For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 18, 2002
National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2002
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
This Nation was founded upon the belief that every human being is
endowed by our Creator with certain "unalienable
rights." Chief among them is the right to life
itself. The Signers of the Declaration of Independence
pledged their own lives, fortunes, and honor to guarantee inalienable
rights for all of the new country's citizens. These
visionaries recognized that an essential human dignity attached to all
persons by virtue of their very existence and not just to the strong,
the independent, or the healthy. That value should apply to
every American, including the elderly and the unprotected, the weak and
the infirm, and even to the unwanted.
Thomas Jefferson wrote that, "[t]he care of human life and
happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate
object of good government." President Jefferson was
right. Life is an inalienable right, understood as given to
each of us by our Creator.
President Jefferson's timeless principle obligates us to pursue a
civil society that will democratically embrace its essential moral
duties, including defending the elderly, strengthening the weak,
protecting the defenseless, feeding the hungry, and caring for children
-- born and unborn. Mindful of these and other obligations,
we should join together in pursuit of a more compassionate society,
rejecting the notion that some lives are less worthy of protection than
others, whether because of age or illness, social circumstance or
economic condition. Consistent with the core principles
about which Thomas Jefferson wrote, and to which the Founders
subscribed, we should peacefully commit ourselves to seeking a society
that values life -- from its very beginnings to its natural end.
Unborn children should be welcomed in life and protected in law.
On September 11, we saw clearly that evil exists in this world, and
that it does not value life. The terrible events of that
fateful day have given us, as a Nation, a greater understanding about
the value and wonder of life. Every innocent life taken that
day was the most important person on earth to somebody; and every death
extinguished a world. Now we are engaged in a fight against
evil and tyranny to preserve and protect life. In so doing, we are
standing again for those core principles upon which our Nation was
founded.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States
of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution
and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Sunday, January
20, 2002, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon all Americans to
reflect upon the sanctity of human life. Let us recognize
the day with appropriate ceremonies in our homes and places of worship,
rededicate ourselves to compassionate service on behalf of the weak and
defenseless, and reaffirm our commitment to respect the life and
dignity of every human being.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand
this eighteenth day of January, in the year of
our Lord two thousand two, and of the Independence of the United States
of America the two hundred and twenty-sixth.
GEORGE W. BUSH
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