As most of you probably know by now, former Illinois congressman Henry Hyde passed away early this morning. Hyde, a 16-term legislator and former Democrat, was passionately pro-life. The National Right to Life Committee issued a statement on his death which included this, probably Hyde’s best-remembered commentary on the issue of abortion:

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?’

For Hyde, whose 1976 amendment banning the federal funding of abortion has likely saved thousands of lives — maybe hundreds of thousands — the answer should be, “Yes, Lord. I tried.”