Posted on 01/16/2004 3:03:32 PM PST by madprof98
National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2004
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
As Americans, we are led by the power of our conscience and the history of our country to defend and promote the dignity and rights of all people. Each person, however frail or defenseless, has a place and a purpose in this world. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, we celebrate the gift of life and our commitment to building a society of compassion and humanity.
Today, the principles of human dignity enshrined in the Declaration of Independence -- that all persons are created equal and possess the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- continue to guide us. In November, I signed into law the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, reaffirming our commitment to protecting innocent life and to a basic standard of humanity -- the duty of the strong to defend the weak. My Administration encourages adoption and supports abstinence education, crisis pregnancy programs, parental notification laws, and other measures to help us continue to build a culture of life. By working together, we will provide hope to the weakest among us and achieve a more compassionate and merciful world.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Sunday, January 18, 2004, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies in our homes and places of worship and to reaffirm our commitment to respecting the life and dignity of every human being.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-eighth.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Deuteronomy 30:19:
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
..The greatest insult to God is to return his gift of life unopened.
I signed into law the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, reaffirming our commitment to protecting innocent life and to a basic standard of humanity -- the duty of the strong to defend the weak.
However, less than one hour after the president signed the legislation, a federal judge in Nebraska — U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf, appointed in 1992 by Mr. Bush's father — issued a limited temporary restraining order against the law. The judge questioned the law's constitutionality and expressed concern that the ban contains no exception for the mother's health.
The lawsuits are using the same argument advanced in Stenberg vs. Carhart. In June 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban legislation unconstitutional because it lacks a health exception for the mother and its broad language imposes an "undue burden" on a woman's right to choose abortion.
I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies in our homes and places of worship and to reaffirm our commitment to respecting the life and dignity of every human being.
Should have mentioned these by name - Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer, O'Connor, Kennedy ,Stevens
FOXNews.com - Politics - <b>Raw Data:</b> Text of Bush Interview
HUME: When you look at other presidents, apart from your dad, sort of identify with them, or think about what they would have done? Who comes to your mind often?
BUSH: Lincoln, who I've got on the wall over there.
"[T]he candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal." A. Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (Mar. 4, 1861), reprinted in Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, S. Doc. No. 101-10, p. 139 (1989).
The Avalon Project : Federalist No 78
...It proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power1
PUBLIUS.
1 The celebrated Montesquieu, speaking of them, says: "Of the three powers above mentioned, the judiciary is next to nothing.'' "Montesquieu: The Spirit of Laws.'' vol. i., page 186.
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