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 his
weekend, to coincide with the 29th anniversary of the landmark Supreme
Court case Roe v. Wade, President Bush issued a statement
declaring last Sunday "National Sanctity of Human Life Day."
With the proclamation he declared his administration's dedication
to the protection of human life-born or unborn.
Today, pro-life
activists gather in Washington to march to protest the legal status
of abortion. The opinion on Roe v. Wade was issued
by the Court on January 22, 1973.
The president's
statement appears below.
This Nation
was founded upon the belief that every human being is endowed by
our Creator with certain "unalienable rights." Chief among
them is the right to life itself. The Signers of the Declaration
of Independence pledged their own lives, fortunes, and honor to
guarantee inalienable rights for all of the new country's citizens.
These visionaries recognized that an essential human dignity attached
to all persons by virtue of their very existence and not just to
the strong, the independent, or the healthy. That value should apply
to every American, including the elderly and the unprotected, the
weak and the infirm, and even to the unwanted.
Thomas Jefferson
wrote that, "[t]he care of human life and happiness and not
their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good
government." President Jefferson was right. Life is an inalienable
right, understood as given to each of us by our Creator.
President Jefferson's
timeless principle obligates us to pursue a civil society that will
democratically embrace its essential moral duties, including defending
the elderly, strengthening the weak, protecting the defenseless,
feeding the hungry, and caring for children — born and unborn.
Mindful of these and other obligations, we should join together
in pursuit of a more compassionate society, rejecting the notion
that some lives are less worthy of protection than others, whether
because of age or illness, social circumstance or economic condition.
Consistent with the core principles about which Thomas Jefferson
wrote, and to which the Founders subscribed, we should peacefully
commit ourselves to seeking a society that values life — from
its very beginnings to its natural end. Unborn children should be
welcomed in life and protected in law.
On September
11, we saw clearly that evil exists in this world, and that it does
not value life. The terrible events of that fateful day have given
us, as a Nation, a greater understanding about the value and wonder
of life. Every innocent life taken that day was the most important
person on earth to somebody; and every death extinguished a world.
Now we are engaged in a fight against evil and tyranny to preserve
and protect life. In so doing, we are standing again for those core
principles upon which our Nation was founded.
NOW, THEREFORE,
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by
virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the
laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Sunday, January 20,
2002, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans
to reflect upon the sanctity of human life. Let us recognize the
day with appropriate ceremonies in our homes and places of worship,
rededicate ourselves to compassionate service on behalf of the weak
and defenseless, and reaffirm our commitment to respect the life
and dignity of every human being.
IN WITNESS
WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of January,
in the year of our Lord two thousand two, and of the Independence
of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-sixth.
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