We are seeing dramatic results in declining teen sexual activity, pregnancies and abortions because of the Bush Administration’s commitment to abstinence education. The abortion rate per thousand teens aged 15-19 has been cut in half since 1988. Adolescent pregnancy rates have dropped from 17.5 to a low of 8.1 per thousand – note that, given the decline in the teen abortion rates, this decline in pregnancies is obviously not because of any increase in the number of pregnancies that are being aborted. These numbers are particularly dramatic among the black population. Births to black 10-14 year olds are down 56 percent. Black child poverty has declined dramatically as black unwed teen birthrates have dropped by 40 percent. Policy counts!

We are finally reversing some of the negative impact of the misguided policies of the 1960s. We MUST continue to enact policies that produce desirable outcomes.

Today the five words, “Houston, we’ve got a problem” is part of the vernacular. With those words, Jim Lovell signaled ground controllers that Apollo 13 was threatened by a malfunction of the oxygen system. Gene Kranz, the flight director, will forever be remembered for having responded to the crisis by confronting his ground crew with an equally cryptic five-word demand: “Failure is not an option.” They went to work and — with the sort of American ingenuity of which we are all justly proud — brought the astronauts back home to earth safely. The celebration among Americans was like Christmas, New Year’s and the Fourth of July all rolled into one.

That was 1970. But then, three years later, the Supreme Court ruled that the lives of those who might one day become astronauts, football players, musicians, or even presidents, don’t count if they have not yet emerged from the womb. Thirty-four years later and 45 million children aborted, we should finally realize that POLICY COUNTS. And it is leaders in government, at all levels and in all branches, who make policy.

Today, the United States faces election 2008, and now more than the lives of just three American astronauts are on the line. The future of millions of unborn babies hangs in the balance. In truth, the policies enacted by the next administration will affect the lives of all Americans over the next few years. Will government policies be grounded in truth, justice, and reality, or will they once again be based on pie-in-the-sky utopian schemes?

If, heaven forbid, social conservatives stay home from the polls, we’ll end up seeing a crop of unrealistic policies sprout from the White House and Congress like dandelions on a warm spring day.