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Speech given by Right to Life of Montana President, Lianna Karlin,
commemorating the 35th anniversary of Roe V. Wade,
January 21, 2008, State Capitol Rotunda, Helena.
Every year at Christmas and Easter time, I can’t help but think about the impact that one person can have on so many others. I’m talking about Jesus, of course. No one else in history has ever affected the lives of so many. Not even counting those who have been redeemed by Him, just reflecting on the impact of His life on earth is enough to make you marvel. The Bible, of course, is full of such men and women: Noah, Abraham, David, Esther, Mary. Where would we be if Mary had said no? Then of course there were the Disciples who moved out into the world to spread the Gospel. I would like you to think about Moses for a moment. Consider the immediate impact he had on the people around him from the moment he was born. Because the Pharaoh at the time of his birth was afraid of losing his control over the Hebrews, he ordered that all the Hebrew boy babies were to be killed at birth by the midwives. His mistake was in not quite understanding that the midwives were also Hebrews, and that they answered to God and God alone, and little did he know that God had a plan for Moses to change the world. Think of the Holy Innocents who were the first Christian martyrs, killed not only for Jesus’ sake but in His place. What an impact His birth had on those families. Do you ever think that legalized abortion is delaying the birth of someone whom God intends to use to change the world for the better?
Senator Henry Hyde died in November this year. Henry Hyde will be remembered by history as the father of the modern pro-life movement for his introduction and sponsorship of the amendment that bears his name, prohibiting federal funding of abortion. Hyde first offered the amendment as a freshman member of Congress in 1976, and it remains in place to this day. By conservative estimate, well over one million Americans are alive today because of the Hyde Amendment – more likely, two million. In their reflections of Henry Hyde, the editors of National Review said the Hyde Amendment: '...is without question the most important piece of pro-life legislation ever to pass Congress.'
The Hyde Amendment also charted a new course for the pro-life movement after 1976 by implementing a strategy to pass protective pro-life measures that would incrementally reduce the number of abortions, while continually seeking the eventual overturn of Roe v. Wade. That strategy has been successful in saving millions of lives from abortion. Perhaps his most eloquent oratory ever given on the subject of the unborn contained the following: “When the time comes, as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I've often thought... that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God – and a terror will rip through your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there will be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world – and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, 'Spare him because he loved us,' – and God will look at you and say not, 'Did you succeed?' but 'Did you try?'”
A few years ago, I attended two funerals within a few days of each other. The first was for a baby who was only 10 days old. His mother had been advised that the baby would be born with a birth defect and that she had the option of having an abortion. She elected to carry through with the pregnancy. The baby was born, as predicted, with serious problems, and only lived a short time. Even so, that infant had a tremendous impact on his family, on the members of their church and on our home town. The second funeral was for a man in his 90’s. He had been an obstetrician in New York before moving to Big Timber. He was my doctor during my third and fourth pregnancies. He estimated that he had delivered well over a thousand babies, and he continued to practice into his 70’s. I once asked him what he thought of abortion, and he said, “I have never done one, and I never will. I wasn’t put on this earth to kill babies.” The churches were filled to standing room only for both funerals. It doesn’t matter how long a person has lived on this earth. He has an impact on the people around him.
Just recently I read an article about Tim Tebow, this year’s Heisman Trophy Winner, from the University of Florida. He is 235 pounds, and 6’3”. But when he was about an inch long, and an unborn baby, he was defined as a threat to his mother’s life. She was advised to have an abortion, and she refused. Her husband backed her up in her decision and 7 months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Twenty years later they would be standing on a National Stage, as he received the Heisman Trophy and telling their story. Dr. Brian Clowes, HLI researcher, has examined the data from the 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States most recent census data and extrapolated the numbers of the various professions and categories of Americans who have been eliminated by the nearly 49 million legalized abortions, one third of all Americans conceived since 1973. The following numbers are based on the actual government estimate of the professions represented in America. So then, who have we lost to abortion?
2 U.S. Presidents
7 Supreme Court Justices
102 U.S. Senators and 589 Congressmen
8,123 Federal, District and Local Court Judges
31 Nobel Prize Laureates
328 Olympic medalists including 123 Gold Medalists
6,092 Professional Athletes
134,841 Physicians and Surgeons
392,500 Registered Nurses
70,669 Priests, Ministers, Rabbis, and Imams
1,102,443 Teachers
553,821 Truck Drivers
224,518 Maids and Housekeepers
336,939 Janitors
134,028 Farmers and Ranchers
109,984 Police Officers and Sheriff’s Deputies
39,477 Firefighters
17,221 Barbers
These figures are by no means complete. They do, however, represent the immense human toll that legalized abortion is taking on our society.
Every Wednesday morning a group from several of the churches in Billings meets to pray in front of the Planned Parenthood clinic. They arrive at 8:00 in the morning and stay while the people who work there enter the building, followed by the women who are going to the clinic to have abortions. The latest estimate is that 15 to 16 abortions are being performed there every Wednesday. That is 60 per month, and roughly 720 per year. In 2006 there were 804. The latest available statistics show that in 2006 there were 113 abortions in Great Falls, 184 in Kalispell, 210 in Helena, and 808 in Missoula. Think of all those lost lives.
This year marked 35 years since the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand. We continue to protest and attempt to reverse one of the greatest human rights injustices of any life time, and at the same time people are celebrating one of the greatest human rights leaders of any life time, Martin Luther King. Isn’t it ironic? Also consider Hilary Clinton, and Barack Obama, the first woman and the first black man to make a serious run for the Presidency, and they are running on a platform that calls for the continued violation of the most basic human right of all, the right to life. Only a few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton said that Martin Luther King was inspirational all right, but that he couldn’t have enacted rights for minorities if it hadn’t been for the Civil Rights law that was conceived by John F. Kennedy and signed into law in memorium by Lyndon Johnson. Of course that is true, but of course Barack Obama was offended. How do they dare to quibble over who deserves the credit for a civil rights breakthrough, while, at the same time, they are both vowing to continue to violate the civil rights of the unborn?
I once thought that it was a good idea to get a list of all the businesses that support Planned Parenthood and try to boycott them. I was told at that time that doing that would have virtually no result at all. There is a group called Life Decisions International that monitors Planned Parenthood and the Corporations that support them financially. Recently I received a notice that Life Decisions has released a new list of companies that support the nation’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood. Life Decisions International says 160 companies have stopped backing the pro-abortion group since its boycotts began. Sometime ago I started asking myself what I could do to stop abortion. I felt pretty insignificant. But look at the impact that one person can have on other people around them. It isn’t insignificant at all. Sometimes its pretty huge. Can one person have an impact? Yes. Can you have an impact? Definitely. Will you? I hope that you know that you are important to this movement. Each one of you can do something. If you talk to your friends and family about the development of the unborn child, and the reality of abortion, then you will have an impact. If you vote for pro-life candidates, then you will have an impact. If you pray daily for an end to abortion, then you will have an impact, and together we will win.
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