Friday, March 21, 2003


Former presidential candidate talks of war, abortion

By CHRISTINA STUEVE
News Tribune

COLUMBIA -- Alan Keyes, a two-time Republican candidate for president, spoke of the war in Iraq and about abortion Thursday in Columbia.

"In the midst of war, you do not have the right to consciously aim your blows against innocent life," he said in an address at the Open Arms Crisis Pregnancy Center annual banquet.

"That is what is so chilling and terrible and evil about the terrorist mind. The terrorist doesn't just fight war. The terrorist is directing with malice an act of violence against the innocent," he said.

In war, soldiers don't fight to target the enemy's body, but they target the enemy's will. "Break the will. Break the basis for the fight and it's over," he said.

The decision to go to war isn't always evil. "Sometimes you have to fight in defense of innocent life," he said.

Keyes hasn't seen a war with this much division. "How do people fight when they're conflicted and confused and they believe what they're fighting for isn't right?" he asked.

"I think it gets worse, because in war, it gets harder," he said. "At the beginning, you think of all those who have died. Before the end of it, we have to think of all those we must kill," he said.

The front lines of physical conflict aren't in front of the struggle. The frontlines are here. "It is a battle to establish the truth with integrity, which allows us to judge rightly and see clearly," here, he said.

When Americans ask for God's blessing against terrorism, they are asking while they consciously target innocent life. "It is the life of the most precious innocent," he said.

The child in the womb reflects a responsibility. "On 9/11, the evil that struck us was a shadow of the evil we do," he said.

Americans are a people under judgment. Evil is at the heart of abortion, he said. Keyes told the audience God can't hear prayers from a people who commit abortions.

He said hope doesn't lie in the hands of legislators and congressmen, it lies with the people. "Choices are made in homes, they are made wherever we are," he said.

Open Arms stands on the front line for American's moral survival, he said. Keyes encouraged members of the audience to volunteer and contribute to the crisis pregnancy center.

"Will you dedicate to life? You can do it by being a volunteer," he said.

His hour-long speech drew a standing ovation before and after he was done. More than 600 people paid $20 a ticket to hear him.

Keyes was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council from 1981-1987. He earned a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University. The speech was given for the Open Arms center, an abortion alternative service group.

John Drage, a campus minister at University of Missouri Columbia, told the group before he introduced Keyes, there are children in the area who might be missing if it weren't for Open Arms.

"Revolutions start when the status quo is no longer good enough," he said.