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National Sanctity of Human Life Day is an observance declared by several United States Presidents who opposed abortion typically proclaimed on or near the anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade .
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National Sanctity of Human Life Day is an observance declared by several United States Presidents who opposed abortion typically proclaimed on or near the anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade .
President Ronald Reagan issued a presidential proclamation on January 13, 1984, designating Sunday, January 22, 1984 as National Sanctity of Human Life Day, noting that it was the 11th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, in which the Supreme Court issued a ruling that guaranteed women access to abortion. [1] President Reagan was a strong anti-abortion advocate who said that in Roe v. Wade the Supreme Court "struck down our laws protecting the lives of unborn children". [2]
Reagan issued the proclamation annually thereafter, designating Sanctity of Human Life Day to be the closest Sunday to the original January 22 date. [3] His successor, George H. W. Bush, continued the annual proclamation throughout his presidency. [4] Bush's successor, Bill Clinton, discontinued the practice throughout his eight years in office, but Bush's son and Clinton's successor, George W. Bush, resumed the proclamation and did so every year of his presidency. [5]
At the end of the first year of his presidency, Donald Trump issued a proclamation declaring Monday, January 22, 2018 to be National Sanctity of Human Life Day; [6] however, the next year, his proclamation set it again to a Sunday, that being January 20, 2019. [7]
The day is observed in some churches as Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, including in some parishes of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.
According to the Proper Calendar [8] of the Catholic Church in the United States, as requested by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and approved by the Holy See, 22 January (or the 23rd if the 22nd is a Sunday) is observed as the "Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children".
In an amicus brief filed by the National Lawyers Association in the case of Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow , National Sanctity of Human Life Day was cited as an instance of the executive branch acknowledging the theistic philosophy of the United States government. [9] [4]
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many abortion laws, and caused an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication.
Abortion is a divisive issue in the United States. The issue of abortion is prevalent in American politics and culture wars, though a majority of Americans support continued access to abortion. There are widely different abortion laws depending on state.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 is a United States law that recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
The 1976 Republican National Convention was a United States political convention of the Republican Party that met from August 16 to August 19, 1976, to select the party's nominees for president and vice president. Held in Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, the convention nominated President Gerald Ford for a full term, but only after narrowly defeating a strong challenge from former California Governor Ronald Reagan. The convention also nominated Senator Bob Dole from Kansas for vice president, instead of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who did not seek nomination for a full term. The keynote address was delivered by Tennessee Senator Howard Baker. Other notable speakers included Minnesota Representative Al Quie, retired Lieutenant Colonel and former Vietnam prisoner of war Raymond Schrump, former Democratic Texas Governor John Connally, Providence, Rhode Island mayor Vincent Cianci and Michigan Senator Robert P. Griffin. It is the last national convention by either of the two major parties to feature a seriously contested nomination between candidates.
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) is the oldest and largest national anti-abortion organization in the United States with affiliates in all 50 states and more than 3,000 local chapters nationwide.
The 1984 Republican National Convention convened on August 20 to August 23, 1984, at Dallas Convention Center in downtown Dallas, Texas. The convention nominated President Ronald W. Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush for reelection.
The Human Life Amendment is the name of multiple proposals to amend the United States Constitution that would have the effect of overturning the Supreme Court 1973 decision Roe v. Wade, which ruled that prohibitions against abortion were unconstitutional. All of these amendment proposals seek to overturn Roe v. Wade, but most of them go further by forbidding both Congress and the states from legalizing abortion. Some of the proposals define human life as beginning with conception or fertilization.
The United States anti-abortion movement contains elements opposing induced abortion on both moral and religious grounds and supports its legal prohibition or restriction. Advocates generally argue that human life begins at conception and that the human zygote, embryo or fetus is a person and therefore has a right to life. The anti-abortion movement includes a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body. There are diverse arguments and rationales for the anti-abortion stance. Some anti-abortion activists allow for some permissible abortions, including therapeutic abortions, in exceptional circumstances such as incest, rape, severe fetal defects, or when the woman's health is at risk.
Mildred Fay Jefferson was an American physician and anti-abortion political activist. The first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, the first woman to graduate in surgery from Harvard Medical School and the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society, she is known for her opposition to the legalization of abortion and her work as president of the National Right to Life Committee.
The March for Life is an annual rally and march against the practice and legality of abortion, held in Washington, D.C., either on or around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a decision legalizing abortion nationwide which was issued in 1973 by the United States Supreme Court. The participants in the march have advocated the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which happened at the end of the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24, 2022. It is a major gathering of the anti-abortion movement in the United States and it is organized by the March for Life Education and Defense Fund.
In the United States, National Ice Cream Month is celebrated each year in July, and National Ice Cream Day is celebrated on the third Sunday in July.
The proposed Sanctity of Life Act was a bill first introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) on July 20, 1995, and cosponsored by Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY). It was reintroduced with similar text by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) in 2005 in the 109th United States Congress, 110th United States Congress, 111th United States Congress, and the 112th United States Congress. The repeatedly introduced bill sparked advocacy from anti-abortion activists and opposition from pro-choice activists. The bill has never become law.
Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Previously, he was the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and acted in Hollywood films from 1937 to 1964, the same year he energized the American conservative movement. Reagan's basic foreign policy was to equal and surpass the Soviet Union in military strength, and put it on the road to what he called "the ash heap of history". By 1985, he began to cooperate closely with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, whom he became friends and negotiated large-scale disarmament projects with. The Cold War was fading away and suddenly ended as the Soviets lost control of Eastern Europe almost overnight in October 1989, nine months after Reagan was replaced in the White House by his vice president, George H. W. Bush, who was following Reagan's policies. The dissolution of the Soviet Union took place in December 1991. In terms of the Reagan Doctrine, he promoted military, financial, and diplomatic support for anti-communist insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and numerous other countries. For the most part, local communist power collapsed when the Soviet Union collapsed.
The Walk for Life West Coast is an annual anti-abortion event held in San Francisco, California. It is held on a Saturday on or near January 22, the anniversary date of the decision in the United States Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade.
Founded in 1987, Lifewatch, Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality (TUMAS) is a 501(c)(3) organization that serves as the unofficial anti-abortion group within the United Methodist Church (UMC). The organization publishes a quarterly newsletter titled Lifewatch and is a member of the National Pro-Life Religious Council. The organization also frequently holds seminars to address within Methodist Christianity the theological, moral, and social aspects of defending women and their unborn children from abortion. It is committed to reversing the Roe v. Wade decision "by first providing theological leadership within the church, which will set an example that political, legal and cultural forces will follow."
Since the Catholic Church views abortion as gravely wrong, it considers it a duty to reduce its acceptance by the public and in civil legislation. While it considers that Catholics should not favour abortion in any field, it recognises that Catholics may accept compromises that, while permitting abortions, lessen their incidence by, for instance, restricting some forms or enacting remedies against the conditions that give rise to them. It is accepted that support may be given to a political platform that contains a clause in favour of abortion but also elements that will actually reduce the number of abortions, rather than to an anti-abortion platform that will lead to their increase.
The Helms Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act, sometimes called simply the Helms Amendment, is a 1973 amendment, passed by the U.S. Congress in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision by the United States Supreme Court, to limit the use of US foreign assistance for abortion.
The presidential transition of George H. W. Bush began when then-Vice President Bush won the United States 1988 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Bush was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1989.