We are pleased to announce our theme to cover all March for Life UK events this year. Have a read and let us know your thoughts in the comments below..
Words like ‘number one issue’ can have negative connotations when we are speaking about abortion. It reminds us of the phrase ‘single issue voter’ which often prompts criticism from those who believe a vote should not be based on a politician’s stance on this one area alone. Similarly, to say abortion is the ‘number one issue’ frequently provokes opposition. We are possibly used to hearing comments which amount to ‘There are other issues that are important too you know’. The problem with that is that I’ve never met a pro-lifer yet who thinks otherwise.
Is there really anyone out there who believes it’s wrong to intentionally kill tiny human beings in the womb but isn’t bothered about children starving, is left unphased when seeing homeless people on the street, or who fails to see the problem with a child in foster care being neglected? In actual fact, from my own experience it’s often those individuals and organisations who are pro-life who are doing the most to help with these other concerns too.
The difference that exists between someone who believes abortion is the number one issue and someone who thinks it’s just another issue is really a case of priorities. When I think of this I’m taken back to a time when I used to teach First Aid to the Air Cadets. One of the important points which we would try to explain would be how to deal with a situation that involved multiple casualties. To help the cadets remember how to act we would teach them the ‘Three P’s’. The first ‘P’ was ‘Preserve life’. The second was ‘Prevent the situation worsening’ and the third was ‘Promote recovery’.
We had the teenagers imagine they came across an incident including more than one injured people: Person ‘A’ is silently lying on the ground not moving. Person ‘B’ is trying to stand but screaming that he thinks his leg is broken and Person ‘C’ is nursing their hand which looks to be burnt.
We would train the cadets to know how to respond to a situation such as this. Firstly, this is not a blog on First Aid so consult other sources for how to deal with any medical emergencies, but simply to recall our training, the teenagers would learn that the top priority in this scenario would be the silent casualty on the ground as he may not be breathing and could well need his airway cleared, CPR or to be put in the recovery position (to preserve his life). The next casualty to treat would be person ‘B’ as they are highly likely to make their condition worse if they don’t sit still, although they aren’t in any danger of death like casualty ‘A’. Lastly we would look to person ‘C’. They aren’t in danger of dying, they aren’t making their condition any worse but you might be able to promote their recovery by putting something cold on their burn.
These are considered to be basic principles in First Aid and no one disputes them. Obviously in an ideal situation each casualty needs attention but if time or resources are limited then that’s when one has to learn how to prioritise, otherwise while cooling casualty ‘C’s’ burn, casualty ‘B’ falls over and breaks his other leg and casualty ‘A’ dies.
These common sense principles relating to a First Aid situation can be transferred to life in general; if we see a man about to throw himself off a bridge, do we refrain from going to his aid because we see someone else fall off their bicycle and hurt their arm? Wouldn’t we quickly say to the injured individual ‘Wait there’ then deal with the suicidal man first?
There are many pressing needs in the world today and some are more directly our responsibility because they involve our family or those to whom we have a duty of care but what pro-lifers see that some others seem to be blind to is that abortion is literally a life or death situation and it is happening on a catastrophic scale. As in our First Aid lesson, our top priority must be preserving life.
This doesn’t mean we don’t care about those suffering with other needs, just as the First Aider cares about the man with the broken leg or the burnt hand but the unborn child has absolutely no protection left, not even the law. The law attempts, in some small way, to protect and provide for those on the streets, those going hungry or those being neglected. At least we all agree they are humans. Thankfully we don’t live in a country that says the man or woman on the streets is subhuman, the family going hungry are not really people or the neglected child in foster care is just a blob of tissue.
Before some reader misquotes this article we are categorically NOT saying that these other groups of people are unimportant. The hungry, the homeless and those in care are deeply pressing issues and rightly demand attention – God bless the amazing people who fight for the rights of all those disadvantaged. But, the child in the womb is being neglected to the highest degree, the child in the womb is being completely starved of all nutrients, the child in the womb will be thrown out of his or her home but not before they are intentionally put to death, around 50 million of them every year – all this being sanctioned by the world’s governments and leaders. This is why we put them first. This is why abortion is our number one issue.
If we rightly care for the neglected child in foster care what blindness prevents us caring for the prenatal child, completely disowned and neglected by his or her own parents? If we rightly care for the family going hungry, why are we content for a woman to take medication which will deprive her prenatal child of all nutrients to the point of death? If we rightly care for the homeless person, how can we fail to rise up in passion as over 200,000 pre-natal children each year are expelled from their homes in the UK alone, not to life on the streets but to death in a bucket or to be flushed down the sewers? Yes, abortion is our number one issue and we make no apologies because our first right is the right to live and our first duty is to uphold that right.
