Wilberforce And The Modern Human Rights Movement

Pro-Life forces across North America ought to make a big deal over this.

Perhaps Suzanne at Big Blue Wave can set up a blogburst. There’s time to do it…the film is being released on February 23 and is targeted for fall 2007 television broadcast in the U.S. and U.K. [Canada too if we can help it!]

Why make a big deal?

In order to highlight the greatest violation of civil and human rights in the history of mankind, the legally sanctioned shedding of the innocent blood of unborn children.

The British Parliamentarian, William Wilberforce, was directly responsible not only for the legislation abolishing the British Slave Trade 200 years ago, but heavily influenced the same legislation in the U.S. In addition, Wilberforce was responsible for the beginning of the modern human rights movement, [emphasis mine] the women’s suffrage movement, the first child labor laws, prison reform, a more human penal code, and the founding of 69 philanthropic societies in late 18th century England.

We need a Wilberforce in Canada.

The emancipation leader Frederick Douglass saluted the energy of Wilberforce “that finally thawed the British heart into sympathy for the slave, and moved the strong arm of government in mercy to put an end to this bondage. Let no American, especially no colored American, withhold generous recognition of this stupendous achievement—a triumph of right over wrong, of good over evil, and a victory for the whole human race.”

Wilberforce “finally thawed the British heart into sympathy for the slave…” We need a Wilberforce to finally thaw the Canadian heart into sympathy for the unborn.

Like the England of Wilberforce’s time, there was an evil rottenness eating out the British soul. Like the America of Martin Luther King’s time, there was the barbarity of racism tearing at the heart of the US. Like the Germany of World War II, a monstrous genocide was threatening all Europe and the world.

And in the end, there was “a triumph of right over wrong, of good over evil, and a victory for the whole human race.” Everybody acknowledges that today. Every soul is quick to condemn the evil actions of the perpetrators of those injustices.

But what of the holocaust of the unborn of our time? The “A” word seems unmentionable.

Pray for a Wilberforce to finally expose this evil in Canada and finally lay bare to the bone the lie of abortion in the hearts and minds of Canadians. Abortion is truly the ultimate violation of the most fundamental of human rights and it constitutes a savagery for the whole human race.

It’s time for the new, truly liberal [free from bigotry; generous; open-handed], and modern Human Rights Movement to begin.

The unborn are waiting to be liberated. They are waiting to be welcomed, without fear of assault and death, into this world. They are waiting for recognition that they belong to the same human race and that, like all other human beings created by God and in the image of God, there is a place for them in this world.