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June 5, 2002 9:30 a.m. We’ve Only Just Begun The pro-life movement, still in its embryonic stages.

t the end of April, the last remains of handicapped and mentally ill children who had been used in Nazi medical experiments were buried in Vienna, Austria. The Nazis viewed them as lebensunwertes Leben, or life unworthy of life, and used them to research various diseases, usually killing them with barbiturates. Most of the parents who brought their children to places like the children's clinic Am Spiegelgrund believed they would be cared for, not murdered. (They were mainly non-Jews; Jewish children were usually sent straight to the camps.)

In 1997 Dr. Heinrich Gross, a lauded Austrian researcher, was exposed for his role in Spiegelgrund. His medical library consisted of these helpless children's body parts, and currently there is a movement in Austria to strip the now mentally incompetent, 86-year-old Gross of his license and national awards.

It's incomprehensible to think of what those defenseless children had to endure at the hands of the medical doctors who "treated" them. They were seen as little short of lab rats, whose value was measured only by what new information on genetic, congenital, and hereditary disorders the medical community could obtain from their dissected brains. Thank goodness we've dismissed such amoral notions as barbaric and cruel. Oh, wait. We haven't.

I recently attended a dinner honoring my mother for her work in the pro-life movement over the past 30 years. The money raised was allocated for the local Good Counsel home which houses, feeds, and helps educate unwed mothers. Speaking to an audience of about 70 or so — most of whom had been with her from the onset — my mother recapitulated the right-to-life movement in our little county just north of New York City, which was a powerful force behind the greater statewide effort beginning in the early 1970s. The "fanatics," as some opponents called these people, consisted of members of the Knights of Columbus, workers for Birthright and Good Counsel — which provide instruction, support, and safe havens to single mothers — and other activists. These were not just friends and admirers of my mother; they were her fellow foot soldiers in the pro-life struggle. They had traveled to Albany and to Washington, D.C., year after year to attend rallies, marches, and legislative sessions. They were full-time mothers and fathers who had found a few hours to stuff envelopes and trek door-to-door with petitions. Many of my own childhood memories of my mother revolve around the movement. Even while tending to her ten children, she was on the phone, at budget meetings, attending marches, participating in prayer vigils, soliciting new members. (In later years, she served jail time twice for refusing to vacate the entrance to abortion clinics.) It was a bona fide grassroots effort. Many people scoffed at them, insisting that legal abortion was the mark of a free and civilized society — a sign of progress.

Thirty years' worth of struggle was represented at that dinner. I don't know if I felt invigorated, or just discouraged, by hearing about all that they did and sacrificed — even while realizing what new and still more convoluted battles today's pro-lifers face. During the initial stages of the right-to-life movement, many people dismissed as alarmist and absurd the "slippery slope" idea that legalized abortion on demand would only lead to further disregard for other stages of human life — through procedures such as euthanasia, not to mention partial-birth abortion. And very few people, even in the pro-life movement, could have predicted the advent of embryonic-stem-cell research and cloning. The farfetched ideas once confined to science-fiction novels and movies are now 21st-century realities.

According to their proponents, embryonic-stem-cell research, human cloning, and even partial-birth abortion are all methods of saving and improving those lives already outside of the womb. Yet the hypocrisy is glaring. It is becoming more and more difficult to deny the humanity — both potential and immediate — of these embryos. Indeed, it is precisely because these supposed "incipient cells" constitute the genetic makeup of a real-life human being that they have research value. They are definitely "life" — just not as meaningful as those of us who were lucky enough to get past that first stage of development. Even Sen. Orrin Hatch, who prides himself on his pro-life record, has come out in favor of human-embryo cloning, rationalizing that an embryo not implanted in a woman's womb is unequal to one that has been implanted. You know what they say: location, location, location. So, Sens. Hatch, Ted Kennedy, and Dianne Feinstein have introduced legislation supporting human-embryonic cloning — but only if researchers promise to behave and not implant those embryos in a womb, artificial or real. And what do we do with those that inevitably will be implanted into a womb (especially in an artificial one)? Because as we've already seen, there always will be new and seemingly life-affirming reasons to proceed with implantation — as with any new, controversial procedure. We admit that it's all a form of life, but what we as a society refuse to concede is that we are in effect putting the fate of certain lives at the mercy of those who happen to be in a position of control.

This belief that life can be categorized is exactly what permitted those innocent children to be used by Dr. Gross and his henchmen. No one wants to be labeled callous, allowing a person with Parkinson's disease continue to suffer rather than do a few experiments on some cells. Yet how can we watch delicate, breakthrough fetal surgery on the Learning Channel, marvel at the latest GE sonograms providing four-dimensional images of unborn babies — and still justify abortion? How can we gasp in horror at the ex-cop who mows down a family that includes a pregnant mother — but say that had she had chosen to get rid the unborn child herself, that would have been her constitutional right?

The newest generation of pro-lifers have an arduous task ahead of them. But respect for all life — now and to come — is at stake. The attendees at my mother's dinner still have hope. They have seen progress. Abortions have decreased; and most Americans, on both sides of the issue, agree that abortion is something to avoid. Yet states are still flirting with legalizing assisted suicide, and even people who consider themselves anti-abortion are trying to emphasize the "greater good" of embryonic research. Today's pro-lifers need to educate themselves, especially when it comes to the obscured success stories of adult stem cells and related issues. In the mid 20th century, many citizens were ignorant of what was really happening in those Nazi clinics; but we are certainly not.

I tried to feel hopeful leaving my mother's dinner; but there are many signs we have not advanced all that far from the thinking of those Nazi doctors. Yet the mothers and children who live at the Good Counsel home are a living testament to the positive impact and successes of the movement. The veteran members of the pro-life cause who first galvanized the movement — starting from the bottom up — were a constant presence, a conscience that would not stop reminding people of the truth.

Some might say none of the concerns of today is comparable to those Nazi atrocities. But the Dr. Grosses of that time did not think what they were doing was atrocious; rather, they believed they were benefiting mankind with their research. The first step to that numbing of the conscience was taken when they decided what was lebensunwertes Leben. Today, we face much the same question.