“The mission of National Right to Life is to protect and defend the most fundamental right of humankind, the right to life of every innocent human being from the beginning of life to natural death.”
This statement on National Right to Life Committee’s (NRLC) home page seems to articulate a very clear stand that life begins at conception and ends at natural death, and that every life has value, regardless of the circumstances of conception, or “wantedness”, or abilities.
But are they being true to their mission statement? Has NRLC called politicians to these high standards, or have they, in the name of political expediency, compromised these standards in order to “pass a law”? Constantly claiming that saving “some lives” is better than nothing, they have compromised their core values and principles by deciding which lives are more worthy of protection than others. When you attempt to pass a law that states that abortion should be outlawed after 20 weeks because the “fetus” can feel pain, and is therefore a person, your argument for a ban on these abortions is based on the scientific fact that this “fetus” is a living human being. But then, when in this same law you allow for the “killing of this human being” because this human being was conceived through rape or incest, you have effectively negated your original argument. Is the rape conceived child less human? Does the rape/incest conceived child not feel pain? Or have you decided that you have the right to decide which life has value and which does not? You effectively articulated the pro-abortion argument, that the right of the mother to not be inconvenienced or suffer perceived mental harm usurps the right of the child to live. Those who espouse this continuous compromise, as the NRLC has, are asserting that “saving a few babies is better than none at all”. The problem is that they are waving the white flag of compromise before the battle begins. The concept of “saving a few” works when you are a pregnancy center or a sidewalk counselor. In the midst of the evil of legalized abortion, these tireless pro-life heroes are saving one child at a time. They do not ask the woman who comes in for a pregnancy test or an ultrasound if she was raped and then refer her to the abortion clinic. They do not ask the young woman walking up to the abortion clinic if she was raped or a victim of incest and then let her pass by…they work tirelessly to help EVERY WOMAN and EVERY BABY irrespective of the circumstance without discrimination. Those who propose legislation that humanizes the baby and asserts that every life is uniquely designed by God and has the right to life, and then in this same legislation take a specific class of babies and with an exception clause, DENY these babies the same right afforded to others, are not sacrificing a small number for the good of all, they are denying the dignity and right to life of ALL babies.
When as an organization you continually state that legislation that saves some until we can save all (again I make a distinction between passing laws and reaching out to women and their babies individually) is better than nothing, you are assuming that saving all is impossible. You do not even allow for the idea that we could actually outlaw abortion, thus saving all. You admit defeat before taking the battlefield. You believe that you can merely limit it and that is the best possible outcome. When making the argument for such laws, some throw out wildly hypothetic numbers like “this law will save 99.4% of abortions”, with absolutely no proof that such a law would come close to that accomplishment. 41 years of this strategy has done very little to limit abortions and stating that abortion numbers are lower because of these toothless laws fails to take into account the increased use of birth control or chemical abortions, that more young people (who account for more than 50% of abortions) are not having sex, and that STI rates have created increases in infertility rates for young women between the ages of 16 and 30.
When supporters of these toothless, flawed pieces of legislation are not wildly overestimating their effectiveness and actually are more realistic about the impact, I hear this argument:
“So it’s not good that 15% of babies were not aborted? So we do nothing and let them die until we can save them all?” (direct quote from another pro-life leader) Why are we settling for 15% out of hand? When are you actually going to try to save them all? I feel like a wife that has found out her husband has been cheating with multiple woman over a period of years. He is repentant, but tells her that he cannot possibly stop immediately so he plans to restrict his cheating to only a few women and only when he is 500 miles away from home. This will greatly reduce the number of women and incidents of his adultery and “surely that is better than nothing at all”? How can I possibly expect him to simply be faithful immediately?! He claims he will make these changes WHILE he works hard at becoming a 100 percent faithful husband. Really?!! Is that what we have to settle for?
Wake up my brothers and sisters. The battle is at hand, and yes there are lives at stake! Many lives, and playing games politically with how many lives are worth saving and making decisions about who wins and loses before the game even begins, leaves us with thousands upon thousands of unborn children dead. How long must we wait? How many more compromises must we endure? I am praying that God will raise up an army of believers who will once again stand upon the legal, constitutional, moral and divine truth we claim we believe. May we abort all agreements with our enemies that end with the words, “and then you can still kill these children”, and may we see a generation rise up that is not content with merely limiting child-killing, but abolishing it all together!
