It’s a good sign when the National Abortion Rights Action League goes crazy over a top-level government appointment. You know NARAL’s panicked when they accuse someone of “hostility to women’s constitutional right to abortion.” So are their allies like the ACLU. It’s doubly good when the appointee is the former and up-coming Attorney General of the United States, William Barr.

He knows there is no “constitutional right” to abortion. There is no constitutional right to fly in an air balloon, either. The invention of this “right” supposedly is found in a right to privacy.

Three cheers for privacy. My front door is locked for safety, yes, but my family and I like our privacy, too, just as you and yours do. “High fences make good neighbors,” as the old saying goes.

Doesn’t Extend to Abortion

That’s where William Barr’s nomination comes in. In his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 1991, when the first President Bush appointed him to be AG, he said his views about a “right to privacy” were unsettled. He was sure of one thing: “I do not believe it extends to abortion.”

He said point blank that “the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion was wrongly decided and should be overturned.” Abortion law should be a matter for the states.

Imagine that: A belief that the Constitution’s account of state authority, found in the Tenth Amendment, was relevant to a Supreme Court ruling. What a novel idea, right?

Barr and the ‘Right to Choose’

So, of course the left is upset by — beyond upset, truly fearful of — the Barr nomination. “Barr is an unequivocal opponent of women’s right to choose when and whether to have a child. This is probably the single most important civil right for women,” says the ACLU. Consider that for a minute. Unlimited access to abortion is a woman’s “most important” civil right. Not life. Nor liberty. Not the pursuit of happiness. Not all those little things mentioned in the Bill of Rights.

The news media are also flummoxed by someone who’s openly pro-life. According to the PBS Newshour, Barr “stirred some controversy with his views on abortion.” Why is giving voice to what loads of legal scholars believe about the Constitution and tens of millions of Americans believe about unborn life controversial?

Did the media declare Barack Obama’s picks for the Supreme Court and for Attorney General “controversial” when they repeated the standard liberal line about “a woman’s right to choose,” completely excluding the value and rights of the unborn baby? Even though tens of millions Americans completely rejected that idea?

Barr, the Role of Law, and Abortion

NARAL and its peers don’t just oppose William Barr because he’s pro-life. They’re truly fearful of him because he knows what they’re up to. He knows they don’t just care about “rights.” They want to change America.

He explained this in 1997, in a significant article in the journal Catholic Lawyer. “Through legislative action, litigation, or judicial interpretation,” he wrote, “secularists continually seek to eliminate laws that reflect traditional moral norms. Decades ago, we saw the barriers to divorce eliminated. Twenty years ago, we saw the laws against abortion swept away.”

He continued with a perceptive statement about the way law influences how the public thinks. “What is made legal will ultimately be viewed, by most people, as moral,” he explained. Abortion is the best example. Before Roe v. Wade, “the vast majority of Americans believed that abortion was a moral evil, an abomination, and a scandal. Since Roe, the number of Americans, including Catholics, who consider abortion a moral evil is steadily declining.”

For those of us who still believe abortion is an abomination, the destruction of one life and the abuse of another, the appointment of this courageous man is a refreshing masterstroke. No wonder the forces of death-in-the-name-of-choice are trembling.