01-29-12, "with liberty and justice for all" - sanctitiy of human life

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."Every day people across this nation proudly recite these words, including our leaders. The phrase “under God” has received a lot of attention in the recent past, but it doesn’t matter all that much since as a nation we don’t believe the words anyway – especially “with liberty and justice for all.”Unless we decide to mean what we say today, tomorrow, this year, next year, and the years after that we will continue to teach the words to kindergarteners but we will also train them not to mean them, to accept the hypocrisy, if not defend it. Actually they are the lucky ones, they were allowed to live long enough to learn the pledge. They were not stripped of their liberty, they were not denied their humanity, they were included when it comes to “liberty and justice for all.” Before they were born their mothers chose to let them live, to recognize them for what they are, humans, people, persons, even though our laws say otherwise. Laws which Pledge-reciting officials wrote and enacted and Pledge-reciting judges upheld, against all truth and scientific evidence to the contrary.If there really is “justice for all,” how do we justify taking the lives of growing babies, simply because they are still in their mothers’ wombs? How do we justify denying the most basic human right, the right to live, to an entire group of human beings? How do we justify deeming some stages of human existence as not deserving liberty and justice? How do we justify that a mother’s right of making choices about her life includes being able to take the life of another human being because it is unplanned, unwanted, inconvenient, the wrong gender, less than perfect, or will face less than ideal circumstances?There was a time when African American men, women, and children weren’t deserving of liberty and justice simply because they were called slaves. There was a time when Native American men, women, and children weren’t deserving of liberty and justice simply because they were called savages, and because they were inconvenient politically, economically, and personally. All the reasoning and rhetoric employed then was as flawed and dishonest as the reasoning and rhetoric employed against granting the pre-born the fundamental right to personhood, life, liberty, and justice.As “One nation under God” we should care what God thinks on matters as important and fundamental as these, He (God) created them male and female, and he blessed them and called them “human.” Genesis 5:2 (NLT, parenthesis mine). We should choose to do no less for all people.To God be all glory, love you, Pastor HansP.S. There are God and Life-honoring alternatives to abortion. The first step is to choose not to have one and instead be someone who believes in liberty and justice for that new person. If you can’t find help feel free to contact me, thegermanshepherd@juno.com, 209 852-2029.