The State of Our Respect for Human Life

Three days after the birth of their first son, doctors informed Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R–WA) and her husband that their newborn had Down syndrome.

“They told us all the problems,” explained Representative McMorris Rodgers in her response to the President’s State of the Union address last night. “But when we looked at our son, we saw only possibilities. We saw a gift from God.”

She continued:

We see all the things he can do, not those he can’t. Cole, and his sisters, Grace and Brynn, have only made me more determined to see the potential in every human life, that whether we’re born with an extra 21st chromosome or without a dollar to our name, we are not defined by our limits.

Recognizing the worth, dignity, and potential of every human being by upholding the most fundamental human right to life is a founding principle of the United States. Yet, for more than 40 years, the country has excluded the youngest and most vulnerable children from that right.

Abortion-on-demand has taken the lives of more than 55 million children in the U.S.—including large numbers of children diagnosed with Down syndrome and other disabilities—and has sentenced countless women to physical and emotional harm.

As Senator Mike Lee (R–UT) explained in his own response to the President’s address: “Inequality is denying viable, unborn children any protection under the law, while exempting unsanitary, late-term abortion clinics from basic safety standards.”

Today, the United States is one of only four countries in the world—in the company of China, North Korea, and Canada—in which late-term abortions are allowed for any reason after a child is able to survive outside the womb.

While President Obama declared in his address last night that “we believe in the inherent dignity and equality of every human being,” respect for the value of every human life has been missing from many of his Administration’s policies.

Obamacare is forcing countless employers to provide abortion-inducing drugs and devices in their health plans, and the health care law will only further entangle taxpayer dollars in plans that cover elective abortion.

This week, the White House announced it would veto of the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, H.R. 7, should it come to the President’s desk. The bipartisan, commonsense policy to permanently end taxpayer funding of abortion and abortion coverage across federal law and through Obamacare passed the House yesterday with overwhelming support.

Every human being—from the moment of conception—is a person with intrinsic value who possesses the right to life. That fundamental human right doesn’t belong only to the strong and the powerful. It belongs to every human being—regardless of age, dependency, or ability.

Government has a duty to protect the weakest in society and to recognize the inherent value of all human life. A country founded to protect unalienable human rights should not deny those rights to the most vulnerable children in our society—merely because they are small, dependent, disabled, or simply inconvenient.