Huckabee highlighted one of two important points surrounding the above comment “Stewart laid down….”. Huckabee pointed out quite rightly that there are two *persons* — mother and baby — each of equal value and, therefore, that the mother should not make decisions that have the impact of directly destroying the child’s life. One person does not own the other. The second point is related to Huckabee’s quote from the Declaration of Independence: “….inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; however, Huckabee did not say it: The list of rights in the Declaration is an *ordered* list. One cannot pursue happiness without the liberty to do so. And one cannot have liberty without having life. The three liberties are not on the same plane. They form a hierarchy in which pursuing happiness rests upon liberty, which rests upon life. The most fundamental of the three is life, for without it, neither of the other two rights is even logically possible. Therefore, in answer to Stewart’s query regarding the woman’s sovereignty over her body, for two people (mother and child) of equal intrinsic value, the right to life must take precedence over the woman’s liberty (sovereignty) over her own body.

Stewart laid down the battle lines exactly right: Pro-Lifers believe this is about the intrinsic life of each individual, and Pro-Choicers believe this is a sovereignty question about women having control over their own reproductive systems. Abortion highlights how many women lack control over their reproductive systems where it counts: before getting pregnant. To admit that fact necessitates coming to terms the realities of empty or destructive relationships (whether formal or informal) in which men also have tremendous culpability in the problem. But women will defend abortion to defend an illusion of control, and men will defend abortion to avoid responsibility.

These are the larger pressures that the pro-life movement should be tackling in tandem with the legal and legislative angle. Some of those pressures are societal, and some of them are intensely personal. But as long as they are pervasive enough to cause a significant number of women to seek the illusion of control through abortion, they will cause an obstacle to a recognition of the integrity of life that will be tremendously difficult to prevail against through reasoned argument alone.

Hence, as always, the PRIMARY need for prayer in this effort.