Henry Hyde, champion of life

With the death Thursday of former U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde, this nation has lost a rare public servant who spoke his conscience about the sanctity of human life.

He first made waves on pro-life issues in 1976, when he added an amendment to an appropriations bill that stopped Medicaid from paying for abortions. Hyde later said he was surprised to win that vote, but since then the Hyde Amendment has been prominent in U.S. law.

Hyde was also prominent in the fight to ban the grisly practice of partial-birth abortions in a measure which was vetoed by President Clinton but finally signed into law by President Bush in 2003.

He was also well-known for his successful effort to help impeach President Clinton.

Among other issues, Hyde supported extending the Voting Rights Act, backed Clinton over a ban on assault weapons, fought for family-leave legislation and supported constitutional amendments requiring a balanced budget and prohibiting abortions, flag-burning and same-sex marriages.

But it was his pro-life efforts for which is probably best known and will be most remembered. President Bush, on learning of Hyde’s death, said: “This fine man believed in the power of freedom, and he was a tireless champion of the weak and forgotten. He used his talents to build a more hopeful America and promote a culture of life.”

Dr. Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said: “By conservative estimate, well over one million Americans are alive today because of the Hyde Amendment — more likely two million.”

Hyde, who was an accomplished orator, once asked an audience to imagine what it would be like upon dying to face God’s judgment:

“When the time comes as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I’ve often thought, as Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God and a terror will rip through your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there will be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, “Spare him because he loved us,” and God will look at you and say not, “Did you succeed?” but “Did you try?” “

Henry Hyde was 83 and died of complications from heart surgery.