Ms. Grossman,

You claim that Justice Blackmun and other “heroes” of the Pro-Choice movement were “brave enough to stand up to Pro-Life rhetoric.” I beg to differ. The arguments presented by your Pro-Choice heroes like Justice Blackmun are based on nothing more than pragmatic ideas void of any foundation in law, morality, or logic.

You contend that the “right” for a woman to terminate her pregnancy is guaranteed and protected by the U.S. Constitution. Point me to the Article and Section, please. You cannot because, in reality, the so-called “right to privacy” cited as the basis for the Roe vs. Wade decision is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Now, if the right is not found in the Constitution—the law which you admit governs our land—then one must assume that the consenting Justices of the Roe vs. Wade decision simply created a new right. Where in the Constitution, which you herald as the bulwark of “reproductive rights,” or in any ancient, eternal, natural, or human law do we find any indication that Supreme Court Justices, or any human being, are granted the power to create rights? Nowhere.

Human leaders have never and will never have the ability to create nor destroy a right. When African Americans were shamefully enslaved in our country, did their enslavement remove from them their natural right to be free? No! The slave’s rights were violated, not removed. To say otherwise is to suggest that the slave master’s treatment of his African slave actually defined the worth of the slave, the man.

It is not mankind’s recognition of a right that makes the right legitimate, for the African slave who bore cruelty at the hand of his master in the antebellum world was no less human, no less deserving of respect or justice than the African-American businessman today. Truly, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not suddenly create rights for African-Americans in the United States; rather, in the Act, Congress supported and protected a right guaranteed to all mankind since the inception of the world—the right to freedom and equality under the law.

If a judicial or legislative body is artificially granted the power to create “new rights,” do they not also consequentially have the power to destroy such rights? For this reason, many of America’s Founding Fathers were leery of ratifying the Bill of Rights because they feared the action would be viewed as the government bestowing rights. They understood that lawmakers and leaders of society are granted the crucial task of protecting and supporting the inalienable rights “endowed by [our] creator,” those rights so masterfully recorded by the greatest minds and spirits the world has yet seen (men like Moses, Aquinas, Locke, and Jefferson).

Neither the institution of the Supreme Court nor the individuals with whom you are so enamored are or were infallible. One must only look to the Dred Scott ruling to see a decision handed down from the Supreme Court which demonstrated its sheer human fallibility. Years later the Supreme Court reversed its decision, stating that the natural rights of African-Americans trumped the Supreme Court’s prior ruling.

Why this long dissertation on rights, law, and the role of the Supreme Court and the public leaders? Pro-Life advocates are often accused of solely using emotionally-charged arguments and rhetoric. While I too become moved by the gruesome reality of abortion, I am driven by truth—the ethical, scientific, and lawful basis for a pre-born child’s right to life.

Indeed, neither the Supreme Court nor any legislative body may create a right which transgresses on the right of another human being. And yes, pre-born children are, in fact, human beings. Just ask Harvard University Medical School Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, or Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni Professor of Obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania, or Dr. Jerome LeJeune, the genetics professor at the University of Descartes in Paris who discovered the Down’s Syndrome chromosome. They all state the same fact: life begins at conception.

So, if you praise the work of Pro-Choice activists, legislators, and judges next year, please do so while at least facing the facts. Be intellectually honest. If you do, you will realize that it is the Pro-Choice argument, not the Pro-Life argument, that is based entirely on emotion, convenience, and manipulation of the facts. Perhaps you will recognize that Roe vs. Wade strayed from the blind objectivity and protection of the law and instead relied on the feeble, inflated intellects of a few.

"You contend that the 'right' for a woman to terminate her pregnancy is guaranteed and protected by the U.S. Constitution. Point me to the Article and Section, please. You cannot because, in reality, the so-called “right to privacy” cited as the basis for the Roe vs. Wade decision is nowhere to be found in the Constitution."

Similarly, you'll find no aritcle and section on the "right" of the unborn. In fact the Constitution only talks of "born and naturlized" citizens (14th Amendment). The "rights of the unborn" is nowhere to be found in the Constitution's explicit language.

This year I had the privilege of seeing Words for Choice again, one part of which tells the story of Emily Lyon's survival and recovery after the bombing of a clinic in Birmingham, Alabama in 1998. This year Emily Lyons was there to speak and promote her book, so I was lucky enough to meet her as well as the actress who portrayed her.

Listening to her story (she had horrific injuries and 10 years later still contends with the aftereffects), and listening to her response to the question, "Why do you still work to protect the right to an abortion?" was horrifying and inspiring all at once. She responded, "Because I've already been to hell, and there's nothing more they can do to me."

So thank you to Emily Lyons, and all the other people who believe that women's lives are sacred, and put their bodies on the line every day to back up their beliefs.

Whether it's continuing to speak after the worst has been done to you, or receiving hate mail for the rest of your life, we wouldn't have the protection we do now or the privilege to live our lives in a way that our mothers and granmothers couldn't even imagine.

"Similarly, you'll find no aritcle and section on the "right" of the unborn. In fact the Constitution only talks of "born and naturlized" citizens (14th Amendment). The "rights of the unborn" is nowhere to be found in the Constitution's explicit language. "

You, like your Pro-Choice comrades, refuse to face the scienctific fact that pre-born children ARE human beings, that life begins at conception. THEREFORE, a specific mention of the rights of the pre-born in the Constitution would be superfluous. Period.