Just before the Nazi destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in late 1944, a cry rang out through the streets: “Save the children—ours, yours. Collapsed buildings we can rebuild—the lost young generation we cannot!” Now as the most pro-life American president in history continues to save the unborn, he has extended protection also to the newborn.
To fulfill what he had earlier called “our sacrosanct moral duty,” President Donald J. Trump has issued his Executive Order on Protecting Vulnerable Newborn and Infant Children. Signed on September 25, 2020, the order proclaims, “Every infant born alive, no matter the circumstances of his or her birth, has the same dignity and the same rights as every other individual and is entitled to the same protections under Federal law…. It is the policy of the United States to recognize the human dignity and inherent worth of every newborn or other infant child, regardless of prematurity or disability, and to ensure for each child due protection under the law. ”
The circumstances leading up to the situation requiring such an unprecedented order constitute one of the greatest tragedies in American history, as pointed out by Mother Teresa in her 1994 amicus brief filed with the United States Supreme Court. Reminding the justices of the divinely endowed unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as recognized in the Declaration of Independence, she declared that “a nation founded on these principles holds a sacred trust: to stand as an example to the rest of the world…. Your constant efforts in fulfillment of that mission, far more than your size or your wealth or your military might, have made America an inspiration to all mankind. Yet there has been one infinitely tragic and destructive departure from those American ideals in recent memory. It was this Court’s own decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) to exclude the unborn child from the human family.”
“America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation,” continued this five-foot-tall giant of a woman. “Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign…. You must weep that your own government, at present, seems blind to this truth. I have no new teaching for America. I seek only to recall you to faithfulness to what you once taught the world.”
Her plea was ignored by the Court but answered decades later by President Trump as he set out to make America great again. In his tireless defense of the unborn, he has defunded groups that perform abortions overseas; appointed numerous pro-life judges including three to the Supreme Court; expanded conscience protections for medical workers who believe it is wrong to kill an unborn baby; declared to the United Nations that “every child— born and unborn— is a sacred gift from God,” and that “global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life”; designated the 2020 anniversary of Roe v. Wade as National Sanctity of Human Life Day; and become the first American president to attend and speak at the March for Life. Never has any American president done as much to protect the unalienable rights of our unborn children.
Meanwhile, there was emerging another ominous threat, this one as shocking to the conscience as the slaughter of the infants ordered by Pharaoh at the time of Moses or by Herod at the time of Jesus. Not content with taking the lives of America’s unborn, abortion advocates were proposing that a baby be allowed to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth, or be delivered alive and then killed at the whim of the mother. Decrying such atrocities in his 2019 State of the Union Address, President Trump called for life-saving legislation “to defend the dignity of every person,” and proclaimed, “These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and dreams with the world…. Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: all children—born and unborn—are made in the holy image of God.”
Now with the President’s Executive Order on Protecting Vulnerable Newborn and Infant Children, our nation’s newborn have the official protection of the United States. President Donald J. Trump is saving the children.