Sunday, July 31, 2016

The Sanctity of Life, Constitutionally

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

With consistency, beautiful and undeviating, human life from its commencement to its close, is protected by the common law. In the contemplation of law, life begins when the infant is first able to stir in the womb. By the law, life is protected not only from immediate destruction, but from every degree of actual violence, and, in some cases, from every degree of danger.” ― James Wilson

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, after explaining that people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” enumerates three of those rights, with life listed first. It reads, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Since 1973’s Roe v. Wade ruling there have been nearly 60 million abortions in the United States.

The definition of what a right is comes from the concept of Natural Law. Jefferson penned Natural Rights as being “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”  In the final sentence of the Declaration of Independence, the signers articulated the importance of God when it came to their endeavors. “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Divine Providence is defined as, “The care and superintendence which God exercises over His creatures.”

The sanctity of life, and the existence of a Creator, are intimately intertwined. The greatest of God’s granted rights to humanity is life.

The destruction of life is among the goals of the Alinsky tyrant. If life is devalued, so is individuality. Without individuality, the person becomes nothing more than a mindless automaton, a generic worker for the state. However, to destroy life openly would never be acceptable, so the strategy by statism must be first to desensitize the public’s attitude towards death, and then dehumanize the people so that they believe they are nothing more than animals who have no right to hope for more than mere existence.

A culture of death has emerged in our modern political environment.

Abortion has become an issue the liberal left statists are willing to violently defend. The statists are adamant about continuing federal funding for the slaughter of over a million babies per year.

In California, in order to attempt to overpower the opposition, pro-life pregnancy centers are being required to advertise abortion clinics. The radical, pro-abortion law took effect in December of 2015. AB775 is known as the Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care and Transparency (FACT) Act. (www.breitbart.com/california/2015/05/26/california-passes-bill-forcing-pro-life-centers-to-push-abortion). The law in California bullies pro-life non-profits, demanding that they promote abortions, or be punished by the full force of law.

The pro-abortion law affects about 150 pro-life non-profits, forcing them to choose between advertising abortions or facing fines of up to $1,000 if they do not comply.

A number of centers are refusing to abide by the law. Some cities, in support of their local pro-life pregnancy centers, have even passed ordinances declaring they would not enforce the new State law.

The idea of compelling death upon an organization that champions life may not seem that big of a deal to some people. Society, as a whole, has been successfully desensitized to casually accept unnatural death. Late term abortion is gaining wider acceptance, and even post-birth abortion is being considered with no more than a shrug. Planned Parenthood was exposed for participating in the sale of baby organs while America was approaching the 2016 Presidential Primaries. Not only did the leftist establishment attempt to justify the gruesome activity as benefiting the common good, but then turned against the film-maker who exposed Planned Parenthood’s illegal practices with all legal guns blazing.

As the pro-abortion argument goes, in the beginning abortion was a simple procedure sought by young women, or teenagers, hoping to eliminate an unwanted pregnancy so that the reality of life with a baby would not interfere with the woman’s future plans. To these people, babies are seen as “mistakes,” or “punishment.”

As time has passed abortion has become nothing more than another means of birth control, expanding the practice into other age groups. In a discussion with the executive director of a pro-life pregnancy center, Janette Chun of Birth Choice Temecula, I asked if she knew why her records showed the age group of those seeking abortions are older than in the past. She told me it was partially due to the emergence of the “morning after pill,” which allows young women to purchase abortion in a pill over the counter immediately after having a sexual encounter that they fear may result in pregnancy.

A doctor who volunteers his time at a pro-life pregnancy center told me that the problem is “these young women pop the morning after pill like they are tic-tacs, not realizing all of the side effects that accompany these drugs.”

With the liberal left statist’s strategies of desensitizing death in full swing as it is in our present day society, it is no wonder that gunmen find it perfectly fine to stroll right into gun-free zones and start blowing people away.

The murder of the pre-born is being equated with women’s health. Women are being convinced that turning against their own children and slaughtering them in the womb is somehow a healthy thing to do.

The goal of tyranny is to convince the public to let go of their individualism. Their humanity is flawed, therefore, their humanity must be denied. If human life has no more value than that of an animal, people can be controlled, and even killed, by the government without as much as the fluttering of an eyelid by members of society who have come to believe such atrocities are necessary for the benefit of the collective. Individualism, as far as the statist tyrants are concerned, must be shed. Life is an illusion. To consider life to be a right is to stand against the state, and that cannot be allowed. The good of the community supersedes any personal right of an individual, when government is ruled by a statist tyranny – even one’s right to life.

In today’s political environment, two of the primary issues dealing with life is abortion, and euthanasia. Both practices can be beneficial to a statist tyranny, and destructive to a system of liberty. The first can be used to control the birthrate of undesirable populations as a part of a eugenics strategy. The latter can be useful to remove members of society who are no longer useful to the overall functioning of the collective.

The federal government has no expressly granted constitutional authority to be involved in the issues of abortion, or euthanasia. The right to life, as with all other rights enumerated, or not enumerated (but, covered by the Ninth Amendment) in the Bill of Rights, is a State issue. Congress shall make no law regarding abortion or euthanasia, and our right to life shall not be violated by any action by the federal government.

Protecting the sanctity of life is a battle not only to save lives, but to preserve the very foundation of the American System we enjoy. While saving lives is an important goal, the battle must also be viewed in a long-term manner. The right to life is a spiritual, political, and cultural war that contains many fronts – and on all of those fronts, perception is the key.

Unfortunately, the pro-life movement has created an image of angry protesters shoving morbid signs depicting dead babies in the faces of frightened young women. Pro-life advocates are viewed as doctor killers, and people who support planting bombs at abortion clinics, killing the personnel inside. Therefore, protests in front of abortion clinics by people with angry faces and carrying signs with shocking imagery is no longer the best approach to take. The foundation of our reasoning is not anger, anyways. Why would we use violence as a tool to stop the violence against the unborn? It’s like slapping your child to get them to quit slapping their sibling. The message sent is a mixed one that cannot be properly understood.

The pro-life movement is about saving lives, so it must also be about saving the mother’s emotional life, as well. The concern over the sanctity of life is one born of love, so the message and the actions of the pro-life community needs to convey that message. We love those unborn people losing their lives, and we should also love the ones who were adversely affected by the decision to end the lives of unborn babies. Therefore, in addition to a pro-life war department, there must also be a voice of love department that is geared towards aiding pregnant women and their children, and providing aid and counseling to assist those women after they have decided to go through an abortion.

We may be appalled that these women had an abortion, but we should also understand that after an abortion it is then that they need our prayers and counseling most.

The “other side” of the issue is populated by many different kinds of people. The leaders, the proponents of death who truly believe that abortion and euthanasia are good for society, are normally the same people who support Marxism, and are normally the people who have an issue with God. They are the warriors who encourage abortion, and use legislation and court decisions to further their cause. It is those folks who our “pro-life war department” must engage with on the political and spiritual battlefields. They are the “enemy,” and engaging with them is necessary to alter the framework of the liberal left statist movement from a political point of view. The cultural front of the war, however, cannot be filled with the same strategies we use on the political and spiritual battlefield. On the cultural front the tactics must be adjusted to the task at hand. We must be ready to listen, and learn what it was that led the person to seek the solution of abortion. Then, we can pocket that intelligence report, and use it to create new fronts against the cultural causes, rather than simply battling the symptoms.

On the political front, I would hope that the issue would return to the States where it constitutionally belongs, and that the States would, one by one, outlaw abortion and euthanasia across the board. However, reality dictates that a bulk of the population has been trained to believe the propaganda supporting the culture of death. Therefore, our victories may not always be as large and effective as we would like them to be. Sometimes we have to settle for what is politically possible. “Politics is the art of the possible.” -- Otto Von Bismark.  Rather than being viewed as concession, sometimes small advances must be viewed as a step in the right direction.

Chief Justice Blackmun, in his opinion of the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973, also offered us language that should assist in our battle to change the legal landscape regarding the issue of abortion. He wrote, “We don’t know when life begins.”

In the 14th Amendment the language reads, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property.”

Based on Justice Blackmun’s offering regarding when life begins, if it can be legally determined that personhood begins at conception, which would mean that all unborn babies are “persons”, all of the arguments the opponents of the U.S. Constitution use to support their position on abortion will become null and void. Roe v. Wade, and any other instances of case law or legislation supporting the practice of abortion would no longer be valid.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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