Celebrate Life

Celebrate Life

Thomas Jefferson stated the following in the Declaration of Independence (emphasis added):

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.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–

On January 22, 1973, the SCOTUS decisions of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton permitted abortion through the nine months of pregnancy. Twenty-three years later, USA Today interviewed Norma McCorvey, “Jane Roe,” in the Roe v. Wade case. She told the interviewer that she came to oppose the life-taking procedure. While working in an abortion clinic, she went into a procedure room, laid down on the cold steel table, and imagined going through the abortive process. She said, “I broke down and cried.” She went on to say on ABC’s World News Tonight, “I think abortion’s wrong, I think what I did in Roe v. Wade was wrong.”

You may know that abortion is one of the central planks of the Democrat Party. However, former Democrat President Jimmy Carter opposed the process based on Christian principles. He said, “I never have felt that any abortion should be committed. … I have never been convinced if you let me inject my Christianity into it, that Jesus Christ would approve of abortion.”

President Ronald Regan initially established the Celebration of Life holiday to send an anti-abortion message. The Day has come to celebrate both the lives of children and ourselves. At first, the Celebration of Life Day was called National Sanctity of Human Life Day. Reagan announced the special Day in January 1984. The President chose to affix the Day to the eleventh anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case.

The history of the National Sanctity of Human Life/Celebration of Life Day has been unstable. Though both Bush presidencies continued the holiday, it was discontinued under President Bill Clinton for eight years. Donald Trump continued the holiday throughout his presidency; some churches have even marked it as a holy day on their calendars.

Abolition and Pro-Life groups feel the day expresses the value of human life. Every life is precious and the Bible declares God’s intricate handiwork for babies in the womb. Psalm 139:13-16 (NKJV) reads:

For You formed my inward parts;

You covered me in my mother’s womb.

14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Marvelous are Your works,

And that my soul knows very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from You,

When I was made in secret,

And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.

And in Your book they all were written,

The days fashioned for me,

When as yet there were none of them.

The Declaration of Independence views life as sacred, and the government’s responsibility is to protect our unalienable right to live. Jefferson adds that when the government fails in its duty, it is time for its citizens to adjust or remove it. Marxists and Marxist governments have done everything to destroy life rather than preserve it. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and others are responsible for the unjust deaths of millions of their own citizens.

We might want to stand up, shake our fists, and say, “That’s not right. Someone should do something.” But what are we doing about the deaths of the innocent unborn in our supposedly free and Christian nation? Abortion clinics have murdered an excess of sixty million babies since 1973 with the blessing of the government and the Americans who are either in favor of the slaughter or silent regarding it. Once again, we have to remind ourselves that silence is permission. If we don’t speak up for the helpless, we participate in violating the command, “You shall not murder.”