In an election where neither presidential candidate is known as a stalwart champion for the unborn, and in which fiscal issues are guaranteed to take center stage, some consideration of the connection between economic liberty and the right to life might be helpful. In 2009, Representative Paul Ryan wrote a four page essay called “The Cause of Life Can’t be Severed from the Cause of Freedom.” It appeared in a volume that the Heritage Foundation put together called Indivisible: Social and Economic Foundations of American Liberty (not to be confused with the more recent book with the same title by Jay W. Richards and James Robison).
The essay shows that Ryan has given this matter some thought. Here’s an excerpt:
Now, after America has won the last century’s hard-fought struggles against unequal human rights in the forms of totalitarianism abroad and segregation at home, I cannot believe any official or citizen can still defend the notion that an unborn human being has no rights that an older person is bound to respect. I do know that we cannot go on forever feigning agnosticism about who is human. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.” The freedom to choose is pointless for someone who does not have the freedom to live. So the right of “choice” of one human being cannot trump the right to “life” of another. How long can we sustain our commitment to freedom if we continue to deny the very foundation of freedom—life—for the most vulnerable human beings?
Read the whole thing. (Just need to scroll through the Table of Contents.)
HT: Jay W. Richards