On June 24, the one-year anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Live Action’s Founder and President, Lila Rose, addressed the crowd gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., for National Celebrate Life Day.
“America is like a beautiful song,” Rose began. “Our song has dynamics – highs and lows. It has the highs of our founding promise of all of us being created equal under the law with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But our song, our American song, also has tragic lows.”
Rose noted the Supreme Court’s infamous decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which denied citizenship to the enslaved, as one of America’s lows. That decision served to bring the nation one step closer to the Civil War, and was overturned by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
“The 14th Amendment is one of the most beautiful notes in our national song,” Rose continued, quoting the text of the Amendment, which extends the right of equal protection of the law to all persons living within the United States. Rose noted that preborn persons are entitled to these same rights, though they are currently being denied such protection on the federal level.
“We demand equal protection for preborn children,” Rose declared, adding:
These protections do not require a new constitutional amendment. Those protections already exist in our constitution at this very moment. Right now in America, abortion is unconstitutional. It is illegal. It violates our nation’s highest law.
Calling attention to the fact that a new, genetically distinct life is created at the moment of fertilization, Rose said: “These tiny lives possess incredible potential and should be celebrated and protected. It is a tragic contradiction that while our society celebrates advancements in prenatal care and technology, we simultaneously deny … the personhood and rights of these very same children.”
Rose continued:
Protecting the rights of the preborn is not a matter … of politics or ideology…. Our fight is a matter of justice and human rights. It is about standing up for the voiceless and the defenseless – those who cannot advocate for themselves. Our society is judged by how we treat the most vulnerable among us. And history will judge us harshly if we continue to deny equal protection to children in the womb.
Rose ended by encouraging the crowd to demand equal protection for the preborn: “I urge you to join me in demanding equal protection for all and in demanding a society that truly values all human life – a society that recognizes and upholds the rights of our most vulnerable, the preborn.”
Watch Rose’s speech and the rest of the rally here.
