Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Person:
Rush
Limbaugh:
Your
Child Is Not Your Personal Property
July 8, 2005
I've saved this and the response to it for today… Her name is Anita. "Rush, I'm a die-hard fan.
Though I was raised to support a woman's right to choose, since becoming a mother and
listening to you over these many years, I've come to strongly believe that abortion is
wrong. But because I'm conservative and believe in property rights, I can't reconcile the
government's involvement in the ultimate property right to your own body. Can you help
me?"
So I thought about this, and I wrote her back. I said: "Dear Anita, perhaps I can.
Our Declaration of Independence states that as free human beings, we are entitled to
LIFE," and I put that in all caps, "liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The
Declaration also says that these rights are "inalienable" and "granted by
our Creator," God. If our government does not stand for and
protect these basic rights, which are the essence of our creation and humanity, then it
will not protect any others. In our history, we've had human beings, members of the
Supreme Court, give us the disastrous Dred Scott decision, which
established that we as human beings could consider certain of our fellow human
beings as our property.
Dred Scott permitted whites in this country to own black slaves and eventually this
decision was struck down. So, Anita, your child is not your personal
property. Your body may be, but your child isn't. Your child is a distinct and
individual human being that you helped to create and produce -- and no one owns that
child's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So she wrote back and she
thanked me, said she "hadn't looked at it that way;" she "appreciated that
perspective." So I wanted to share that with you. One of the reasons why is because
here we've had these Supreme Court decisions on property rights, private property rights,
and you can see how some people interpret all of these, and extrapolate them to other
issues in what may be the beginning of their education process. So I thought it was a
great question that she asked and I was happy to be able to answer it for her.
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