We are bombarded with references to Lincoln and King these days and, of course, how Obama is the answer to both their questions – but there is one question relating to what Lincoln and especially King did which is not being asked much:
What would Martin Luther King say to a nation where an African-American baby is 5 times more likely to be killed in the womb than a Caucasian baby?
This is probably the most asked question presently in America since the end of the Civil War, but I am wondering: who is asking it more? Due to the historical implications and the political climate throughout the world, the Global spotlight is clearly on the United States. The world wants to see how Barack Obama will navigate the tumultuous course ahead of him.
In his Election Night Acceptance Speech he referenced Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous and prophetic speech, “I’ve been to the mountain top.” Barack Obama said, “We may not get there in one year or four years.” It was at that point there seemed to be a degree of uncertainty and this is totally understandable when one considers the state of economic and social affairs of our country and global unrest. I would personally encourage and insist the nation ask another question along with the previous inquiry: ‘where do we go from here and what will it look like when we get there?’
In Dr. Martin Luther King’s last and most radical presidential address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he entitled his message just what we find ourselves asking at the moment: “Where Do We Go From Here?” Martin said, “First we must massively assert our dignity and worth, we must stand up amidst a system that will oppress us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values.” Martin Luther King then says that the priority in getting to your destination, are your values, not economy. If that’s what’s needed then the journey must be delayed indefinitely until we gain those unassailable, unmovable, indestructible values that are divine, lofty and exalted.
But where do we go from here? We can go nowhere until this nation recognizes all of its citizens, especially our most vulnerable, many whose ‘unalienable Rights’ are presently denied. Until our national values reflect the Giver of our rights — “endowed by their Creator” — as the Declaration of Independence describes to us, there will be no ‘there’ there when we arrive. In so saying, as Martin Luther King was speaking at a church conference in Nashville Tennessee, he spoke across the decades these profoundly portentous words:
“There must be the recognition of the sacredness of human personality. Deeply rooted in our political and religious heritage is the conviction that every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth. Our Hebraic Christian tradition refers to this inherent dignity of man in the biblical term the image of God. This innate worth referred to in the phrase the image of God is universal, shared in equal portions by all men. There is no graded scale (not pay scale) of essential worth; there is no divine right of one race that differs from the divine right of another. Every human has etched in his personality the indelible stamp of the creator. The idea of dignity and worth of human personality is expressed eloquently and unequivocally in the Declaration of Independence.”
It is precisely this sort of question which I suspect Obama is entirely unaware of, and therein lies our great danger. But, also, therein lies our great opportunity: in the matter of Life, Obama is pretty much a blank slate. Oh, to be sure, he’s made statements in favor of the Culture of Death and cast votes for same – but when Obama opined that the question of when life begins is above his pay grade, he indicated clearly that he’s never thought the matter through. Obama’s pro-abortion positions seem a bit pro-forma; things a liberal is expected to do, much as any conservative is expected to say nice things about lowering taxes, even if that isn’t the particular conservative’s political hobby. I might be wrong, but the father of those two beautiful girls might be open to new ideas on the matter of Life.
We won’t get Obama to advocate a Life amendment to the Constitution – that would be too far an advance. But we might be able to get Obama to help us, ultimately, cut the Culture of Death off at the knees. There is an idea I’ve been ruminating on for some months now as a means of changing the terms of debate on abortion – I’d like to have a National Endowment for Life. And a big spending liberal who wants to make what he’ll view as a gesture of bipartisanship and who is unaware of just how the Life issue works might just be our man to sign off on it.
Over the past few years it has become clear to me that with the ban on partial birth abortion and the imposition of informed consent, we’ve gone as far as we can towards limiting abortion in a serious way unless we can convince ever larger numbers of Americans that abortion is just the plain and simple wrong it is. This is a difficult task because, at the back of the mind in the broad middle, is that concern – born mostly out of a misunderstanding of what mercy entails – that someone might need an abortion and thus it should remain generally legal, at least early on in the pregnancy. We won’t get that solid, Constitution-amending majority to understand that no one ever needs an elective abortion until we make real our insistence that each life be welcomed with open arms and unquestioning love. That is what the Endowment is for.
Its still a very preliminary idea, but it would work roughly like this – the government provides some billions of dollars as seed money for a privately managed Endowment which will provide funds for pre- and post-natal care with the ultimate design being that any woman, regardless of circumstances or condition, can avail herself of support for her pregnancy and its aftermath. In other words, there will be no condemnation; there will be no lack of care; there will be no lack of support – each child will be welcomed with open arms and unquestioning love, and the child’s mother will have all she needs. This would ultimately dispose of any perceived need for an elective abortion – after all, who but the most heartlessly cruel would elect to kill an unborn child when there is no risk to one’s health, to one’s future or to the child? Once the alleged need is gone, so too will the argument that we’d better keep abortion legal, just in case.
If we are to answer the question of whether democracy is valid or whether we can judge people by the content of their character, then the first requirement is that the people be alive. Furthermore, it is a negation of all Lincoln and King stood for that the very black people Lincoln endeavored to free and King endeavored to raise up should be killed in such large numbers, and before they get even a ghost of a chance to demonstrate to us the content of their character.
We cannot live up to the sacrifices of the Civil War and the Civil Rights eras until all are welcome at the table – regardless of race, color, creed or sex from conception until natural death. Curiously enough, the incoming Obama Administration offers us a chance, if we’ll just take it, and start advocating in new ways and with new means for the cause of Life.
