1/25/01 10:35 a.m.
Thank You, Jesse Jackson
An act of gratitude.

By Michael Novak, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
& NRO contributing editor

hank you, thank you, Jesse Jackson for welcoming your love child in life, and for protecting her from abortion! Thank you for the love you show her. Thank you for the respect you give her right to life, and the possibility you have given her to make, one day, her own choices. You have shown a true and far-sighted respect for this little infant's eventual right to choose. (It really is wrong to take away a woman's right to choose, before she even has a chance to use it, through abortion.)

This was a very generous act on your part, Jesse Jackson. I cannot pretend to speak for God, or place myself even close to His Judgment Seat. In my own poor eyes, however, the fact that you have protected life goes a long way toward making me want to avert my eyes from the fault that led to her conception. That fault was not hers. That you and the child's mother respected the child's life is a very great gift you have given her.

For this, the whole country owes you some gratitude.

For those of us who believe that the massive violation of rights involved in the widespread practice of abortion today rivals the widespread violation of rights under the practice of slavery, your defense of life in this case is a blow for the protection of human-rights today. Who knows what great things your new daughter will one day do? Many of those whose rights we today protect are likely to be among the most talented and beautiful of all our progeny. Letting them come to life and to develop their talents makes a great contribution to the common good of all of us.

O happy fault, that out of it such a blessing comes as a living child!

(The inspiration for this reflection arises from a sign carried in the great, long March for Life on January 22, 2001.)