February 8, 2023
Abortion zealots would tell you that our nation’s founders were mystified about whether human life existed in the womb. They insist that those who wrote and affirmed in the Declaration of Independence that all are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” meant registered voters, perhaps. Such assertions are politically silly and historically inaccurate. Consider that to address the mistakes in how Black Americans were treated, the 14th Amendment was passed so that the nation could made it clear that such rights included all of us.
But here we are again.
Students for Life of America and SFLAction believe the next big thing the pro-life movement is to coalesce around what we are calling “The 14th Amendment for All.”
The door is open for legislation, under Section Five of the 14th Amendment, that would affirm legal protection for the preborn. The 14th Amendment guarantees that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The fifth section gives Congress the power to enforce, “by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
Our goal would be to create a national rallying cry and new focus for the pro-life movement from the Supreme Court to Congress, to both legislate and litigate on the fact that preborn children are persons under the 14th Amendment.
Plans are underway for a national Celebrate Life Day Rally in June in the nation’s capital so that we can come together again as a people, affirming the right to life of all of us, and not just those old enough to vote.
Analysis by Rebecca Hagelin notes that support for preborn life was clear when the 14th Amendment was ratified, observing:
“We lost the argument about the intrinsic value of innocent human life under the law, simply because we failed to make it.
“Michael Farris, president of Alliance Defending Freedom and one of the nation’s leading constitutional lawyers, explains the protection that so many miss: ‘In 1868 when the 14th Amendment was ratified, abortion was illegal in virtually every state most by statute, several by court decision.
“‘Why? Because advances in medicine in the early part of the 1800s changed the scientific understanding of life. Previously, life was thought to begin at quickening when the baby was large enough for the mother to feel it move. And before quickening, abortion was often permitted,’ Mr. Farris said.
“‘But new science revealed that life actually begins at conception. Doctors, legislators, and judges moved to the overwhelming consensus that life should be protected from that point,’ he said. ‘When the 14th Amendment declared that no person should be denied life without due process of law, it was agreed that unborn children were included in the category of protected persons. The Constitution has been pro-life since 1868.’”
Abortion never was written in invisible ink in the Constitution unseen until 1973. And Abortion is not hidden there now, tucked away in new corners.
What can be clearly read in the 14th Amendment speaks for itself and for the rights of the preborn. And a person’s a person, no matter how small.
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