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ABORTION VIOLATES BASIC AMERICAN PRINCIPLE, SAYS KEYES

What do affirmative action and abortion have in common?

A lot, said former UN Ambassador Alan Keyes, the keynote speaker at the Annual Pro-Life Appreciation Night October 26.

Both affirmative action and abortion violate one of America’s most basic principles, spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, that “we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,” he said.

Speaking on the same day that White House counsel Harriet Miers’ Supreme Court nomination was withdrawn, Keyes said that Miers’ apparent support of affirmative action had made him uneasy.

“What is the problem with the quota approach?  You’re using the basis of physical characteristics in dealing with people.

“If everyone must be governed on the basis that all are created equal, then discrimination based on physical differences is unjust,” he reasoned.

On the same principle, the unborn child, though in a different stage of physical development from the rest of us, has equal value with us in the eyes of our Creator, said Keyes.

“The child in the womb is just like you and me – a word that falls from the mouth of God,” he declared.

“When we strive to save the life of that child, it is our own life that we strive to save, and the life of our country.”

Keyes noted that one of the reasons for establishing our Constitution, cited in its Preamble, was to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

“The dictionary defines ‘posterity’ as ‘those who are not yet born.’  How can we ‘secure the blessings of liberty’ to those who are not yet born when we deprive them of life before they are born?” he asked.

“The question still hangs over us:  How shall we heal this land?  How shall we restore its conscience?”

The battle against abortion is not an easy one, and never has been, said Keyes.

“But in every generation we have people willing to stand for the truth.

“Sometimes it seems we go from defeat to defeat.  But sometimes in defeat are planted the seeds of victory.”