We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – Preamble to the Declaration of Independence
It’s time to choose. Despite all the noise, the choice between the two major candidates can be reduced to a discussion about the Constitution. And that Constitutional discussion can be further distilled down to one issue: abortion. This is true whether you’re a conservative Christian, a liberal atheist, or anything in between.
But this isn’t “simply” an issue of reproductive rights; this is more fundamental than that; the issue is where our rights come from.
Prior to Roe v. Wade (1973) William F. Buckley devoted an issue of his magazine to the implications of a Supreme Court decision supporting abortion. One author (I don’t remember who) suggested a pro-abortion decision would lead to euthanasia for the terminally ill, assisted suicide for the depressed, government healthcare plans that prioritized treatment based on costs, abortions for children with birth defects and later for those with complicated healthcare issues, tailored ‘reproduction’ where children would only be “allowed to live” if they were “just right,” etc.
These suggestions were derided as ridiculous. One generation later virtually all of it is true someplace, and may soon be true in the US.
Mrs. Clinton, and Democratic Party leadership, believes in an unlimited right to abortion. And, whenever the issue of any restrictions on abortions has surfaced, she and her peers have vehemently opposed it. Their ardor in defense of abortion rights translates into defense of the authority to define when life begins. And ultimately when it ends. Such an authority expands from there: to support state controlled termination of life support for the ill (even as they argue for state controlled healthcare), is to assert that the state defines not only when life begins and ends, but what quality of life is acceptable, and what isn’t.
But, if the state defines when life begins – which is the very essence of the abortion “right” – and what life is worthwhile (and what life isn’t) and can define when and how life ends, then the state fully controls our first right, the key right of all those derived from God (or nature if you prefer). The unbounded “right” to abortion thus requires supplanting God with the state.
But, when the state defines life, and death, your right to life is no longer absolute. In fact, it becomes contingent on the decisions of the state. Life is no longer “unalienable,” no longer “endowed by our creator.” Rather, it is conditional, and derived from the state. And if government controls our right to life, then all lesser rights – and all rights are lesser than life – are controlled, derived from the state; our rights are nothing but ‘grants’ given to us by benign dictators.
And then the rights protected by the Constitution and Bill of Rights will no longer come from God (or nature); they will come from, and be defined by, government.
The 58 million abortions in the US since 1973 (1.5 billion worldwide) is, if you believe in the soul, a horror of incalculable dimensions. But it might lead to even greater horror. The pieces are already in place; what is happening elsewhere will happen here, beginning slowly, assuming a progressive justice is appointed to the Supreme Court: first, Catholic hospitals will be ordered to perform abortions. Then what? Assisted suicide? Euthanasia? Termination of medical support to ‘ease suffering’ and ‘ending the burden on loved-ones?’ It’s begun in Europe. Perhaps the “right to abortion” will grow and change, until only those deemed worthy by the state will be allowed to give birth. The doors will be wide open, limited only by the imaginations of bureaucrats and academicians.
Progressives will protest this is nonsense, as they did 43 years ago. They were wrong then, they are wrong now.
This election will select a president who’ll either strengthen government’s hold on our rights, or one who’ll defend the premise that rights derive not from the ruling elite, but come from outside us, from God. Mrs. Clinton has firmly stated her position on the side of abortion and government oversight of rights. Mr. Trump, for all his weaknesses, has promised to defend our rights. That is the choice we face.