Imagine for a moment, we replay that commercial in our minds. Same first class footage. Same stirring music. Same intrauterine crosses. Instead of our President, we see a criminal, committing all sorts of mayhem his whole shattered life from the very beginning to his final incarceration. Mayhem in your neighborhood, maybe even your home. His contribution to society is destruction; his material value is in the red. At the end of his life, in a prison hospital, convicted of only a fraction of the crimes he actually committed, he repents on his death bed and in his final moments, his sins are forgiven and the criminal is received into everlasting life.
Reliable sources inform me that when this occurs, all of Heaven rejoices. Such is the economy of God's grace and mercy. Such is the manifestation of the virtue of hope within life and for life, no matter how vile the actions one misguided life may undertake, or how heavy the cross is given to one who may have not yet grown arms.
We need to expand the discussion and not be driven by sentimentality or trapped into an argument based on real or imagined future acts. Sentimentality and utility are arguments we can not prevail with over the long haul because while sometimes accurate, they are not always true. The argument that will prevail is that all persons have a right to life simply because they are persons worthy of love. This right lies inherently within the dignity common to all people. The right to life stems not from what one does or becomes, but in Whose image one was created.
Abortion is wrong, not because in 1961 a future President was spared an abortion by a heroic mother and laws that protected his life. Such an argument does not advance the sentinel premise: abortion is wrong because it kills an innocent child.
May this President, who rose above discrimination based on the color of his skin, graduated from Harvard Law school, and reached the highest office in the land carrying the crosses handed to him in the womb of his mother, make a priority the protection of those children who are similarly discriminated against, carrying crosses identical to his own.