Friday, January 24, 2020

Remembering Nellie J. Gray and the personhood principle


Remembering Nellie J. Gray and the personhood principle
 On the eve of the 46th annual March for Life, it is only fitting to remember the brave, committed woman who started the event.

In the wake of the US Supreme Court's tragic decisions Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton of January 22, 1973, accomplished attorney Nellie Gray reacted with indignation and a will to take action. Gray was a Catholic convert who had served our country during World War II as a corporal in the Women's Army Corps. She later graduated from Georgetown Law School and was employed by the State and Labor Departments prior to the Supreme Court decisions that altered the course of her life from that day forward.

 Reeling from the 1973 decisions and recognizing the need to mobilize grassroots people to defend the babies, Nellie launched the March for Life Committee on January 22, 1974. The organization was officially incorporated with a board of directors with Nellie at the helm.

Nellie changed my perspective with a single speech on the evening before the 1975 March for Life. I attended a conference at which she was the keynote speaker. As soon as she explained why the personhood of the preborn baby had to be the common goal of our pro-life work, I knew I had heard the truth. It was clear that personhood for every individual human being was the right way to approach what is, on its face, a tragedy so vast in scope that it is beyond our human imagination.

For Nellie Gray and the March for Life Committee, the focus was on the "Life Principles" which were the mantra of everything the March for Life represented. Nellie's courageous and determined efforts to work for the restoration of a right that our founding fathers took for granted irked many in the pro-life movement over the years, but she persisted. She said on many occasions that what the founders wrote in The Declaration of Independence must not be abandoned: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Human personhood is not a new idea, but for Nellie, it became the bedrock of all her work, including the hoped-for passage of the Paramount Human Life Amendment. That too was simple and straightforward: "The paramount right to life is vested in each human being from the moment of fertilization without regard to age, health or condition of dependency."

In subsequent years we realized that the word "fertilization" was no longer adequate. Today we would replace that with biological beginning because of dramatic scientific changes, including in vitro fertilization and human cloning, both of which lack the recognition that only God can create human beings.

Even so, the basic thrust of the 25 words contained in the Paramount HLA encapsulates all that the pro-life movement should be striving to achieve – 100 percent protection for every innocent baby prior to birth, nothing more and nothing less.

Nellie never surrendered to political compromise. She knew that to approve even one abortion in the law or the culture was to lose the battle. She always said that either we work to protect them all or we betray them all because a little bit of abortion is a lie. She set the standard and she never wavered.

Nellie Gray died in 2012, but the principles she held so dear remain.

Today we express gratitude to God for Nellie Gray's legacy as we continue to work toward achieving total protection for every innocent human being, born and preborn.

Please pray for the happy repose of Nellie Gray's soul.

May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

If you would like to educate your children, grandchildren, students, or youth group about this amazing woman, visit the Culture of Life Studies Program's website for a lesson that will teach them how one person CAN make a difference. Entitled The Power of One: Nellie Gray and the March for Life, this lesson will help you make a difference in your child's life.




One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato (429-347 BC)

TRY THE PATRIOT AD-FREE
 "FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM AND LIBERTY"

and is protected speech pursuant to the "unalienable rights" of all men, and the First (and Second) Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, In God we trust

Stand Up To Government Corruption and Hypocrisy

Knowledge Is Power And Information is Liberating: The FRIENDS OF LIBERTY BLOG GROUPS are non-profit blogs dedicated to bringing as much truth as possible to the readers.



NEVER FORGET THE SACRIFICES
BY OUR VETERANS 



Note: We at The Patriot cannot make any warranties about the completeness, reliability, and accuracy of this information.



Don't forget to follow the Friends Of Liberty on Facebook and our Page also PinterestTwitter, TumblrMe We and PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks.

LibertygroupFreedom    





The Patriot is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with the mission to Educate, protect and defend individual freedoms and individual rights.



Support the Trump Presidency and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter.

GUEST POSTING: WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE PUBLISHED ... DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND?



Knowledge Is Power - Information Is Liberating: The Patriot Welcome is a non-profit blog dedicated to bringing as much truth as possible to the readers.
Big Tech has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers' newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share with your friends, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you



Please share… Like many other fact-oriented bloggers, we've been exiled from Facebook as well as other "mainstream" social sites. 

We will continue to search for alternative sites, some of which have already been compromised, in order to deliver our message and urge all of those who want facts, not spin and/or censorship, to do so as well.

Keep on seeking the truth, rally your friends and family and expose as much corruption as you can… every little bit helps add pressure on the powers that are no more.

No comments:

Post a Comment