Saturday, February 14, 2009

President's Day - Abraham Lincoln on abortion

Abraham Lincoln's willingness to speak out against slavery in the 1860s was not a popular idea among those who wanted him to accommodate to the times and avoid the controversial issue. His profoundly moral position against slavery was not a cautious one. Boldly he spoke out repeatedly in defense of human life and dignity...

The word 'abortion' can easily be substituted for the word 'slavery' in the following quote from Lincoln, and the passage could be addressed to so many today.

What we want, and all we want, is to have with us the men who think slavery/abortion wrong. But those who say they hate slavery/abortion, and are opposed to it, but yet act with the … party -- where are they? Let us apply a few tests. You say that you think slavery/abortion is wrong, but you denounce all attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong, that you are not willing to deal with as a wrong? Why are you so careful, so tender of this one wrong and no other? You will not let us do a single thing as if it was wrong; there is no place where you will allow (slavery/abortion) to be even called wrong! We must not call it wrong in the Free States, because it is not there, and we must not call it wrong in the Slave States because it is there; we must not call it wrong in politics because that is bringing morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the pulpit because that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring it into the Tract Society or the other societies, because those are such unsuitable places, and there is no single place, according to you, where this wrong thing can properly be called wrong! - Abraham Lincoln
ABORTION IS WRONG
SAY SO

No comments: