Holding forth the Word f Life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ
Philippians 2:16
Trinity Reformed Baptist Church
Topeka, Kansas 66614
Back to Top
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)
RONALD W. REAGAN, 40th President of the United States
- We must all educate ourselves to the reality of the horrors taking place.
- Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No
serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court's result, has argued
that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right.
- The decision by the seven-man majority in Roe v. Wade has so far been made to stick.
But the Court's decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead, Roe v. Wade
has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.
- We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without
diminishing the value of all human life.
- If you don't know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think
this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting
the unborn.
- The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of
human life?
- The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all
its parts have been torn from its mother's body can hardly doubt whether it is a
human being.
- Regrettably, we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They
want to pick and choose which individuals have value.
- As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the "quality of
life" ethic. I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given
to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future.
- As a nation today, we have not rejected the sanctity of human life. The American
people have not had an opportunity to express their view on the sanctity of human
life in the unborn. I am convinced that Americans do not want to play God with the
value of human life. It is not for us to decide who is worthy to live and who is
not. Even the Supreme Court's opinion in Roe v. Wade did not explicitly reject the
traditional American idea of intrinsic worth and value in all human life; it simply
dodged this issue.
- We must all educate ourselves to the reality of the horrors taking place. Doctors
today know that unborn children can feel a touch within the womb and that they respond
to pain.
- Late-term abortions, especially when the baby survives, but is then killed by starvation,
neglect, or suffocation, show once again the link between abortion and infanticide.
The time to stop both is now.
- It is possible that the Supreme Court itself may overturn its abortion rulings. We
need only recall that in Brown v. Board of Education the court reversed its own earlier
"separate-but-equal" decision.
- As we continue to work to overturn Roe v. Wade, we must also continue to lay the
groundwork for a society in which abortion is not the accepted answer to unwanted
pregnancy. Pro-life people have already taken heroic steps, often at great personal
sacrifice, to provide for unwed mothers.
- We will never recognize the true value of our own lives until we affirm the value
in the life of others.
- 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.
Righteousness exalteth a nation:
but sin is a reproach to any people.
Proverbs 13:34