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The editors of Christianity Today recently ranked our selections for the leading priorities for the incoming Bush administration and the new Congress. Hands down, prolife initiatives topped our list. The prolife movement holds out hope for passage of a federal ban on partial-birth abortion and the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act. These two measures will be important steps toward restoring our national commitment to unborn human life. A federal ban on partial-birth abortion would end the gruesome practice of ending a third-trimester pregnancy by removing a fetus feet-first and then destroying the skull cavity. The born-alive bill would provide more humane care for mortally ill newborns and babies who survive a botched abortion.

What about overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that granted women the right to abortion? Though the First Lady doesn't think it should be overturned, President Bush is not ruling out support for a legal challenge to Roe. "We'll just have to see," he told reporters. Bush appropriately makes the point that it's premature to comment fully on overturning Roe since there is no case before the high court that has the potential to undo this historic wrong.

Even if overturning Roe is not in the near future, prolife Christians must not sit on their hands. Vicki Thorn, founder and director of Milwaukee's Project Rachel, has worked in the prolife movement for 30 years. For the last 14 years, she has focused her efforts on post-abortion trauma counseling, which is now a nationwide movement. While she favors prolife legislation, Thorn told Catholic News Service, "It's not about changing the law. It's about changing the country."

Profound change in American culture is already underway. Christians must do their part to steer the culture even more in a direction that fully values all human life. President Bush and members of Congress who support the prolife cause should persevere in making a compelling and public case for new prolife legislation. If our values change, so will our public laws.

Education reform: In many inner cities, 68 percent of low-income 4th-graders cannot read at a basic level, despite $120 billion in federal spending since 1965 to improve the educational achievements of poor children, according to the Heritage Foundation. Failing schools must be fixed or replaced by private or semi-public alternatives. Well-designed school-choice programs should be expanded without delay, or another generation of undereducated, poor kids will grow up with limited access to opportunity.

Religious freedom: A 2000 survey by the Center for Religious Freedom indicates that 75 percent of the world (more than 4 billion people) does not enjoy broad religious freedom. Conditions for Christians and other minority faiths in China, India, and Sudan have grown worse during the past five years. Both Congress and the Bush administration must keep the public's attention on widely violated international standards as well as enforce provisions in the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, even if it becomes necessary to restrict trade.

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March 5 2001, Vol. 45, No. 4