This Is the Only Thing You Need to Know Before the Election

Wednesday’s night’s debate between presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was enormously clarifying for voters. Regardless of the position you take on abortion, you found out all you need to know to cast an intelligent vote. 

For those who believe in the dismembering of unborn babies in the womb, Hillary Clinton is the obvious choice. Mrs. Clinton made it clear that she still unapologetically supports partial-birth abortion, a monstrous procedure in which a baby is partially delivered before the abortionist punches a hole in her skull and sucks out her brains before crushing the skull and yanking her lifeless body out of the womb. If that’s your cup of tea, Hillary is your girl. 

Mr. Trump, on the other hand, called that procedure “unacceptable” and pledged again to only nominate to the Supreme Court judges who believe in the sanctity of life, judges who are prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the abortion issue to the states, where it properly and constitutionally belongs. 

(In addition, Mr. Trump has also pledged to sign legislation that will defund Planned Parenthood, make the Hyde Amendment permanent federal law and ban abortions after 20 weeks.) 

The first of our organic laws is the Declaration of Independence. It unambiguously and emphatically declares that we are created beings (not evolved ones) and that there is a Creator (with a capital “C”) who is the source of every single one of our fundamental human and civil rights. 

These rights are “unalienable,” which simply means that no earthly agency has the moral authority to take them away from us. The first of these inseparable rights is the right to life. It is the most fundamental of the three fundamental rights listed in the Declaration, for without life there is no liberty to enjoy and no happiness to pursue. 

The Founders enshrined in our very first legal document, the document that brought the United States into being (no Declaration, no United States) the principle that all life is precious since it comes from God, and that the purpose of government is to “secure” that right. The purpose of government is not to grant us rights but to secure the rights already given to us by God. 

So the first sacred duty of the American government is to guarantee and protect the right to life. That is its fundamental, foundational, indispensable moral and legal obligation. Since the right to life comes from God and not from government, no government at any level, or any federal agency, including the Supreme Court, is at liberty to tamper with it. 

It is impossible for a judge at any level, especially at the Supreme Court level, to fulfill his sacred oath of office without a firm, fixed and unwavering allegiance to this paramount principle. If a judge doesn’t get the life issue right, he’s not going to get anything else of significance right. 

It should be a given that any prospective Supreme Court justice affirm that there is a Creator and that the Creator insists that the fundamental rights to life, liberty and property must be protected by government at all levels. If a judge doesn’t have a conviction of that sort, he’s not qualified to be a judge in traffic court let alone sit on the highest bench in the land. 

The Constitution, the second of our most fundamental organic laws and the supreme law of the land, affirms this. Twice, in the fifth and 14th Amendments, it flatly declares that no one—no one—can be deprived of his right to life without due process of law. That is, before government can authorize the taking of a human life, that individual must be charged with a crime, face his accusers in open court, have access to counsel and receive a trial by a jury of his peers. Not a single one of these fundamental civil rights is granted to an unborn baby. His life is mercilessly snuffed out through abortion without anyone to advocate on his behalf. 

He is voiceless and helpless, the very definition of the kind of human being government has a sacred duty to protect. Donald Trump understands that. Hillary Clinton does not. 

Every other issue pales into insignificance next to this one, including immigration, the threat of Islam, the economy and foreign policy. It supersedes even the character issue. Both candidates are of inexcusably low moral character. But one believes in the sanctity of life and the other one does not. One of these two people is going to be setting policy on the life issue for the next four years and well beyond. The Supreme Court justices our next president puts on the bench will be issuing opinions on the life issue long after the next president has vacated the Oval Office. This is almost certainly the last chance we will have to see that the Court becomes a constitutional and life-affirming one. 

The choice we face on Nov. 8 has now come down to a simple, binary choice between life and death. It is a choice between a candidate who is pro-life and a candidate who is pro-death, between a candidate who supports the butchering of babies just inches from birth and a candidate who believes unborn babies must be protected rather than dismembered. It is a choice between pagan barbarism and civilization, between savagery and life, and between medieval darkness and light. Let us pray God we choose wisely. {eoa}

Bryan Fischer is the host of the two-hour weekday “Focal Point” program on American Family Radio.