The death of children has rocked this country to its core. The senseless killings of our youngest people have sparked a national conversation about safety. Protecting children is visceral, instinctual, built into our genetic framework. We know, above all else, children are meant to live and not to die. This is a “bipartisan” truth, if we must talk in political terms, guaranteed in our Declaration of Independence. More than that, it is a fundamental, self-evident human truth: children should be protected and allowed to thrive.
This should be the basis for which our national conversation begins on any issue regarding the safety of children. It is important to note that no matter what your ideology, philosophy, or political framework, you believe children should be protected and allowed to thrive. This conversation has become clouded by political interests, but if we are willing to drop our political guard for a few minutes and really make ourselves vulnerable for the sake of our most vulnerable, I believe our nation can find its way through its current haze.
In a country divided by “partisan politics”, or an us vs. them mentality, it can be difficult to see the real concerns of the other side. But two marches in the past few months demonstrate the similarity: March for Life, a pro-life (anti-abortion) march, and March for Our Lives, a pro-life (anti-gun) march. While each march might find most of its supporters in one party over the other, their message is the same: protect life. It seems to me that the individual right to own guns is as pernicious to “progressives” as the individual right to abortion is to “conservatives.” The Second Amendment is just as offensive on the left as Roe v. Wade is on the right.
This in itself should give us pause. Our nation wants to protect children, and we should no matter what protect our children. They are our hope and future. But we are not consistent. Both sides want it in different ways. But the dissonance is disturbing. For instance, what if the mothers of some of these slain victims decided to have abortions 16 years ago? Would those children’s lives not have been as meaningful just because they were still in the womb? Does that baby in utero, with a distinct fingerprint and genetic material from her mother, not have the right to be protected and allowed to thrive? The children that are murdered in school shootings are the same genetic material they were in their mothers’ wombs, the same beating heart that is stopped. Or, what if a child is unhealthy and has easy access to firearms, to do massive damage to others’ lives? Should his right to own guns impact so significantly other children’s right to live?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” our Founding Fathers wrote in the Declaration of Independence. Since then, we have fought over what constitutes “all men.” Thankfully, we have broadened it to mean all ethnicities and both sexes; may we also broaden it to mean all ages, from the first beat of a heart in our mothers’ wombs to the final beat.
We as a country need to be consistent on who gets the right to live. If we cannot guarantee that right to the most vulnerable among us—the unborn, terminally ill, and all who are unable to march for their own lives—we cannot guarantee it to anyone. Let’s live by this self-evident truth, that all people deserve to live; it is our responsibility to make sure everyone gets their rights.
Rev. Ethan Luhman
Associate Pastor, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
Saratoga Springs
