Dr. John Wilke, 66, the man who quit delivering babies to fight legalized abortion, relinquished his two-decade tenure as president of the National Right to Life Committee on June 4.
Sometimes reproached for blurring the line between realistic political goals and compromise, Dr. Wilke is still credited by many for building a grassroots, pro-life organization with considerable political clout. “Everyone in the movement owes a great deal to his tremendous accomplishments,” said Wanda Franz, who took over as President at the June 4 meeting.
“Dr. Wilke has been a tireless worker for the unborn,” Jim Hughes, President of Campaign Life Coalition, told The Interim “He and his wife Barbara produced the Handbook on Abortion, the bible of the pro-life movement; it’s the best introduction to the issue I know.”
Dr. Wilke himself is proud of the NRLC’s political achievements. In the two years since the Supreme Court’s landmark Webster judgment made it legal for states to legislate on abortion, more that 500 bills have been introduced countrywide to limit and ban abortion, he says.
His harshest critics don’t see it that way, however. Many of these measures, they say, accept and promote in the public mind the pro-abortion principle that life is negotiable. Laws that permit abortion for rape and incest take the view that at least one class of children can be murdered, says Prof. Charles Rice of the Notre Dame Law Faculty, ad defender of uncompromising pro-life laws.
