Abortion & Inalienable Rights
- You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret. Your eyes saw my substance when I was yet unformed, and in Your book the days fashioned for me all were written when as yet there were none of them. PSALM 139:13-16
- The Lord made you and formed you from the womb. The Lord your Redeemer formed you from the womb. ISAIAH 44:2, 24
- The Declaration of Independence . . . will tell you that its authors held for self-evident truth that the right to life is the first of the inalienable rights of man – to secure and not to destroy, governments are instituted among men. 51 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, PRESIDENT; DIPLOMAT; LEGISLATOR
- With consistency, beautiful and undeviating, human life from its commencement to its close is protected by the common law. In the contemplations of law, life begins when the infant is first able to stir in the womb. By the law, that life is protected.
In the American governing philosophy set forth in the Declaration and then subsequently secured in the Constitution, protecting the right to life is so important that it is the first of the three specifically-enumerated inalienable rights others were subsequently specified in the Bill of Rights. Our governing documents also make clear that the most important function of government is to protect inalienable rights. Thomas Jefferson affirmed that government is to “enforce only our natural inalienable rights and duties and to take none of them from us,” and James Wilson even declared that “every government which has not this in view as its principal object is not a government of the legitimate kind”.
American government was established on the thesis that certain rights come from God rather than men and that government is to protect those rights inviolable. So long as the recognition remains that God-given rights cannot be infringed, then those rights will remain safe; if that conviction is lost, government will then begin to regulate, alter, and even repeal those rights.
In fact, experience regularly attests that if a government leader is willing to violate the foremost of all inalienable rights , then he will also disregard other inalienable rights. That is, if a leader does not support the inalienable right to life, then he will almost certainly be wrong on the protection of private property , the Biblical right of self defense , the right of religious expression , the sanctity of the home , etc. In short, if a leader refuses to recognize the role of God in the creation of life and does not pledge himself to protect that first of all inalienable rights, then all other individual rights are also in danger. Barack Obama has never voted to protect unborn life either as a state senator in Illinois 55 or as a U. S. Senator. 56 Furthermore, he is a sponsor of the deplorable Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) 57 – a federal law that would prohibit all restrictions on abortion, including even the current state bans on partial-birth abortions as well as parental consent and parental notification laws.
Thomas Jefferson’s clarion warning from two centuries ago still rings true today:
Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? – that they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just – that His justice cannot sleep forever.
Where a candidate stands on the issue of abortion is of paramount importance and is also the most accurate indicator of how likely he is to protect other inalienable rights.