As America 250 celebrations begin across the country, people will gather to mark the nation’s semiquincentennial. In doing so, we celebrate July 4, 1776 — the moment the great American experiment was conceived.
Notice what we do not celebrate. We do not mark America’s birthday from the day its government was formed, the day the Articles of Confederation were ratified, the day George Washington took the oath of office, or even the day the Revolutionary War was won. We celebrate the Declaration of Independence — the moment the idea of America was first brought into existence. The Fourth of July is not a celebration of America’s maturity, but of its beginning. Its conception.
Deep within the patriotism and pride of Independence Day is the inherent acknowledgment that beginnings matter. Americans instinctively understand that the worth of something is not conceived when it reaches maturity, power, or success. Worth is not caused by such things. Worth is present from the very moment a thing comes into existence.
This year, however, Independence Day arrives with a glaring irony. As people gather to celebrate the beginning of the American experiment, Congress is once again failing to show fundamental moral clarity, unable to determine whether taxpayer dollars should flow to Planned Parenthood — the nation’s largest abortion provider. If lawmakers do not act with courage and conviction, people will celebrate a national beginning while subsidizing the destruction of countless other beginnings.
We have been here before, and that is what makes this moment so maddening.
In January 2017, Donald Trump became the first Republican president in history to promise to defund Planned Parenthood. In his first term, he appointed the justices who delivered the most pro-life Supreme Court in U.S. history — the court that finally returned the abortion question to the people and their elected representatives.
And there, at the feet of the people’s representatives, is exactly where the movement keeps stumbling.
Eight years ago, the pro-life movement was given everything it had spent decades praying for: a Republican president openly committed to defunding the abortion industry, Republican majorities in both chambers, and a clear mandate from voters. And what happened? Spineless Republicans in Congress flinched. They held the gavel, they held the votes, and they failed to act. The awaited moment passed.
It is uncannily similar today. Once again, we have a president who wants to defund Planned Parenthood. Once again, we have the majorities. Once again, we have the mandate. And once again, Congress is finding reasons to do nothing — to study, to delay, waiting for a more convenient political season that never arrives.
This is not a failure of opportunity. It is a failure of courage.
Members of Congress were not elected to admire the pro-life cause from a safe distance, but to legislate. Defunding the country’s largest abortion provider does not require a constitutional amendment or a heroic act of political imagination. It requires a spending bill and a spine.
The president put America first by keeping his word. A Congress that talks endlessly about an America First mandate but cannot summon the votes to honor it is putting its own convenience first. For the activists who stand on sidewalks in the cold, who pray outside abortion facilities, who leave comfortable lives to do unglamorous work, the pattern is debilitating. Again and again, we are told that this is the moment, that this is the mandate, that this time will be different. Then the moment passes, the mandate is squandered, and we are asked to go win another election so the next class of officeholders can squander the next chance too.
America’s founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for an idea. Surely today’s lawmakers can find it within themselves to cast a single vote.
Hot dogs, beer, fireworks, and Old Glory — we celebrate our great nation every Independence Day, and indeed we should. But as America marks 250 years, we must also remember the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence, which speak of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The order of these words is not an accident of phrasing. It has been significant from the beginning. Liberty begins with life.
THE FOLLY OF ABORTION ABOLITIONISM
We commemorate the moment our nation was conceived because we understand, from our own national conception, that beginnings matter. That same principle should apply to every human life. Congress has the mandate. Congress has the votes. All that is missing is the will.
This Fourth of July, the question is not whether America’s beginning was worth celebrating. It is whether Congress still believes that all other beginnings are, too.
Shawn Carney is the president and CEO of 40 Days for Life, the world’s largest pro-life organization, and bestselling author of four books, including What to Say When 2: Your Proven Guide in the New Abortion Landscape. Follow him on Twitter @CarneyShawn