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The Eclipse of a Historic Inauguration
The wisdom of Dr. King casts a shadow on Roe and Obama's words
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January 23, 2009
A Total Eclipse of "the One"
by Nikolas T. Nikas and Dorinda C. Bordlee
Edited from the originally published version with the Westchester Institute for Ethics & the Human Person as part of a collection of essays addressing the question, "The Pro-Life Movement: Has Our Strategy Failed?."
In the third week of 2009, three major American events aligned like a planetary syzygia. In the science of astronomy, a syzygia (now there's a strange word) is the alignment of three or more celestial bodies along a straight line. The word is usually used in context with solar and lunar eclipses when the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon are in alignment.
The March for Life on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade aligned in the same week with both the celebration of Martin Luther King Day and the historic inauguration of our nation’s first African-American President. This alignment of three social-political events highlights the paradoxical triumph and tragedy of civil rights at this point in our nation’s history.
The aftermath of the infamous Roe decision – 50 million unborn children dead and at least that many women and men profoundly wounded – casts a deep shadow upon the landscape of American civil rights. The Supreme Court’s illegitimate act of denying the most fundamental human right to an entire class of human beings blocks the bright light that should be coming from an inauguration that fulfills a significant part of Dr. King’s dream of human equality.
The shadow of Roe has dulled the consciences of many to such a degree that they cannot see the inconsistency of their very own words. Millions no doubt wondered how President Barack Obama could miss the obvious contradictions between his abortion position and these words from his inaugural address:
“The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”
All are equal? All deserve a chance? A God-given promise? How can we consider our highly-educated President to be consistent in speaking these words when his White House website states that “Roe v. Wade [is] a priority in his Adminstration.” How can "all" be equal and "all" have a chance when one of President Obama's first official actions was to open the tax coffers to fund U.N. groups that perform or promote the destruction of children in the womb overseas?
At this point in history, many ask whether the Pro-life Movement’s strategy has failed? They witness President Obama, like many, urging us to abandon legislative and litigation efforts, and to focus on education alone. Indeed, he supports the bill known as FOCA, which, among other things, illigitimately strips the democratic power from “we the people” to pass laws through our legislative bodies that regulate or prohibit abortion.
This tactic was not unknown to Dr. Martin Luther King. In a 1956 address to the First Annual Institute on Non-Violence and Social Change, King discussed how he was being urged to abandon legal efforts regarding integration and to focus on education alone on the grounds that “morals cannot be legislated.” Sound familiar?
Here is Dr. Martin Luther King’s response:
It is neither education nor legislation; it is both legislation and education. I quite agree that it is impossible to change a man’s internal feelings merely through law. But this really is not the intention of the law. The law does not seek to change one’s internal feelings; it seeks rather to control the external effects of those internal feelings.
He then concluded with these memorable words: “For instance, the law cannot make a man love – religion and education must do that – but it can control his efforts to lynch. . . . . [W]e must continue to struggle through legislation.”
At this moment in history, many will consider the pro-life movement’s legislative and litigation efforts to be impossible. But we must remember that in 1963, when the idea of an African American President appeared to be a political impossibility, Dr. King showed us the way out of the darkness:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Speaking the truth in love in the arenas of education, legislation and litigation is a basic and effective tool that we must continue to use to further the fundamental human right to life. This strategy has resulted in the enactment of hundreds of pro-life laws in the states that have contributed to the consistent drop in the annual number of abortions.
We invite readers to sign on to this Pro-Life Message from the Heart to President Barack Obama. In sending a letter to the President about what (and who) is on our hearts, perhaps he will be more open to hearing us when we speak our minds.
Perhaps he will realize his deafness to the pro-life movement’s cry of Roe’s injustice to children in the womb when he spoke of the “slaughter of innocents” in his inaugural address:
“…and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”
It is the unjust slaughter of the innocents through the terror of abortion, destructive human embryo experimentation and euthanasia that motivated hundreds of thousands of Americans, young and old, to participate in the 2009 March for Life in Washington, D.C., in the West Coast March for Life in San Francisco, and in marches across our nation.
Allow us to adopt your eloquent words, Mr. President: our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; Roe cannot outlast us, and we will defeat it.
— Nikolas T. Nikas and Dorinda C. Bordlee are attorneys and co-founders of Bioethics Defense Fund, a public interest law firm that advocates against the human-rights violations of abortion, human cloning/destructive embryo experiments, and physician-assisted suicide through litigation, legislation and education.
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