To honor Lincoln’s legacy, end abortion

Of the over 600,000 abortions that take place in America each year, 38% are committed on black women, who are only 13% of the female population. That means millions of black babies — a vastly disproportionate number — have been killed since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion everywhere in 1973. In New York City, thousands more black babies are aborted each year than are even born.

This is by design. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was an open eugenicist. “Birth control,” she wrote, “means the release and cultivation of the better racial elements in our society, and the gradual suppression, elimination, and eventual extirpation of defective stocks—those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.”

Abortion has ravaged the black community, as it was intended to.

But this is not only about black Americans. As Lincoln understood, the rights to life and liberty are not safe for anyone unless they are safe for everyone. “In giving freedom to the slave,” he told Congress in 1862, “we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.” Lincoln was fighting to make good on the promise of America’s founding. He was carrying on a tradition that stretches back to the origins of this nation.

Every American, without exception, is guaranteed the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In 1776, American colonists pledged their lives and their sacred honor to fight for those rights against the greatest empire in the world. This was the first fight for freedom. And at the cost of blood and treasure, it was won.

But not all Americans received their freedom that day. “Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?” asked Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852. Douglass saw that the only true freedom is freedom for all. “The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham,” he said. Slavery turns “your boasted liberty” into “an unholy license.”

Despite all this, Douglass had hope. He knew that change would come “from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions.” He believed that in time, the promise of liberty could not be contained. He was right: just over a decade later, after a brutal and bloody civil war, the slaves were free. This was the second fight for freedom.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: If one citizen is denied these rights, then they are not safe for any of us. Of the three of them, life comes first. There is no property, no liberty, if the right to life is not secure. If the life of any American can be taken by arbitrary power, then the promise is not yet fulfilled. There is still one final fight for freedom left.

The existence of abortion in this country brands our republicanism as a sham. It makes our boasted liberty an unholy license. The legacy of the American Founders, of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, is not complete until all human life in this country is protected — including life in the womb.

This year, the Supreme Court will decide Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case that could reverse both Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Then it will be up to us. In every state legislature, in every town, we must fight to secure for every American that most fundamental of rights, the right to life. This is The Final Fight for Freedom.

Activists at Students for Life America are empowering this generation, the pro-life generation, to win this fight. From help and support for pregnant mothers, to adoption information centers and abortion alternatives, to advocacy and activism to shut down abortion clinics nationwide, we are ready to make good on the American promise. Fight with us.

Kristan Hawkins is President of Students for Life of America.