Think about it…there are so many atrocities in American history, but none come to mind as horrendous as slavery and late-term abortion. Pro-Life or Pro-Choice applies equally to those who oppose and those who support either practice.

In the article, “America’s History of Slavery Began Long Before Jamestown,” by Crystal Ponti, she claims that “enslaved Africans arrived in North America as early as the 1500s,” long before the generally accepted belief that slavery had its beginnings in the Jamestown Colony in 1619. Later in the article, Ponti mentions the series of laws that made up the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 that “stripped away legal rights and legalized the barbaric and dehumanizing nature of slavery.” Slaves were not viewed as people; they were considered property. While the early colonists, along with their co-conspirators, the Spanish, Portuguese, and English, set the stage for what would later become KNOWN as one of the worst crimes against humanity, the slave trade continued and flourished well past the official formation of the United States of America in 1776.

The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence specifically states, “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” However, since slaves were property and not men, these Rights did not apply. This belief was held by many, but not all, for the following 158 years until President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. He proclaimed, “all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”

The Republican Party fought to end the practice of slavery. Republicans fought to end the time when humans were considered property to be treated in any manner determined by the owners, with no rights or legal recourse.

Abortion perpetuates the same belief that certain types of human life are not really human; rather, they are property.

Abortion has been practiced for hundreds of years world over and was considered acceptable up until “quickening,” which is the term, according to Wikipedia, used to describe the time when a woman starts to feel or perceive fetal movements in the uterus. Wikipedia also presents a quote by British legal scholar William Blackstone in which he explained the subject of quickening in the eighteenth century, relative to feticide and abortion:

“Life… begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother’s womb.  For if a woman is quick with child, and by a potion, or otherwise killeth it in her womb; or if any one beat her, whereby the child dieth in her body, and she is delivered of a dead child; this, though not murder, was by the ancient law homicide or manslaughter.  But at present it is not looked upon in quite so atrocious a light, though it remains a very heinous misdemeanor.”

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. In its ruling, the court recognized for the first time that the constitutional right to privacy “is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”

Britannica.com, in an article written by the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, serves as my reference for the quotes that follow.

As explained by Justice Harry A. Blackmun in his writing of the majority opinion, “…the court held… criminalizing abortion in most instances violated a woman’s constitutional right of privacy, which it found to be implicit in the liberty guarantee of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (“…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”).

This ruling bears a remarkable similarity to the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705. Essentially, Roe V Wade “stripped away legal rights and legalized the barbaric and dehumanizing nature of ” aborting an unborn baby. The unborn were not viewed as human; rather they were (and are) considered property to be treated or disposed of in any manner determined by the woman , with no rights nor legal recourse.

“The Supreme Court disagreed with Roe’s assertion of an absolute right to terminate pregnancy in any way and at any time and tried to balance a woman’s right of privacy with a state’s interest in regulating abortion. In his opinion, Blackmun noted that only a “compelling state interest” justifies regulations limiting “fundamental rights” such as privacy and the legislators must therefore draw statutes narrowly to express only the legitimate state interests at stake.”

The court’s objective was to weigh the interest in the pregnant woman’s health and the potential life of a fetus. Regulation of abortion was determined to be “at approximately the end of the first trimester,” which is about 13-14 weeks to satisfy the state’s compelling interest in the woman’s health and the viability of the fetus to have “meaningful life outside of the mother’s womb.” Throughout all of the challenges to narrow the scope, in a later ruling the court established that restrictions on abortion are unconstitutional if they place an “undue burden” on a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus is viable.

Viability of the unborn baby seemed to be the agreed upon point at which to justify regulation. There seems to be wide disagreement as to gestational age or weight at which a human fetus automatically becomes viable. There is, however, a generally accepted point at which a fetus is not viable, which is at any point less that 20 completed weeks of gestation. Statistics have also shown that there is a very low survival rate of births occurring before 24 completed weeks of gestation, with the chance of survival increasing to 80-90% by the 26th week.

If a human fetus (aka unborn baby) reaches the stage of viability, how can anyone argue that abortion at that stage is anything less than homicide, manslaughter or murder. And…not just murder, but a horribly brutal, violent murder of the most innocent and helpless among us. Further, with States now arguing for late term and live birth abortions, how can those States not be complicit in these murders?

To repeat the quote in the Declaration of Independence referred to earlier, “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Following the same line of reasoning presented earlier…since an unborn baby is considered the “property” of the woman within whom it resides, these unalienable Rights do not apply. If it has been determined that an unborn baby has a high likelihood of survival, why would we not protect that baby’s first inalienable right… LIFE over the due process stipulation of depriving a woman’s liberty in the fourteenth amendment?

Rather than terminating a pregnancy with the death of the baby being the objective, why can we not establish legislation that protects that baby by requiring either a c-section or an induced labor. There are countless others who are more than willing and capable of providing for that baby.

We have created Safe-haven laws that offer women the option of “dropping off” their newly born babies with statutorily designated private persons so that the child becomes a ward of the State without question or legal recourse. We prosecute those who choose to throw their baby in a dumpster, leave them for dead, or outright kill them rather than taking advantage of the Safe-haven laws. Why then, is it okay for a pregnant woman and an abortionist to conscientiously end a viable life?

Once again, the Republican Party fights to end another crime against humanity. Where is the Emancipation Proclamation equivalent for the unborn, but viable, human babies? Isn’t it time to stop defining human life as property?

Isn’t it time that abortion follows the path of slavery?