Seeing Life Clearly: Justice for the Most Vulnerable

With the recent passage of legislation in New York that would make abortion legal up to the moment of birth (in a state where one third of all pregnancies already end in abortion) – and with the subsequent suggestion by Virginia’s sitting governor that abortion should be permitted even in the moments after delivery – our culture’s decades-long embrace of legalized abortion seems to have reached its tragic but inevitable zenith.

This is not progress.

This is not compassion.

It is madness.

With every passing year, science further illuminates the reality that life in the womb is unique and distinct, and therefore worthy of protection. Human beings have unique DNA from the moment of conception, and that same DNA is present at the moment of birth.

Let us be unequivocal: Abortion at any stage of development is the taking of a human life. Science, progress, reason and common sense confirm this. Because this is true, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness applies to babies in the womb just as much as to every other citizen.

We understand and are sympathetic to the reality that there are desperate situations and difficult pregnancies. Not every baby will be healthy. Not every pregnancy will be planned or desired. Yet even when confronted with these complex realities, are we really serving women, or the greater good, by embracing abortion? That is not enlightenment; it is defeatism. Women are not being valued or empowered when society tells them that the solution to a difficult or even unwanted pregnancy is to terminate it.

Protecting life in the womb is not first and foremost a religious issue, or a political one. It is a question of justice and human rights. As Dr. Mildred Jefferson, the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School famously said, “I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged and the planned have the right to live.”

Thankfully, the upcoming generation seems to grasp this. Most reliable polls show a strong shift toward pro-life views among American millennials. They understand that legalized abortion is simply not compatible with a society that claims to embrace the virtues of justice, inclusion and community. They recognize the disconnect between promoting compassion and care for the poor and vulnerable so long as their government systemically embraces a practice that targets and eliminates the most defenseless members of society.

The old guard is passing away. The tired institutions that have long upheld abortion as a beacon of freedom and empowerment (when it is, in fact, the antithesis of those things) have had their day. Now is the time for the next generation to rise up and embrace a better way – a way that truly empowers women while at the same time protecting the most vulnerable among us.

In the name of the dignity and worth of every human life, and in the interest of true progress, may we as a nation push back against the culture of abortion once and for all.

It’s time.