Posted on 05/20/2011 1:21:32 PM PDT by wagglebee
May 20, 2011 (Breakpoint.org) - A few weeks ago a friend sent me something he thought I would enjoy reading—something that had been published nearly 30 years ago by Ronald Reagan. I found it so moving, I wanted to share it with my readers.
In 1983, then-President Reagan sent an unsolicited manuscript to the editors of Human Life Review, who published it in a small book. It was a heart-felt plea to the American people to recognize the sanctity of life of unborn babies—and to never give up working to protect them in law.
Reagan reminded readers that neither the American people nor our legislators had ever had a chance to decide if they really wanted to legalize abortion through all nine months of pregnancy: That’s still true today.
Nor is abortion a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Reagan wrote that Roe v. Wade was “not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives.” The Dred Scott decision affirming slavery has that dubious distinction.
He wrote of the great need to clearly frame and present the issue of abortion—just as abolitionists exposed the terrible truth about slavery.
And what is the real issue? Reagan asked. “The real question today is not when human life begins,” he wrote, “but What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the [torn-apart] arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been [removed] from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being.”
And in 1981, Senate hearings on the beginning of human life involved many medical and scientific witnesses who agreed, based on scientific evidence, “that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, [and] is a member of the human species.”
So “the real question,” Reagan wrote, “… is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law—the same right we have.”
Reagan quoted Lincoln, who wrote that “nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on.” He quoted sociologist William Brennan, who warned: “The cultural environment for a human holocaust is present whenever any society can be misled into defining individuals as less than human and therefore devoid of value and respect.” And he quoted Malcolm Muggeridge, who said that “Either life is always and in all circumstance sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some [cases] the other.”
How right these men were.
In order to bring back protection for the unborn, which involves fighting the powerful abortion lobby and activist judges, Reagan said, quoting Mother Teresa, we must become “a soul of prayer,” In fact, we must be like William Wilberforce and his friends, who, Reagan recalled, prayed for decades for the end of British slavery. “Let his faith and perseverance be our guide,” Reagan wrote.
The Gipper would be pleased to know that, thanks to the ceaseless efforts of many Christians, more Americans now call themselves prolife than ever before.
Reprinted with permission from Breakpoint.org
This might be the single best quote on the subject that I've ever seen.
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Bump!
This sounds like President Reagan's essay, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation".
~Snippet~
"Our nation-wide policy of abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people, nor enacted by our legislators--not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973. [It was] "an act of raw judicial power"...
"Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a "right" so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born."
"We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life--the unborn--without diminishing the value of all human life."
"Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning."
Great words from a great American.
Unfortunately, President Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court, or perhaps Roe v. Wade would have been overturned.
Wow. Very strange that Chuck Colson, of all people, didn’t know about this Reagan essay on abortion and that it was originally written for the 10th anniversary of Roe v Wade passing into law. The fact Colson just read it a few weeks back is remarkable.
“The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one.”
Your first reply on FR. Welcome.
Jefferson was a very astute observer of the human condition.
People change. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes for the worse. Be great if we could read minds. Better yet, if we had a crystal ball.... ;^)
A very good article! Thanks for sharing!
“The heart is a deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?”(Jeremiah 17:9)
“Wherewithal[how] shall a young man[nation]cleanse his [its] way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word.” (Psalm 116:9)
“If we walk in the light as He is in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleaseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us fron all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
No one is taking a cheap shot. He knew what he was getting. Sandra Day O’Connor, when she was being considered for the SC, refused to say what her position was on abortion. My personal opinion is that she was Nancy’s pick. There are no perfect presidents. He also did nothing when our Marines and the embassy were blown up in Lebanon. I voted for him twice. He was a pretty good President, especially when you consider the New World Order scoundrels that followed.
LOL Don't wimp out now! You took 2 cheap pot shots at Reagan. Lying about it only makes you look like a bigger fool. Just admit your ignorance and move on. Don't engage in revisionism and spew bs about Reagan. To my knowledge nothing has ever been written about Nancy Reagan's involvement with O'Conner's nomination. That is pure specualtion on your part, nothing more.
In the Reagan Diaries, the President makes two entries of his thoughts on the O'Conner nomination.
"Called Judge O'Conner in Ari. & told her she was my nominee for Supreme Ct. Already the flack is starting & from my own supporters. Right to Life people say shes pro-abortion. She declares abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she'll make a good justice."
"This morning I announced my nominee for the Supreme Court, Mrs. O'Conner of Ariz. I made some calls because someone has started a bonfire among the Right to Life people. Apparently it all started with a woman --- Dr.Gerstan in Phoenix. Her claims don't match the record we have of O'Conner's voting record when she was a state Sen. But she's spread her message far and wide."
On September.21, 1981, Reagan released a statement on the Senate Confirmation of Sandra Day O'Connor.
"I want to express my gratitude to the Senate for unanimously approving today the nomination of Judge Sandra Day O'Connor as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court."
Btw, O'Conner had the backing of Reagan advisers Meese and Schultz. Along with a solid endorsement from GOP activist, conservative jurist and old personal friend to O'Conner, Justice William Rehnquest.
Those are the facts. O'Conner was approved 99-0!
There you go again.
The US Marines were sent into Beirut Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force along with the Brits, Italians and French. In reality, the US Marines were thrown into the middle of a civil war and placed in harms way without proper rules of engagement permitting them to defend themselves. If the Marines had been given proper rules of engagement and if better security measures had been taken, the Marine barracks bombing could have been stopped. The allied peacekeeping mission was doomed from the get-go.
IMO, the mistake wasn't withdrawing in a timely manner, as Reagan did. The real mistake was going into Beirut Lebanon in the first place. That is where Reagan went wrong.
Having said that, Reagan wasn't about to expand the civil war in Lebanon into a larger regional conflict. That would have brought the Soviet Union in on the side of Iran and Syria. Reagan's foreign policy challenge in 1983, was fighting and winning the Cold War. An all out escalation of hostilities over the Marine barracks and the US Embassy bombings wouldn't have solved the multiple issues facing the Middle East region.
Following the Marine barracks bombing, Reagan took direct but limited military action. Reagan ordered fighter attacks from the aircraft carriers Independence and Kennedy, launched attacks against terrorist sights in Lebanon in the Bekaa Valley and Chouf Mountains in retaliation for the Beirut bombing. Reagan also ordered the USS New Jersey to shell terrorists outposts within Lebanon.
In February 1984, just before the US "peacekeepers" withdrew from Beirut Reagan ordered the USS New Jersey to bombard Druze and Syrian positions in the Bekka Valley east of Beirut. Some 300 shells were fired, killing the general commanding Syrian forces in Lebanon and several other senior officers. This was the heaviest shore bombardment since the Korean War.
So Reagan did stand up to the terrorists. What Reagan didn't do, was exacerbate the civil war that was going on in Beirut and all of Lebanon at that time. Again, there were geopolitical circumstances to consider that involved the Soviets. An all out war wasn't in the cards.
To this day, those responsible for the murder of 241 Marines in their barracks in Lebanon and the Americans who were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing have not been brought to justice. Do you think the Israelis would let something like that go by?
Yes, the rules of engagement were responsible for the murder of American solders. Did Reagan change them? No.
O’Connor’s nuanced reply, “I personally find abortion repugnant”, reveals that she would not vote to repeal Roe v. Wade. Reagan did some good things as President, but Lebanon and Sandra Day O’Connor were not among them.
Again. After the Marine Barracks bombing Reagan took appropriate military actions over the final six month period of the mission and was responsible for killing many terrorists and their leaders. You wanted Reagan to expand the conflict. Sorry, bucko. Reagan made initial mistakes, but he wasn't about to expand the Lebanon conflict to please crazies like you.
>>>>>>To this day, those responsible for the murder of 241 Marines in their barracks in Lebanon and the Americans who were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing have not been brought to justice.
Another cheap shot. Do some research and get your facts straight.
Immediately following the Marine barracks truck bombing, the Reagan administration hatched a plan to knock off a military barracks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. DefSec Weinberger opposed such action. Weinberger told Reagan, any attack without positive proof of who committed the truck bombing, would lead to an expanded civil war dragging in other Arab nations, maybe pulling the Soviets into the conflict, and undermining Reagan’s efforts to win the Cold War.
DefSec Weinberger told PBS Frontline in a September 2001 interview: “we still do not have the actual knowledge of who did the bombing of the Marine barracks at the Beirut Airport, and we certainly didn’t then”.
In May 2003, District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth concluded, the Islamic Republic of Iran was the responsible party in the 1983 Marine Barracks attack. He based this on the grounds that Iran founded Hezbollah and financed the group for years. That came 20 years after the Beirut bombings and right after Bush invaded Iraq. Get real!
>>>>>Yes, the rules of engagement were responsible for the murder of American solders. Did Reagan change them? No.
So now your calling Reagan a murderer. How stupid can you be. After the Marines Barracks bombing, everything changed, moron.
>>>>>O’Connor’s nuanced reply, “I personally find abortion repugnant”, reveals that she would not vote to repeal Roe v. Wade.
That is your opinion and has nothing to do with the historic record. No President is responsible for a Supreme Court Justice changing their mind on issues. I trust Reagan made a decision he thought was right at the time. While Eisenhower regretted picking Earl Warren and Nixon wasn't satisfied with Warren Burger. Reagan didn't dwell on past decisions, but worked on not making the same mistake again. J O'Connor starting causing an uproar after Reagan was out of office. Same goes for that other turncoat dipwad, Anthony Kennedy.
We are desperately in need of someone of Reagan’s integrity and character in the White House again.
Thank you for that, I borrowed that to post somewhere else, hope that is ok..
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