PAtownhall.com
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
PAtownhall.com
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
by Peg Luksik
On this day, over 100,000 Americans gather in Washington to remind this nation that life is an inalienable right. They gather from every state, every age group, every economic group, every race and ethnicity, and every religion. They have gathered on this day every year since 1974, in cumulative numbers that now total over 2,000,000.
They are not paid to come. They are not protecting their jobs. They are not protecting their status. They are not seeking rights or benefits for themselves. There is absolutely no self-interest involved in their presence, since they are all already born. In fact, instead of gaining from their participation, many of them will lose a day's pay or vacation time and the expense of the trip itself.
They come because they understand that abortion is not just another issue. It is the front line in the advance of a new and dangerous philosophy. A philosophy that says that an individual is only a person with fundamental rights if...
Once an "if..." to someone's status as a person with rights is established, the particular circumstances of each "if..." can change at the whim of those in charge. The reason America is unique, as a nation and as a society, is that this country's founding documents eliminated the "if..." And throughout our history, we have consistently moved toward a more consistent achievement of that premise, whether the inconsistency was the result of race or religion or gender or ethnicity.
America's founding documents say that government's first responsibility is to safeguard the rights a person was endowed with by their Creator. Those fundamental rights cannot be legitimately denied or abridged by any government.
But abortion changes that. With the legalization of abortion, the government was not just making a statement about the personhood of unborn children. It was asserting that it had the power to determine whether any person or group of persons had rights at all. If the government can confer or eliminate a human right, then that right is no longer fundamental, it is conditional.
And government is no longer the servant of the people, instituted to protect the rights they already have. Instead, government is the master, the arbiter of which people may enjoy rights under what conditions and which people may be denied. Such a situation is the very definition of totalitarianism.
The people who gather in Washington every year, braving cold and sleet and snow, are standing for the philosophy that every American has fundamental rights. They are defending the premise that human rights cannot be legitimately removed by any government fiat. They are reminding all of us that if we do not defend our freedoms, we will lose them.
The right to our own life is the first and foremost of our human rights. Every life is a precious gift from a loving and eternal Creator, whether the person writes a symphony, discovers the cure for cancer, or comforts a crying child. Government's first and most important job is to preserve and protect each of those precious gifts.
Let us resolve today to celebrate every life. As Fiddler of the Roof's Tevye says, life is, "A gift we seldom are wise enough ever to prize enough." Fortunately, America is blessed with those who do recognize and prize this precious gift. It's time for all of us to join them in ensuring that our government does as well.
L'chai-im!
