Life is Sacred – Simple, True

Stop. And. Think. If YOU were a baby, as you once were, and were in a condition of terrible distress, helpless, struggling for life – with or without the cause being a failed abortion – would you want a doctor to tend to you, try to save your life, give you the chance to one day become YOU?

That is that fundamental question that was put to the US House last week, and stunningly – whether out of conviction, disinterest, amorality, immorality, reflexive pro-abortion views, apathy, or party discipline – 210 Democrats in the House voted to let the baby die. 220 Republicans voted for life. See, e.g.,

Specifically, the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” passed the US House, now controlled by Republicans by 220-210, sending that bill to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where it is sure to fail or fail to get a vote.

The real question is how – in a country which prides itself on “doing what it right,” ostensibly having moral compass – 210 members of the House, all Democrats, can argue that these children, once born, should die.

Having watched the debate on television, the arguments lofted by leading Democrats on the House floor would be laughable if not tragic. They included passionately offered claims that these children might die with added care, that the hospital endangered them, and that saving a nearly aborted child by administering care to that child might make abortion illegal nationwide.

Do these Democrats really believe this? If so, where has their logic, reason, moral fiber, balance, capacity to think, capacity to care? If not, what animates this ridiculous argument that saving a child means banning abortion?

Perhaps more bluntly, how does the dominant Democrat position – which is to push for abortions without limit, to the end of a pregnant mother’s term, and assuring the child which manages to get born dies – square with ANY understanding of what is morally right? 

From Democrats who disavow religion, and got elected anyway, voters can be forgiven for expecting nothing. They have what they voted for. But from those Democrats who claim to be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or any other loving faith – what is going on? How can you vote to let a child die?

The answer, sadly, seems to be that party politics has overwhelmed personal introspection, that notion that those of faith answer to God, or might apply what they are voting for to themselves. The answer is that morality takes a back seat to gong along, getting funded by Democrat leaders, reelection.

If this country is ever going to get back on track, become what we have been at our best, members of Congress have to stop pretending they live in a world disconnected from the one we live in, that votes are cast in a vacuum, and that what they spend, dictate, imagine, and mandate does not apply to them. 

True, they are born, so this bill which would save their life at birth is moot as it relates to them. But it is not moot as it relates to millions of babies yet unborn, who may be born in need of immediate medical care, and left to die.

To be clear, what is at stake is something bigger than party loyalty, some personality or party driven outcome. What is at stake – when voting on a bill as straight-forward and humanitarian as this one – is the fate of another’s life, meaning the conscience and moral position of the member voting.

In aggregate, these votes – 210 members who were willing to let that baby die, administer no aid, step away, look away, ignore the screams, close the door, and do nothing – are making a profound statement about themselves.

Perhaps more lasting than the loss of one small life – although that is certainly lasting in an eternal way for the life lost – is what such a stunningly unfeeling, morally indefensible vote means for the conscience of this nation.

If America to is remain America, we must always be able to listen, learn, absorb both what others offer as their view of conscience, and listen to our own. This vote was not about promoting abortion, or anything of the like. It was about life, whether it is sacred enough to save or amounts to nothing.

In an era when words seem to be used so loosely they are losing meaning, the word “life” has a real, concrete, and incontrovertible meaning: One is either alive or one is not, and if alive, we either believe life is sacred or we do not.

At least 220 members of the US House think a helpless, crying, breathing, baby – that miracle, brought into the world and desperate to stay alive, deserves our every effort to keep them alive.

As for the rest, who pat each other on the back in the House chamber, argue they are making the world safe for unfettered abortions by letting innocent children die, I have no further words. Senate Democrat leader, Mr. Schumer, is equally callous, says the bill is “doomed” in his Senate.

As for the Vice President, a woman who calls saving a child’s life once born “extreme,” I have no words. For those who read this and are unmoved and believe that their rights are impinged by seeking to save these children, I have no words.

My simple plea is to return to the origins of your faith, and if you have no faith, ponder again why so many do. Stop. And. Think. If YOU were that baby, as you once were, and were in a condition of life-and-death distress, crying and helpless, struggling for life – with or without considering the cause – what would you want done? If you would prefer to live, let others. Life and death are real, words notwithstanding. Life is sacred, yours and the child’s – simple, true.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.