the country he was chosen to lead. Three years into his first term, he wrote Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, in which he stated his firm commitment to the sanctity of life. That included those human beings residing in their mothers’ wombs.
In 2024, Kamala Harris ran for president stating forcefully and univocally that a national abortion law was first and foremost on her agenda. She accorded it top priority over economic and foreign policy concerns. Her running mate Tim Walz shared her view on abortion and argued for a national abortion right, stripping all states of their right to decide the abortion issue in the voting booth. When he was president, Barack Obama was a
