NEVERTHELESS, We Have a Better Way

As Americans, many of us are familiar with the thinking of our Founding Fathers and thus gain understanding of our natural, God-given rights and their unalienable nature.

Some of those rights include:

1. Life

2. Liberty

3. Property

4. the Pursuit of Happiness

5. Freedom to practice religion as we see fit

6. Freedom of speech

7. Freedom of peaceful assembly, to associate with those we choose

There are many more rights than those listed here, some enumerated, as above, and some unenumerated, but understood. We are a nation of Laws and have therefore established laws that protect these rights. Additionally, the supreme Law of the Land, the Constitution, charges the government “of, by, and for the people” to protect these rights and assure that these rights are not violated.

Some claim that there is a human right that justifies a woman choosing to kill her unborn child.

I have searched the Constitution, and my mind and spirit, in an attempt to uncover this, so-called, “right” that, in fact, violates the basic right to Life that occupies #1 on my list. Without the right to Life, no other rights exist or are needed.

What need have we of Property, Happiness, Religion, Free Speech, or Assembly, if we have no unalienable right to Life? Does the Life that is inherent in the right to Life begin only upon exiting the birth canal? What are we to call it before that point in time? Why do we prosecute as criminals those who unlawfully take the life of a fetus? How do our laws differentiate between the crime of a criminal who takes the life of a fetus and the crime of abortion that ends the life of the unborn.

Allow me, please, to address our actions from the Bible. I will refer to the story of Jonah, and whether one chooses to accept the facts of the Book of Jonah as true, or as a story meant for other purposes, is not germane to my argument, because my point will be made before the whale enters Jonah’s life and is centered, not on Jonah, but on the other men on the ship with Jonah.

So, Jonah was on the run from the LORD and fell asleep in the hold of a ship on the way to Tarshish when a great storm arose. The ship’s crew all began to pray to their individual gods with little success. When the shipmaster came upon Jonah asleep in the hold, he was surprised that Jonah was not praying to his god for deliverance. As was wont in those days, the crew decided to cast lots in hopes of finding the offender causing the storm.

“So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them. Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them.”

A couple of points: Regardless of the religious affiliations of each of the crew members they did accept the right of others to believe as they chose. Additionally, they questioned Jonah after the lot fell to him and became alarmed when they discovered he was on the run from his God and accepted that their predicament was due to him. They, thus, asked him, as the representative of the God of the Hebrews, how to alleviate the danger they were in.

Jonah, as the representative of the God of the Hebrews, thus the mouthpiece of God, instructed them to cast him into the sea and the sea would calm, taking upon himself the blame for the tempest. What occurred next is my point…

“NEVERTHELESS“… there it is. The men sought the council of the man of God but, when it offended their sensibilities, came up with what they considered to be a better and more compassionate solution. So rather than toss Jonah into the sea, “the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not.”

And there it is… we (usually liberals) have a better idea and we’re still at it today, ignoring conventional wisdom and time-proven answers and forging ahead with our better, kinder, more compassionate way, all to no avail. We ignore the common sense answer for a situation that is evident right before our eyes and develop a better plan. In fact, such is the better plan of ignoring the Right to Life in favor of a woman’s human right to terminate the growing life within herself, a practice that we were assured would be rare and safe is neither rare nor safe. To speak of “safe abortion” is DoubleSpeak that would cause George Orwell to spin in his grave, because there is nothing safe about a procedure that ends the life of one of the participants. Additionally, a million U.S. abortions a year is not rare; the sowing of this evil has reaped 63 million abortions since the advent (1973) of legalized, government sanctioned and protected abortion, in the US, and 40-to-50 million abortions worldwide every year.

NEVERTHELESS, we have a better way.