By Judie Brown
In a whimsical nursery rhyme we learn that when Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall, “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty together again.” One presumes that once an egg crashes to the ground, like truth, it cannot be repaired unless vigilance is pursued in the quest to do so.
Having dropped more than a few raw eggs in my time, I know that with persistence, it is possible to clean up the mess, even though the egg itself is lost. The same can be said of truth; once you fudge a little bit, the entire structure of a fact becomes a fractured mess. This is the state of the pro-life movement today.
Brooke Stanton, one of the founders of Contend Projects, writes that “recognizing all human beings as human persons from the beginning of their biological existence is the foundation of equality and justice.”
Stanton points out, “Most people do not know that we can answer the question of when a human life starts with an objective scientific fact. Without this foundational knowledge, we lack the intellectual equipment to fully defend individual human lives or the civilization built upon them.”
These are challenging words with a brilliant resonance of honesty. Stanton repeats the message that we in the human personhood movement have been speaking for many years. In a word, either every human individual is important or none of them are important.
Every time a pregnancy is saved because of the heroism of a sidewalk counselor or a well-designed placard that defends life, we move one step closer to ending all the killing. But we must always remember that one step must follow another without ceasing. When we are sidetracked by the latest pro-abortion tactic, that diversion defeats our quest to save them all. Keeping our eye firmly focused on the baby is always our responsibility.
A recent opinion piece by long-time pro-life advocate Chuck Donovan puts a point on our case, saying:
The pro-life movement today should seek to renew reverence for life by recovering as much as it can of its original idealism and optimism. Today it is reluctantly partisan and yearns for new consensus. It leads by example and not by force. Its imagery is still that of mothers and fathers’ interlaced fingers, the playground, the laughing child, the birthday candles, and brilliant balloons. It campaigns against the darkness and sees hope in and for everyone. It believes that it is never too late to leave the killing fields and come truly home.
It is in this moment that we stand right now, holding on to the wall of truth and doing all we can to stop the evil from robbing our nation of its future by killing our progeny. The principle that every human being is equally precious in the eyes of God has never changed, and it never will. It is why we fight, insisting on equal justice for all, born and preborn.
As the beautiful Rodgers & Hammerstein song reminds us, “Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, tho’ your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone.”
We must know that we are not alone! Trusting in the mercy and wisdom of God, we refuse to fall off the wall; we will not compromise, accommodate, or wither in the face of enormous pressure from the culture. We are energized by truth as we embrace the precise words that Jesus spoke to His disciples, knowing that anything less is unacceptable: “All you need say is ‘yes’ if you mean yes, ‘no’ if you mean no; anything more than this comes from the evil one.”