Human Rights

The matter of human rights has been rolling in my head this month. It's interesting to me that I read the book The Help, a novel revealing relationships between white and black women in the '60s, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday was observed on the 16th. But also, the abortion issue is big this month with the Right to Life march in DC, and I participated in a small one in our community the same day. Maybe all this doesn't seem to have an obvious connection, but to me, it all fit together.

As I looked up a slogan to put on my poster for the march, the only one that I thought was really good said "Human Rights Begin With Human Life." Really, if you don't respect life at the start, why would you at any other point? And it brought me back to my thoughts from The Help. It was eye-opening to me that women, people, could treat others with such disrespect and audacity. (Of course, not everyone in the book did.) Reflecting on how anyone could justify it, I had to remember that in the South, white people were brought up to believe that blacks were different, dirty, and dangerous, just like I was brought up to believe Jesus is good and the Savior of the world. However, as we mature, we all have to come to an opinion of our own. But changing beliefs takes a lot of circumstances to even make us reconsider.

To me, the point of fighting for human rights is to affirm that every life is important. Whether it is an unplanned pregnancy, a person with black skin, a homeless person, or an alcoholic. After all, Jesus loved everyone while He was on Earth, even though who beat him and crucified Him. That is the prime example for us.

I think the hard thing in the abortion issue is that some of those in favor of it claim that the fertilized egg, even the fetus, is not a real human life. I'm not up on that argument enough to know when they claim it is, but it seems to me the kind of thing that it hard to argue with. How can you prove a fertilized egg has a soul? You have to believe it. And you can't make some one have faith in something. They must choose to. So if someone truly believes that blacks are less than human, than how do you prove to them they aren't? But, through a great movement lead by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many others, that belief is now unpopular and definitely unsupported. Maybe, God willing and God help us, someday the belief that a child in womb is not worthy to live, will be in our past as well.