If you want to know why so many pro-lifers refuse to endorse Sen. John McCain for President despite McCain's soild pro-life record, look no further than last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life.

In August of 2004, Wisconsin Right to Life wanted to run three television ads asking Wisconsin residents to contact the state's two U.S. senators and urge them not to filibuster President Bush's pro-life judicial nominees. But after Aug. 15, running those ads would have been a federal crime.

The Democratic Senate primary was 30 days later, and one of Wisconsin's senators, Russ Feingold, was up for reelection. He just happened to be a co-sponsor of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law that had passed two years before. How convenient that his law banned Wisconsin Right to Life from running ads even mentioning his name within 30 days prior to the election.

Like many non-profit groups, Wisconsin Right to Life is incorporated. The McCain-Feingold law bans all corporations, for-profit and not, from using their general funds to pay for any "electioneering communication" within 30 days before a federal primary election and 60 days before a federal general election.

On Monday the Supreme Court ruled that Wisconsin Right to Life was denied its constitutional right to free speech. Its forbidden ads were protected by the First Amendment because they were not the "functional equivalent" of express advocacy. The ads "may reasonably be interpreted as something other than an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate," the court concluded.

That is how the First Amendment is dissected under Sen. McCain's law. Immediately prior to an election, citizens gathered into a corporate body for organizational purposes may finance advertisements that do not urge other citizens to vote for or against a political candidate, but they may not finance ads that do.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances," stated the First Amendment until John McCain got hold of it.

The court ought to have struck down that entire provision of McCain-Feingold. Sadly, it did not. And so the First Amendment, as amended by Sen. McCain, still reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press except as Congress sees fit for the purposes of fighting political corruption or the appearance thereof."