Common Sense: When Discussing Liberty, It All Begins With Life
Many civics curricula incorrectly state that our nation’s founding document is the Constitution.
While it certainly formed the foundation of our system of government—and we’ll get to that in future installments—it didn’t found our country. It wasn’t even the Declaration of Independence, although we can find much of the principles that led to our nation’s founding in it.
The founding document is the Bible (cue the head explosions among the liberal-socialist-progressive-statist and atheist crowds).
But seriously, where do you think Thomas Jefferson came up with the concept that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were inherent rights endowed in all human beings by their Creator? He didn’t just think it up one day, because it received a warm reception at a party. He got the idea from the Bible.
Genesis 1:27 states, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
Genesis 2:7 also stated, “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.”
We were created by God. And as we read further, we learn from the story of the Garden of Eden that God gives us freedom to choose, that those decisions can lead to (eternal) life or death and that God’s desire is that we all choose life. Further examination shows that God does not want us to take the lives of others through murder.
So, physical life is a gift given to each of us by God, to be lived in accordance with His will, until the time He has appointed for the end of our physical being. That is why, among “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” life comes first.
It all begins with life.
If anyone may murder me, at any time, how could I possibly enjoy my right to liberty, or my right to pursue happiness? The honest answer is simple: You can’t. Without an innate, absolute right to life, there is no possible way for you to have any other absolute rights.
In my next installment, I will share with you a piece I authored a few years ago that references the kind of indisputable scientific evidence (the kind Planned Parenthood apologists love) to explain when and how life begins. That same evidence just happens to support everything you would find in the Bible.
The right to life is inalienable because we didn’t create it; God did. If we didn’t create it, it’s not ours to take. Not from others, including the unborn, or from ourselves (suicide).
Let’s look at what James Wilson, one of the few men to have signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (that makes him both a Founder and a Framer), and a U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice, had to say on the matter. He said:
“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.”
But that’s just one guy, you say. But, Wilson’s “Lectures on Law” were attended by nearly every other Framer, Founder and leading “enlightened freethinker” of the day. If he said it, you can be fairly certain every other leading American of his day believed it.
In fact, it’s a position supported by Sir William Blackstone and Henry de Bracton, who both had substantial influence on American jurisprudence. The fact that medical science continues to further their argument only compounds the indictment against our society as it continues to murder millions of unborn each year.
All of the old arguments for abortion, or for incrementalist approaches to ending abortion, are being wiped away. With the recent Center for Medical Progress videos and continued advances in technology as well as increased emphasis on science in the general education of our populace, it is impossible for anyone to reasonably argue they do not know they are ending another human life when they choose abortion.
It’s time we put away the tired, old “pro-life” label. All too often it is used as a shield to protect those who only seek to create new loopholes through which murder may be justified. Instead, this matter requires a very black and white solution.
You’re either for the abolition of human abortion, or you’re against it.
Bob Eschliman is an award-winning Iowa journalist with more than 16 years’ experience covering government and politics in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. He may be contacted at [email protected].
