I haven’t had time to blog today, but I wanted to draw your attention to an article that former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) wrote for National Review today in response to criticism about his linking abortion and civil rights. Here’s an excerpt:
In America we require a lengthy and litigious process involving dozens of people to take the life of a criminal who has done great harm to society — and at the same time grant one person the absolute right to determine whether an innocent child should be granted the rights of personhood and therefore life.
How can this be, and why was I pilloried for suggesting this is an issue of civil rights? Because our courts have created a distinction between human life, which a fetus unquestionably is from a biological standpoint, since it is both human and alive, and personhood under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution — the very amendment that ended the immoral denial of personhood to blacks.
Over a million lives will be taken this year, and a disproportionate percentage of these children will be black. How is this any less a civil-rights issue than any other issue we tie to civil rights? It is a great irony that so many feel free to wrap their education-reform claims in the language of civil rights but chafe when it comes to the same claims about life.
I encourage you to go read the whole thing.