The National Right to Life Convention has a rich tradition of educating, building, and energizing the pro-life grassroots across the country. America know we are National Right to Life and we are making a difference! Now more than ever is the time to join the pro-life grassroots network.

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Reagan “Until we establish unborn child is not a living human being then he or she deserves protection from the government”

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 Pain aborted baby feels

Late-term abortions, especially when the baby survives, but is then killed by starvation, neglect, or suffocation, show once again the link between abortion and infanticide. The time to stop both is now.

Infanticide

As my Administration acts to stop infanticide, we will be fully aware of the real issue that underlies the death of babies before and soon after birth.

Our society has, fortunately, become sensitive to the rights and special needs of the handicapped, but I am shocked that physical or mental handicaps of newborns are still used to justify their extinction. This Administration has a Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, who has done perhaps more than any other American for handicapped children, by pioneering surgical techniques to help them, by speaking out on the value of their lives, and by working with them in the context of loving families. You will not find his former patients advocating the so-called “quality-of-life” ethic.

I know that when the true issue of infanticide is placed before the American people, with all the facts openly aired, we will have no trouble deciding that a mentally or physically handicapped baby has the same intrinsic worth and right to life as the rest of us. As the New Jersey Supreme Court said two decades ago, in a decision upholding the sanctity of human life, “a child need not be perfect to have a worthwhile life.”

Whether we are talking about pain suffered by unborn children, or about late-term abortions, or about infanticide, we inevitably focus on the humanity of the unborn child. Each of these issues is a potential rallying point for the sanctity of life ethic. Once we as a nation rally around any one of these issues to affirm the sanctity of life, we will see the importance of affirming this principle across the board.

Malcolm Muggeridge, the English writer, goes right to the heart of the matter: “Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other.” The sanctity of innocent human life is a principle that Congress should proclaim at every opportunity.

Adoption is the answer

It is possible that the Supreme Court itself may overturn its abortion rulings. We need only recall that in Brown v.Board of Education the court reversed its own earlier “separate-but-equal” decision. I believe if the Supreme Court took another look at Roe v. Wade, and considered the real issue between the sanctity of life ethic and the quality of life ethic, it would change its mind once again.

As we continue to work to overturn Roe v. Wade, we must also continue to lay the groundwork for a society in which abortion is not the accepted answer to unwanted pregnancy. Pro-life people have already taken heroic steps, often at great personal sacrifice, to provide for unwed mothers. I recently spoke about a young pregnant woman named Victoria, who said, “In this society we save whales, we save timber wolves and bald eagles and Coke bottles. Yet, everyone wanted me to throw away my baby.” She has been helped by Save-a-Life, a group in Dallas, which provides a way for unwed mothers to preserve the human life within them when they might otherwise be tempted to resort to abortion. I think also of House of His Creation in Catesville, Pennsylvania, where a loving couple has taken in almost 200 young women in the past ten years. They have seen, as a fact of life, that the girls arenot better off having abortions than saving their babies. I am also reminded of the remarkable Rossow family of Ellington, Connecticut, who have opened their hearts and their home to nine handicapped adopted and foster children.

The Adolescent Family Life Program, adopted by Congress at the request of Senator Jeremiah Denton, has opened new opportunities for unwed mothers to give their children life. We should not rest until our entire society echoes the tone of John Powell in the dedication of his book, Abortion: The Silent Holocaust, a dedication to every woman carrying an unwanted child: “Please believe that you are not alone. There are many of us that truly love you, who want to stand at your side, and help in any way we can.” And we can echo the always-practical woman of faith, Mother Teresa, when she says, “If you don’t want the little child, that unborn child, give him to me.” We have so many families in America seeking to adopt children that the slogan “every child a wanted child” is now the emptiest of all reasons to tolerate abortion.

Slavery and unborn child

I have often said we need to join in prayer to bring protection to the unborn. Prayer and action are needed to uphold the sanctity of human life. I believe it will not be possible to accomplish our work, the work of saving lives, “without being a soul of prayer.” The famous British Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, prayed with his small group of influential friends, the “Clapham Sect,” for decades to see an end to slavery in the British empire. Wilberforce led that struggle in Parliament, unflaggingly, because he believed in the sanctity of human life. He saw the fulfillment of his impossible dream when Parliament outlawed slavery just before his death.

Let his faith and perseverance be our guide. We will never recognize the true value of our own lives until we affirm the value in the life of others, a value of which Malcolm Muggeridge says:. . . however low it flickers or fiercely burns, it is still a Divine flame which no man dare presume to put out, be his motives ever so humane and enlightened.”

Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.

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June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.

The case against abortion does not rest here, however, for medical practice confirms at every step the correctness of these moral sensibilities. Modern medicine treats the unborn child as a patient. Medical pioneers have made great breakthroughs in treating the unborn — for genetic problems, vitamin deficiencies, irregular heart rhythms, and other medical conditions. Who can forget George Will’s moving account of the little boy who underwent brain surgery six times during the nine weeks before he was born? Who is the patient if not that tiny unborn human being who can feel pain when he or she is approached by doctors who come to kill rather than to cure?

The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have.

What more dramatic confirmation could we have of the real issue than the Baby Doe case in Bloomington, Indiana? The death of that tiny infant tore at the hearts of all Americans because the child was undeniably a live human being — one lying helpless before the eyes of the doctors and the eyes of the nation. The real issue for the courts was notwhether Baby Doe was a human being. The real issue was whether to protect the life of a human being who had Down’s Syndrome, who would probably be mentally handicapped, but who needed a routine surgical procedure to unblock his esophagus and allow him to eat. A doctor testified to the presiding judge that, even with his physical problem corrected, Baby Doe would have a “non-existent” possibility for “a minimally adequate quality of life” — in other words, that retardation was the equivalent of a crime deserving the death penalty. The judge let Baby Doe starve and die, and the Indiana Supreme Court sanctioned his decision.

Federal law does not allow federally-assisted hospitals to decide that Down’s Syndrome infants are not worth treating, much less to decide to starve them to death. Accordingly, I have directed the Departments of Justice and HHS to apply civil rights regulations to protect handicapped newborns. All hospitals receiving federal funds must post notices which will clearly state that failure to feed handicapped babies is prohibited by federal law. The basic issue is whether to value and protect the lives of the handicapped, whether to recognize the sanctity of human life. This is the same basic issue that underlies the question of abortion.

The 1981 Senate hearings on the beginning of human life brought out the basic issue more clearly than ever before. The many medical and scientific witnesses who testified disagreed on many things, but not on the scientific evidence that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, or is a member of the human species. They did disagree over the value question, whether to give value to a human life at its early and most vulnerable stages of existence.

Regrettably, we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They want to pick and choose which individuals have value. Some have said that only those individuals with “consciousness of self” are human beings. One such writer has followed this deadly logic and concluded that “shocking as it may seem, a newly born infant is not a human being.”

A Nobel Prize winning scientist has suggested that if a handicapped child “were not declared fully human until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice.” In other words, “quality control” to see if newly born human beings are up to snuff.

Obviously, some influential people want to deny that every human life has intrinsic, sacred worth. They insist that a member of the human race must have certain qualities before they accord him or her status as a “human being.”

Events have borne out the editorial in a California medical journal which explained three years before Roe v. Wade that the social acceptance of abortion is a “defiance of the long-held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition, or status.”

Every legislator, every doctor, and every citizen needs to recognize that the real issue is whether to affirm and protect the sanctity of all human life, or to embrace a social ethic where some human lives are valued and others are not. As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the “quality of life” ethic.

I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future. American was founded by men and women who shared a vision of the value of each and every individual. They stated this vision clearly from the very start in the Declaration of Independence, using words that every schoolboy and schoolgirl can recite:

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.

We fought a terrible war to guarantee that one category of mankind — black people in America — could not be denied the inalienable rights with which their Creator endowed them. The great champion of the sanctity of all human life in that day, Abraham Lincoln, gave us his assessment of the Declaration’s purpose. Speaking of the framers of that noble document, he said
:

This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on. . . They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.

He warned also of the danger we would face if we closed our eyes to the value of life in any category of human beings:

I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

When Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee the rights of life, liberty, and property to all human beings, he explained that all are “entitled to the protection of American law, because its divine spirit of equality declares that all men are created equal.” He said the right guaranteed by the amendment would therefore apply to “any human being.” Justice William Brennan, writing in another case decided only the year before Roe v. Wade, referred to our society as one that “strongly affirms the sanctity of life.”

Another William Brennan — not the Justice — has reminded us of the terrible consequences that can follow when a nation rejects the sanctity of life ethic:

The cultural environment for a human holocaust is present whenever any society can be misled into defining individuals as less than human and therefore devoid of value and respect.

As a nation today, we have not rejected the sanctity of human life. The American people have not had an opportunity to express their view on the sanctity of human life in the unborn. I am convinced that Americans do not want to play God with the value of human life. It is not for us to decide who is worthy to live and who is not. Even the Supreme Court’s opinion in Roe v. Wade did not explicitly reject the traditional American idea of intrinsic worth and value in all human life; it simply dodged this issue.

The Congress has before it several measures that would enable our people to reaffirm the sanctity of human life, even the smallest and the youngest and the most defenseless. The Human Life Bill expressly recognizes the unborn as human beings and accordingly protects them as persons under our Constitution. This bill, first introduced by Senator Jesse Helms, provided the vehicle for the Senate hearings in 1981 which contributed so much to our understanding of the real issue of abortion.

The Respect Human Life Act, just introduced in the 98th Congress, states in its first section that the policy of the United States is “to protect innocent life, both before and after birth.” This bill, sponsored by Congressman Henry Hyde and Senator Roger Jepsen, prohibits the federal government from performing abortions or assisting those who do so, except to save the life of the mother. It also addresses the pressing issue of infanticide which, as we have seen, flows inevitably from permissive abortion as another step in the denial of the inviolability of innocent human life.

I have endorsed each of these measures, as well as the more difficult route of constitutional amendment, and I will give these initiatives my full support. Each of them, in different ways, attempts to reverse the tragic policy of abortion-on-demand imposed by the Supreme Court ten years ago. Each of them is a decisive way to affirm the sanctity of human life.

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Great pro-life quote from Reagan:

Ronald Reagan Address To The National Religious Broadcasters Convention-January 30, 1984
American Rhetoric:Ronald Reagan ^ | 3/31/09 | American Rhetoric

Posted on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 7:44:50 AM by Nextrush

…….This nation fought a terrible war so that black Americans would be guaranteed their God-given rights. Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some could decide whether others should be free or slaves. Well today another question begs to be asked: How can we survive as a free nation when some decide that others are not fit to live and should be done away with?……

The Department of Health and Human Services has now published final regulations to address cases such as Baby Doe in Bloomington. The child was denied lifesaving surgery and starved to death because he had Down’s Syndrome and some people didn’t think his life would be worth living……

Now I believe that some of you’ve met with my advisers to discuss the situation of religious schools in Nebraska. We have all seen news accounts of the jailing of a minister, the padlocking of a church, and the continuing imprisonment of fathers of students. This issue of religious liberty has arisen in other states. The question is how to find a balance between assuring quality of education and preserving freedom for churches and parents who want their schools to reflect their faith.

…..Last week, a panel appointed by the Governor of Nebraska conluded that the State’s regulations violate the religious liberties of Christian schools…….

I’m a firm believer in the separation of power, that this nation is a federation of soverign States. But isn’t it time for the Nebraska courts or legislature to solve this problem by a speedy reconsideration? I hope–I hope some way can be found to resolve the legal issues without having people in jail for doing what they think is right…….

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Address to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention

delivered 30 January 1984, Sheraton Washington Hotel, Washington, D.C.

[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from the audio]

Moderator: It is my honor and distinct pleasure to introduce the President of the United States.

President Reagan: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Brandt Gustavson, Dr. Ben Armstrong, and ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests. Thank you all very much.

I’m going to depart from what I was going to say, or begin with here, for just a moment to tell a little story. And I hope Pat Boone won’t mind. I’m going to tell it on him.

Some years ago when there was a subversive element that had moved into the motion picture industry and Hollywood, and there were great meetings that were held. There was one that was held in the Los Angeles Sports Arena. 16,000 people were there, and thousands of them up in the balcony were young people.

And Pat Boone stood up, and in speaking to this crowd he said, talking of communism, that he had daughters — they were little girls then — and he said, “I love them more than anything on Earth.” “But,” he said, “I would rather” — and I thought, “I know what he’s going to say and, oh, you must not say that.” And yet I had underestimated him. He said, “I would rather that they die now believing in God than live to grow up under communism and die one day no longer believing in God.”

There was a hushed moment, and then 16,000 people, all those thousands of young people came to their feet with a roar that you just — it thrills you through and through.

Well, I thank you all very much. This is a moment I’ve been looking forward to. I remember with such pleasure the time we spent together last year. Today I feel like I’m doing more than returning for a speech; I — I feel like I’m coming home.

Homecoming — I think it is the proper word. Under this roof, some 4,000 of us are kindred spirits united by one burning belief: God is our Father; we are His children; together, brothers and sisters, we are one family.

Being family makes us willing to share the pain of problems we carry in our hearts. But families also come together in times of joy, and we can celebrate such a moment today. Hope is being reborn across this land by a mighty spiritual revival that’s made you the miracle of the entire broadcasting industry.

I might say your success and my celebrating another birthday about this time of year are both a source of annoyance to a number of people.

Let me set the record straight on your account: The spectacular growth of CBN [Christian Broadcasting Network] and PTI [PTL – Praise the Lord] and Trinity [Trinity Broadcasting Network], of organizations that produce religious programs for radio and television, not to mention the booming industry in Christian books, underlines a far-reaching change in our country.

Americans yearn to explore life’s deepest truths. And to say their entertainment — their idea of entertainment is sex and violence and crime is an insult to their goodness and intelligence. We are people who believe love can triumph over hate, creativity over destruction, and hope over despair. And that’s why so many millions hunger for your product — God’s good news.

In his book, “The Secret Kingdom,” Pat Robertson told us, “There can be peace; there can be plenty; there can be freedom. They will come the minute human beings accept the principles of the invisible world and begin to live by them in the visible world.” More and more of us are trying to do this. George Gallup has detected a rising tide of interest and involvement in religion among all levels of society.

I was pleased last year to proclaim 1983 the Year of the Bible. But, you know, a group called the ACLU severely criticized me for doing that.

Well I wear their indictment like a badge of honor.

I believe I stand in pretty good company. Abraham Lincoln called the Bible “the best gift God has given to man.” “But for it,” he said, “we wouldn’t know right from wrong.” Like that image of George Washington kneeling in prayer in the snow at Valley Forge, Lincoln described a people who knew it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness; they must also look to God their Father and Preserver. And their faith to walk with Him and trust in His Word brought them the blessings of comfort, power, and peace that they sought.

The torch of their faith has been passed from generation to generation. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever.”

More and more Americans believe that loving God in their hearts is the ultimate value. Last year, not only were Year of the Bible activities held in every State of the Union, but more than 25 States and 500 cities issued their own Year of the Bible proclamations. One schoolteacher, Mary Gibson, in New York raised 4,000 dollars to buy Bibles for working people in downtown Manhattan.

1983 was the year more of us read the Good Book. Can we make a resolution here today? — that 1984 will be the year we put its great truths into action?

My experience in this office I hold has only deepened a belief I’ve held for many years: Within the covers of that single Book are all the answers to all the problems that face us today, if we’d only read and believe.

Let’s begin at the beginning. God is the center of our lives; the human family stands at the center of society; and our greatest hope for the future is in the faces of our children. Seven thousand Poles recently came to the christening of Maria Victoria Walesa, daughter of Danuta and Lech Walesa, to express their belief that solidarity of the family remains the foundation of freedom.

God’s most blessed gift to His family is the gift of life. He sent us the Prince of Peace as a babe in a manger. I’ve said that we must be cautious in claiming God is on our side. I think the real question we must answer is, are we on His side?

I know what I’m about to say now is controversial, but I have to say it. This nation cannot continue turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the taking of some 4,000 unborn children’s lives every day. That’s one every 21 seconds. One every 21 seconds.

We cannot pretend that America is preserving her first and highest ideal, the belief that each life is sacred, when we’ve permitted the deaths of 15 million helpless innocents since the Roe versus Wade decision — 15 million children who will never laugh, never sing, never know the joy of human love, will never strive to heal the sick or feed the poor or make peace among nations. Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights. We are all infinitely poorer for their loss.

There’s another grim truth we should face up to: Medical science doctors confirm that when the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing.

This nation fought a terrible war so that black Americans would be guaranteed their God-given rights. Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some could decide whether others should be free or slaves. Well today another question begs to be asked: How can we survive as a free nation when some decide that others are not fit to live and should be done away with?

I believe no challenge is more important to the character of America than restoring the right to life to all human beings. Without that right, no other rights have meaning. “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God.”

I will continue to support every effort to restore that protection including the Hyde-Jepsen respect life bill. I’ve asked for your all-out commitment, for the mighty power of your prayers, so that together we can convince our fellow countrymen that America should, can, and will preserve God’s greatest gift.

Let us encourage those among us who are trying to provide positive alternatives to abortion — groups like Mom’s House, House of His Creation in Pennsylvania, Jim McKee’s Sav-A-Life in Texas, which I mentioned to you last year. Begun as a response to the call of a conscience, Sav-A-Life has become a crisis counseling center and saved 22 children since it was founded in 1981.

I think we’re making progress in upholding the sanctity of life of infants born with physical or mental handicaps. The Department of Health and Human Services has now published final regulations to address cases such as Baby Doe in Bloomington. That child was denied lifesaving surgery and starved to death because he had Down’s Syndrome and some people didn’t think his life would be worth living.

Not too long ago I was privileged to meet in the Oval Office a charming little girl — tiny little girl — filled with the joy of living. She was on crutches, but she swims; she rides horseback, and her smile steals your heart. She was born with the same defects as those Baby Does who have been denied the right to life. To see her, to see the love on the faces of her parents and their joy in her was the answer to this particular question.

Secretary Heckler and Surgeon General Koop deserve credit for designing regulations providing basic protections to the least among us. And the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association of Children’s Hospitals have now affirmed a person’s mental or physical handicap must not be the basis for deciding to withhold medical treatment.

Let me assure you of something else: We want parents to know their children will not be victims of child pornography. I look forward to signing a new bill now awaiting final action in a conference committee that will tighten our laws against child pornography. And we’re concerned about enforcement of all the Federal antiobscenity laws.

Over the past year, the United States Customs Service has increased by 200 percent its confiscation of obscene materials coming in across our borders. We’re also intensifying our drive against crimes of family violence and sexual abuse.

I happen to believe that protecting victims is just as important as safeguarding the rights of defendants.

Restoring the right to life and protecting people from violence and exploitation are important responsibilities. But as members of God’s family we share another, and that is helping to build a foundation of faith and knowledge to prepare our children for the challenges of life. “Train up a child in the way he should go,” Solomon wrote, “and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

If we’re to meet the challenge of educating for the space age, of opening eyes and minds to treasures of literature, music, and poetry, and of teaching values of faith, courage, responsibility, kindness, and love, then we must meet these challenges as one people. And parents must take the lead. And I believe they are.

I know one thing I’m sure most of us agree on: God, source of all knowledge, should never have been expelled from our children’s classrooms. The great majority of our people support voluntary prayer in schools.

We hear of [cases] where courts say it is dangerous to allow students to meet in Bible study or prayer clubs. And then there was the case of that kindergarten class that was reciting a verse. They said, “We thank you for the flowers so sweet. We thank you for the food we eat. We thank you for the birds that sing. We thank you, God, for everything.” A court order of — a court of appeals ordered them to stop. They were supposedly violating the Constitution of the United States.

Well, Teddy Roosevelt told us, “The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled, it burns like a consuming flame.”

I think Americans are getting angry. I think they have a message, and Congress better listen. We are a government of, by, and for the people. And people want a constitutional amendment making it unequivocally clear our children can hold voluntary prayer in every school across this land. And if we could get God and discipline back in our schools, maybe we could get drugs and violence out.

I know that some believe that voluntary prayer in schools should be restricted to a moment of silence. We already have the right to remain silent — we can take our fifth amendment.

Seriously, we need a new amendment to restore the rights that were taken from us. Senator Baker has assured us that he — we will get a vote on our amendment. And with your help, we can win, and that will be a great victory for our children.

During the last decade, we’ve seen people’s commitment to religious liberty expressed by the establishment of thousands of new religious schools. These schools were built by the sacrifices of parents determined to provide a quality education for their children in an environment that permits traditional values to flourish.

Now I believe that some of you’ve met with my advisers to discuss the situation of religious schools in Nebraska. We have all seen news accounts of the jailing of a minister, the padlocking of a church, and the continuing imprisonment of fathers of students. This issue of religious liberty has arisen in other States. The question is how to find a balance between assuring quality of education and preserving freedom for churches and parents who want their schools to reflect their faith.

These cases have mostly proceeded in State courts. A number of State supreme courts have reached decisions that moderated the effect of State regulations on religious schools. Last week, a panel appointed by the Governor of Nebraska concluded that the State’s regulations violate the religious liberties of Christian schools.

I’m a firm believer in the separation of powers, that this nation is a federation of sovereign States. But isn’t it time for the Nebraska courts or legislature to solve this problem by a speedy reconsideration? I hope — I hope some way can be found to resolve the legal issues without having people in jail for doing what they think is right.

Within our families, neighborhoods, schools, and places of work, let us continue reaching out, renewing our spirit of friendship, community service, and caring for each other — a spirit that flows like a deep and powerful river through the history of our nation.

I made a point last year which some of our critics jumped on, but I believe it has merit. Government bureaucracies spend billions for problems related to drugs, alcoholism, and disease. How much of that money could we save, how much better off might Americans be if all of us tried a little harder to live by the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule? I’ve been told that since the beginning of civilization millions and millions of laws have been written. I’ve even heard someone suggest it was as many as several billion. And yet, taken all together, all those millions and millions of laws have not improved on the Ten Commandments one bit.

Look at projects like CBN’s “Operation Blessing,” Moody Bible Institute’s “Open Line” radio program, inner city — or the radio program, “Inner City,” I should say, in Chicago, and the work of Dr. E.V. Hill of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Los Angeles. They show us that America is more than just government on the one hand and helpless individuals on the other. They show us that lives are saved, people are reborn and, yes, dreams come true when we heed the voice of the Spirit, minister to the needy, and glorify God. That is the stuff of which miracles are made.

Our mission stretches far beyond our borders; God’s family knows no borders. In your life you face daily trials, but millions of believers in other lands face far worse. They are mocked and persecuted for the crime of loving God. To every religious dissident trapped in that cold, cruel existence, we send our love and support. Our message? You are not alone; you are not forgotten; do not lose your faith and hope because someday you, too, will be free.

If the Lord — If the Lord is our light, our strength, and our salvation, whom shall we fear? Of whom shall we be afraid? No matter where we live, we have a promise that can make all the difference, a promise from Jesus to soothe our sorrows, heal our hearts, and drive away our fears. He promised there will never be a dark night that does not end. Our “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” He promised if our hearts are true, His love will be as sure as sunlight. And, by dying for us, Jesus showed how far our love should be ready to go: all the way.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

I’m a little self-conscious because I know very well you all could recite that verse to me.

Helping each other, believing in Him, we need never be afraid. We will be part of something far more powerful, enduring, and good than all the forces here on Earth. We will be a part of paradise.

May God keep you always, and may you always keep God. Thank you very much.