For 50 years, the Sanctity of Human Life was commemorated in January. But in 2023, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision, and gave the power to legislate abortion back to the states. Which creates some interesting parallels to the time immediately before the Civil War.
The Union at that time was divided into slave states and free states, and the question of slavery was bitterly debated as each new territory was admitted into the Union. Sen. Stephen Douglas of Illinois, in the 1850s, championed “democracy” as the answer to how the nation would deal with the issue of slavery.
A series of legislation allowed new states to determine by vote whether or not they would be “slave” or “free.”
The emphasis was given to HOW the choice between slave state and free state should be made, not whether enslaving humans should be chosen. The War Between The States taught us democracy was not the answer. Making the correct moral choice was the answer.
The same argument over HOW the choice to abort should be made, not WHETHER abortion should be chosen at all. It’s the defining issue of our time.
Prior to the Civil War, a slave in Kentucky who escaped to Ohio had fundamentally changed — they became a citizen protected under the law. In essence, their humanity was determined by their location.
The argument for a nation made up of “abortion” states vs. “non-abortion” states is identical — it is geography which will determine the value of a human.
As of January 2024 Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, W. Virginia, Wisconsin, Idaho and South Dakota, preborn humans are protected under the law at every stage of development and location. In Georgia, preborn humans are protected after six weeks.
But in every one of the grey states on this map, preborn humans are not granted personhood and protection until they have crossed the few inches from uterus to birth canal.
Their human value, their sacredness and the full protection under the law is entirely dependent on their location — like a slave crossing from Kentucky to Ohio in the days before the Civil War.
When abortion is framed within a historical context such as the debate over slavery, it becomes decidedly Orwellian.
Many of the formerly “slave states” of the South are the Right To Life states now. And many of the “free states” of the North and West are the Abortion On Demand states now. So, if abortion becomes legalized nationally again as a result of the 2024 election, it would force many of the former “slave states” to legally agree that the preborn are the PROPERTY of their mother and should only be protected by law once they have crossed into a “free” state by being born. And the previously “free states” would be aligned with the authors of the Dredd Scott decision, who asserted not all persons are entitled to protection under the Constitution.
How wild is that?!