In 1863, that great statesman Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address concerning slavery and those who died in the war that led to its end in this country. In January of 1995, another great statesman, Senator Robert Smith of New Hampshire, delivered a "March For Life Address" in Washington D.C. His comparison of abortion and slavery, which both involve the denial of personhood to certain members of our society, show how there can be no compromise regarding these evils. Whereas slavery denied black men and women their inherent, God-given right to freedom, abortion denies unborn children their inherent, God-given right to life. Abortion is wrong just as slavery was wrong, and it too must be ended.
Here is Senator Smith's address:
"Ten score and nineteen years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. All children of our fathers - and all children of the future - were and are conceived in that same liberty, with an inherent right to life - to be born and to pursue their dreams in a free society.
Now we are engaged in a great and epic war - the war of abortion - testing whether that nation, or any nation, and its children, so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.
We are met here today to remember the worst battle of that war, Roe v. Wade - fought 22 years ago - to remind our leaders that millions of innocent children have given their lives since that terrible decision.
We have come here today - in the shadow of the Supreme Court, the White House, and the Capitol - to remind them that the final resting place of those children is in the arms of God. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do so because our nation has strayed from its moral foundation, and has discarded these children in dumpsters and wastebaskets across our land.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow - the thousands of battlefields where these children died. These brave little boys and girls have consecrated them far above our poor power to add or subtract.
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget the way our children died here. It is for the living to be dedicated here to the unfinished work of ending abortion - the scourge that took so many lives, dreams, and ambitions. Millions of unborn voices beg for us to do so.
It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that, from these honored dead children, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion - that we here today highly resolve that those little children shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and a new commitment to life - and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people - including the unborn - shall not perish from the Earth."
Donald L. Farley II, M.S.
Class of 1985