Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation

The 10th anniversary of the leading Court decision in Roe v Wade is a advantageous time for us to pause and throw back Our nationwide policy of abortion-on-demand from one side all nine months of pregnancy was neither vot for by means of our people nor enacted by dint of our legislators-not a single state had similar unrestricted abortion before the leading Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973 on the other hand the consequences of this judicial decision are now obvious: since 1973 more than 15 million unborn children have had their lives inhalationed out by legalized abortions. That is above ten times the number of Americans missing in all our nation's wars.

Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by means of the Constitution. No serious scholar, including individual disposed to agree with the Court's rise has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create of that kind a right. Shortly after the roebuck v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely now Dean of Stanford Law gymnasium wrote that the opinion "is not constitutional law and gives almost no faculty of perception of an obligation to make experiment of to be." Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution level hint at a "right" with equal reason sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. nevertheless that is what the Court ruled

As an act of "raw judicial power" (to use Justice White's biting phrase), the decision through the seven-man majority in roebuck v. Wade has so far been made to stick. on the other hand the Court's decision has by dint of no means settled the debate. Instead, roebuck v. Wade has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.

Abortion pertain tos not just the unborn child, it regards every one of us. The English author of poems John Donne, wrote: ". . any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore not at any time send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

We cannot diminish the value of single category of human life-the unborn-without diminishing the value of all human life. We saw tragic essay of this truism last year when the Indiana courts allowed the starvation death of "Baby Doe" in Bloomington because the child had Down's Syndrome

Many of our companion citizens grieve over the los of life that has followed roebuck v. Wade. Margaret Heckler, shortly after being nominated to head the largest department of our conduct Health and Human Services, told an audience that she believed abortion to be the greatest moral crisis facing our land today. And the revered Mother Teresa, who works in the ways of Calcutta ministering to dying clan in her world-famous mission of gentleness has said that "the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children."

Over the first sum of two units years of my Administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congres to turn upside down the tide of abortion-efforts of Congressmen Senators and citizens responding to an importunate moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, beneath the banner of "freedom of choice," have thus far blocked every effort to invert nationwide abortion-on-demand.

Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not fail to keep heart. This is not the first time our geographical division has been divided by a chief Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dr Scott decision of 1857 was not ed in a day, or a year, or flat a decade. At first, single a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by means of denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; on the contrary that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by dint of appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen to the verity of human dignity under the omnipotent From their example, we know that reverence for the sacred value of human life is too deep engrained in the hearts of our family to remain forever suppressed. on the contrary the great majority of the American clan have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot await them to-any more than the public voice arose against slavery-until the issue is clearly framed and presented

What, then, is the real issue? I have ofttimes said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about sum of two units lives-the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. for what cause [i]or[/i] reason else do we call a pregnant woman a mother? I have also said that anyone who doesn't have feeling sure whether we are talking about a next to the first human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don't know whether a material substance is alive or dead, you would not at any time bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist upon protecting the unborn.

The case against abortion does not ease here, however, for medical practice confirms at each step the correctness of these moral sensibilities. fresh medicine treats the unborn child as a patient. Medical pioneers have made great breakthroughs in treating the unborn-for genetic enigmas vitamin deficiencies, irregular heart harmonious flows and other medical conditions. Who can forget George Will's moving account of the little male child who underwent brain surgery six times during the nine weeks before he was born? Who is the patient if not that tiny unborn human being who can perceive pain when he or she is approached by means of doctors who come to kill rather than to cure?