A person’s a person, no matter who’s President

A person’s a person, no matter who’s President

Last year, our outgoing President proclaimed January 18, 2009, as “National Sanctity of Human Life Day.” This year, however, we are more likely to get a White House proclamation (like this (http://www NULL.whitehouse NULL.gov/the_press_office/StatementofPresidentObamaonthe36thAnniversaryofRoevWade)) celebrating the abomination that is Roe v. Wade.

Regardless of who is the chief executive—be it King George, President George, or President Barack—the right to life remains sacred and unalienable precisely because it is not a gift of government or our temporary leaders. Life is an endowment of Almighty God, Who defines its conception and numbers our days.  The laws of nature and of nature’s God unanimously proclaim that human life begins at conception; when will our laws catch up?

For 37 years from tomorrow, our country has presumed to shorten the days of 50 million unborn children to a life span of mere weeks, terminating with what is usually a violent and painful dismemberment.  A nation that dares not treat its animals as poorly as it treats its unborn children has its priorities exactly backwards.

A victory has been apparently gained (or rather, a defeat held back) in the failure of Congress to pass a health care takeover bill that includes taxpayer funding for abortions.  But what does it say of a republic whose representatives are not fighting over whether babies should be destroyed in the womb, but over whether taxpayer dollars should be appropriated to pay for such an act?  We cannot be satisfied with such stop-gaps. We must not.

For decades, pro-life advocates have successfully implemented certain regulatory hurdles to abortion (parental consent/notification, informed consent, etc.) or even a ban on a particular infanticide procedure (partial-birth abortion).  Yet abortion in all stages of pregnancy remains legal in every state of the union.   Every prevented abortion saves a life, but we have mostly succeeded in merely trimming the edges off of the monstrosity of legalized abortion. These restrictions on abortion, for the most part, still end with the result: “and then you can kill the baby.”

And from beginning to end, this is primarily because of Roe v. Wade and its judicial offspring. That judicial decision, though modified somewhat in later cases, not only causes judges to strike down any law that significantly burdens the ability of a mother to take her child’s life, but also strangles in its crib any aggressively pro-life laws or amendments because even would-be supporters are afraid of a lawsuit against it or worried about the current make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court.

There is still a crack in Roe‘s armor, however, that has not even been thrust at.  As one prominent judge once wrote, in response to an argument that an unborn child was a “person” under the law,

“If this suggestion of [fetal] personhood is established, the [pro-abortion] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”

The author of that statement? Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote that in Roe v. Wade (http://www NULL.law NULL.cornell NULL.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO NULL.html). You see, the opinion that legalized abortion nationwide may contain a clue to its own downfall.

Just within the past year or two, initiatives and petitions in support of “Personhood” laws have been gaining momentum.  These Personhood bills require that the definition of “person” under state law includes any human being from the moment of conception. Such a law would overtly raise the status of unborn children to their rightful place, and as Justice Blackmun acknowledged, pull the rug out from under the pro-abortion constitutional argument.

This Personhood strategy has the potential to be the fatal blow to Roe.  For more information about the status of Personhood bills in your state, or to get behind the effort, check out Personhood USA (http://www NULL.personhoodusa NULL.com/) or Personhood.net (http://www NULL.personhood NULL.net/).

This is not to say that we should not continue our other pro-life efforts.  Reversing Roe is only the first step, since it would send the issue of abortion back to the states, and not all the states would outlaw abortion if that happened. We still need to be winning hearts and minds for life, whether outside the abortion mills or inside the halls of Congress and the courts.

We can march, like many will do tomorrow at the annual March for Life (http://www NULL.marchforlife NULL.org/) in Washington, D.C.  If you can’t be at the Nation’s Capitol, sign yourself up as a virtual marcher at the Virtual March for Life (http://www NULL.virtualmarchforlife NULL.com/). There are already 50,000 virtual marchers ready to go!

For those in the Montgomery, Alabama area, you can come out to a city-wide Sanctity of Life Prayer service (http://www NULL.evangeltemple NULL.org/index NULL.php?/events/montgomery_sanctity_of_life_prayer_service/) at Evangel on Vaughn Road on Jan. 24 at 6:00 p.m.

The point is, do something for life, especially in this week of Sanctity of Human Life Week.  The daunting Goliath of legalized abortion can scare many pro-life people into thinking that they can’t do everything or that anything they do will accomplish nothing, so they do precisely that: nothing.  Each of us can do something to save a life.

Is not each unborn life worth some of our time and effort to save it? God thought you were worth saving. Regardless of who is in power, life is still sacred, and a person is still a person, no matter how small.

(http://www NULL.addtoany NULL.com/share_save)