Perspectives

The inalienable right to life

The conservative case against abortion

By Andrew R. Quinio

From the May 2008 Print Edition

Before hope was hijacked by the Barack Obama campaign, it was (and still is) a guiding force of the conservative movement. At the heart of our support for the free market, individual rights, limited government, and a strong national defense is a sense of hopeful optimism in the American way of life. We support the right of individuals to sell and obtain property to advance their self-interest, we support the right of individuals to think and act autonomously of the majority, we support a government that leaves us be, and we believe the things we support are worth protecting.

Motivating these ideals is our abiding faith in the power of human potential. We believe that man, independent of his government and his circumstances, can achieve greatness. It is therefore not in our conscience to destroy man before he even has a chance to make it in this world.

To support abortion is to support a realm of beliefs that ignores the true instruments of hope — liberty and freedom. Conservatives support liberty because without it the strength of human potential is vastly limited.

Liberty necessitates life.

The founders immortalized this truth in the Declaration of Independence, affirming the obligation of government in securing our natural, God-given right to live. Of the rights given to us by our creator, the right to life comes first, because without life all other rights after it crumble.

How can liberty and the pursuit of happiness be achieved if the right to life is not upheld first? By destroying life, we demonstrate a disregard toward the self-evident rights that follow birth. Similarly, when liberals reduce abortion to a basic matter of choice, they conveniently ignore the supremacy of life as a God-given right.

Acknowledging and protecting this right does not run counter to the conservative value of limited government. Restricting abortion is not an expansion of government, but an expression of one of government’s basic duties. Government, conservatives believe, exists primarily to promote justice and provide for the common defense. There is no greater role for government than to preserve justice for those who cannot directly seek the protection of the law.

Policies restricting abortion are therefore not based on individual codes of morality, but the moral obligation of our government. Conservatives who seek to eliminate this cruel practice are not imposing their moral codes on others, but tethering government back to its primary duty.

Indeed not every child brought into the world will live a life free of hardship, but uncertainty and want do not justify abortion. Such a justification insults our notion of equal rights. Taking a life simply to keep it from poverty assumes that only the rich have a right to live, and that the lives of the poor are less important than others.

My sister understands this more than most people. She is a doctor at a hospital that mostly serves patients from the lower socioeconomic rungs of Los Angeles County. Since she was on call last Christmas and could not leave the hospital, my family decided to bring Christmas to her. We spent a brief part of the morning with her, when she found enough time between patients to have brunch with us. After filling up on cafeteria food, she took us on a short tour of the hospital, which ended at the maternity ward.

Like the new fathers you see on every clichéd sitcom dealing with parenthood, my family and I stood at the window of the nursery staring at the newborn babies, unable to look away from the tiny and adorable reminders of humanity’s greatest miracle.

The heartwarming mood was short-lived, as my sister explained to us that many of the infants would have it pretty bad once they left the brightly painted nursery.

Some were born to single mothers or drug-addicted fathers. Others would have to be raised by their grandparents while their parents finished high school, and many would come home to the blaring sound of police sirens and late-night street brawls. Yet the most important thing that these infants had in common greatly outweighed every gloomy prospect that could be imagined — each of them was simply given a chance.

Each new life that receives its one chance to breathe, move, feel, and see brings us a step closer to a world that will not succumb to fear or despair. It is a world that conservatives have always fought for: the world that Ronald Reagan tried to shape by appealing to “your best hopes, not your worst fears,” and the world my sister and her colleagues make possible each time they help mothers of every economic stripe deliver a child.

By accepting poverty as sufficient justification for terminating life, conservatives surrender their faith in American optimism and perseverance, and lose that fragile world to the fear and despair they have consistently fought against. Protecting life means preserving the undying hope that conservatives have long attributed to this nation. Supporting abortion means that you have just given up.

If we are serious about prolonging the unrivaled virtues of the conservative movement and our country, we should continue to oppose those who recklessly abort the next generation of Americans. A culture of life is our nation’s greatest hope.

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