The Most Important Right of All

Enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, but largely ignored by government, judges, and the public at large, is a right to life.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. " - Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson was a well-educated man, and the order in which he names the rights is neither accidental nor incidental.  That the right to life must come before all other rights is, if one thinks about it, a self-evident truth.  Of what use is freedom or rights to those who are dead?  They are beyond caring about the issues we find so absorbing.  They are also beyond the reach of earthly government laws, and are subject to laws of a much higher order if one believes in life after death. 

The reason the 2nd amendment, the right of the people to bear arms, was crafted was to protect that life from those who would seek to steal it by force.  Yet, in 1974, the government neatly ignored the logic and intention of the Constitution to create a "right" to abortion for women.  Sadly, almost 40 years later, the ignorance continues even and perhaps especially among the highly educated. Women such as Dana Kusnir who trumpet abortion as "one of the most important rights that a woman can have". Evidently, Ms. Kusnir does not understand what she is saying.  The most important right for any woman, whether born or unborn, is the right to life. The "right" to abortion deprives an unborn woman of that right.  It is an act of tyranny, an act so contrary to the intention and the logic of the Constitution that it begins to unravel the very fibers which hold the constitution together.

Abortion's legalization makes the right to life a right granted by the state, and thus an alienable right - one that can be given or removed at whim by the granter.  If the state can choose to give or to remove the right to life for the unborn, it can give or remove the right to life for anyone.  That's a dangerous power for any government, or any human being to have.  If the government can decide based on an arbitrary factor - whether a child is wanted or not - to permit an execution, what is there to stop that government from applying those same arbitrary factors to a born child or to a grown adult? When a born child or a grown adult is no longer wanted by parents or family or by the government themselves, what is there to stop the government from ordering its execution?

It's already happening all over the world. Switzerland allows "euthanasia" for mentally ill patients, who - if they are truly mentally ill could not be said to be of sound mind to make the necessary agreement to their death.  The Belgian parliament allows children to "choose for themselves" whether or not to be euthanized - as if children can be considered free of undue influence by caregivers or physicians themselves. The UK has authorized the euthanizing of autistic children and those with Alzheimer's disease, without the need for consent by the person being killed. The state giveth and the state taketh away.

An Open Letter to Representative Gwen Moore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-q0EP8HjA0

Dear Ms. Moore,

How sad I was to hear your remarks about the tragedy of kids having to eat Raman noodles and mayonnaise sandwiches and going without fresh fruit as a justification for providing funding to Planned Parenthood.  While your remarks might sound compassionate to some ears, they sounded cold and hard-hearted to mine.  What you said to a woman like me is that it is better that I were never born, better that my mother should have aborted me.

You see, my mother gave birth to four little unplanned blessings.  We did grow up eating Raman noodles. We never ate mayonnaise sandwiches but we did eat a whole lot of peanut butter and jelly.  That's not a tragedy. Things were hard, it's true, and sometimes we didn't get as full as we'd like.  We wore hand-me-downs from other kids, and sometimes we got made fun of because we didn't have the money for a haircut.  What we learned growing up, though, was important.  We learned how to make the best of what we did have, and we learned that life doesn't owe you anything. We learned to be creative and innovative, to see potential in things that other people think are junk.

I was 19 years old when I found myself pregnant with my own unexpected blessing.  I wasn't sure how I was going to make it. I didn't have a college degree, or a decent job. I didn't know how the future would go.  I simply decided to put my trust in God and I gave birth to a happy, healthy baby boy two weeks before my 20th birthday.

I wasn't the perfect mother, and we didn't have the perfect life. He's eaten his fair share of Raman noodles and peanut-butter jelly sandwiches. Nothing turned out the way I planned it, but that's the truth about parenthood - there is no planned parenthood, it's not a script or a formula, and it never turns out the way you thought it would.  I have an associates degree, but not a bachelor's like I planned.  I never did climb the corporate ladder and I have never made more than $70,000 in one year.  That unplanned blessing, though, saved my life.  I am a better person because he was born. So is the world.

Don't you dare tell me my life has no meaning because I had to eat a few bowls of Raman noodles, or I had to eat a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Don't you dare tell me my son's life is worthless because he had to do the same.  If you really want to help those kids, stop giving money to Planned Parenthood.  Planned Parenthood never once did anything that helped a kid in poverty to get out of it.  You can't eradicate poverty by exterminating the poor as if they were insects, Ms. Moore, and you can't end child abuse by destroying children.  If you really want to help the poor, Ms. Moore, and give those children something better to eat, then fight the HHS mandate so that people who actually value all life can continue to do the work they already do helping poor kids eat and live better.  Stop giving to Planned Parenthood and start giving to charities who actually value life.
Sincerely,

Brandy M. Miller

P.S. Growing up in poverty isn't a real tragedy.  Never being allowed to grow up at all because you were killed before you were born is.

Restoring Economic Freedom

It all started with the passing of the abomination of a bill known as Obamacare.  This law was supposed to care for the poor, making sure that no one went without health care services.  In reality, all it did was take away the freedom of Americans to decide when, where, and whether to purchase health insurance.  Next, the Obama Administration approved a mandate by the Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services which would require all employers, including religious organizations who served or employed people outside of their own faith, to purchase health insurance that would include free birth control, free abortion-inducing drugs, and free sterilizations to their employees. In response to the immediate and fervent uproar that arose from religious leaders of all faiths, the Obama Administration said that they would no longer require employers to provide the free birth control, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilizations to their employees.  The caveat, of course, was that the Administration has now mandated that all insurance carriers provide these things to those they insure.

This is not merely an issue of religious freedom, as many are calling it, but an issue of economic freedom. Will we allow this administration to tell us what we have to buy? Are we going to stand by while business owners are forced to provide services or carry products that they have no desire to provide?  Will we let the government dictate to retailers what items they must stock on their shelves? If they can force insurance carriers to provide these things, will they then force companies that carry pharmaceuticals to carry condoms, birth control pills, and abortion-inducing drugs?  Will they force doctors to write prescriptions for birth control pills and abortion-inducing drugs? Force them to perform sterilizations?  Does the government have the right to dictate to a business what products to carry or to tell an individual what services they must purchase?

When the government can dictate to you what products you must carry and what services you must offer, it stops being your business and starts being an arm of the government.  I am a small business owner.  I am firmly against birth control, sterilization, and abortion.  I do not wish to purchase health insurance that pays for those things as I know that any money I give to such a company is contributing to the problem.  I will not give my money to those companies.  I will go to jail first. I would rather lose ever possession I own than be responsible for the death of an innocent human being.  This isn't just an issue of religious freedom.  It's an issue of economic freedom, too, the right to dictate where and when and if I spend the money that I earn - and I'm not going to stand by and allow the government to take that freedom from me.  

Abortion: It's not just an issue. It's THE issue

Pop quiz: There is a fundamental human right that the framers of the Constitution deemed inalienable - meaning it was not something that anyone had the right to take from another - and without which, there is no other right possible.  Which human right would that be?

If you guessed that it's the right to privacy, you guessed wrong. If you guessed that it's the right to bear arms, you are equally wrong.  If you guessed that it's the right to pursue happiness, wrong again. Here's a hint: it's not mentioned in the Constitution at all, but is the first of the "inalienable" rights mentioned by the Declaration of Independence.  That inalienable right is the right to life.

If you think that Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that Declaration, just happened to place life at the forefront of the rights which all human beings have been "endowed by their Creator", I would contend you are sadly mistaken. You see, the right to life is the one right upon which all other rights hinge.

If you remove the right to life, then does it matter if the law has granted you liberty? If you remove the right to life, can a man pursue happiness? If you do not have life, does it matter if there is free health insurance? If you do not have life, can you speak up against or for going to war with this nation or that? If you do not have life, does race matter? If you do not have life, can you speak for the poor? All other issues matter ONLY if a human being has life! This is why abortion matters, and why it is so fundamental to the very underpinnings of our society and its destiny. This is what makes abortion not just AN issue, but THE defining issue of our times. When the government feels that it can strip one group of human beings of so fundamental a right as the right to life, there is no limit to the rights it will feel it can strip from all human beings.

There have been arguments given to permit abortion in cases of rape or incest. I ask you: does the nature of a human being change simply because of the method of its conception? No, of course not. Therefore, no child should have to suffer death for the crimes of its father. Is rape and incest a tragedy? Most certainly. However, you cannot fix one tragedy by causing another. Encouraging a woman to murder her own child will not bring healing to the heart of one who is suffering already from the psychological damage caused by rape and incest. She should be supported, helped, encouraged, sheltered, protected, and given every opportunity necessary to make the most of her life - but to help her in killing her unborn child will not free her from the damage done by that man's transgressions.  Furthermore, in killing the child you destroy the evidence which might secure a conviction against the one who has perpetrated this crime against her, and ensure that the rapist or the one who commits incest is left free to continue engaging in his criminal activities. The only one who is "helped" by providing an abortion to the incest or rape victim is the criminal, certainly not the woman.

And what shall we do in cases where the mother's health is endangered by her pregnancy? Work to save both lives! This is the only humane answer possible.  Although it may not be possible to get every person out of a burning building, we know it is only right that every effort is made to save all parties, and the same is true of a pregnancy. If we have made the effort to save them both, but one dies, we cannot do anything about that but at least we walk with a clear conscience. However, any nation who can support sacrificing the weak in order to save the strong is a nation who has lost the basic concepts inherent to decent civilization.

I do want to be clear.  I am pro-choice. I am for a woman's right to choose which man she marries, or if she wishes to marry at all.  I am for a woman's right to choose whether or not she wishes to pursue a career, and which career she pursues.  I am for a woman's right to choose when, where, and whether or not to have sex with someone.  I am for a woman's right to choose whether or not to keep a child she conceives, and I grieve for her when she feels that she cannot handle the job she's been entrusted with and I applaud her courage when she instead gives that child into the arms of another to raise.  However, let me be clear on this matter: no woman has the right to choose to end her child's life.  Her right to choose ends where the body of that child begins.