28 Teveth 5764 / 22 Jan. 2004″I Have a Dream”
Rabbi Yehuda Levin Speech to National March for Life, Washington, D.C., Thursday, January 22, 2004
Three decades ago, in 1973, a decadent Supreme Court, in this city of Washington, D.C., issued a shameful decree—the ROE vs. WADE ruling that empowered the abortion establishment to murder and mutilate tens of millions of G-D’s children in cold blood.
Today, 31 years later, ROE vs. WADE is still the law of this great country. So, we have come here today to dramatize this appalling condition.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they made a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this guarantee, as far as her unborn children are concerned.
So, we have come to demand that America’s leaders make good on this guarantee. We have come to demand that President Bush act immediately, together with the leaders of the House and Senate, to restrict the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on the subject of Abortion, and to change the law to protect America’s unborn children.
They have the right to do this, under the Constitution of the United States.
This is no time to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to open the doors of life to all of G-D’s children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the consequences of the continued murder of millions of unborn children.
The whirlwinds of protest will continue to shake the foundations of this nation until the bright day of justice emerges. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.
Go back to New York, go back to California, and go back to all the states in between. I say to you today my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream—it is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day our political leaders will liberate themselves from the tyrannical rule of the pollsters and political gurus, and stand up for what is right and decent.
I have a dream that one day, very soon, no child will be murdered or mutilated in this great country—that all of America’s children will have the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of freedom.
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California.
But not only that—let freedom ring from the abandoned abortion clinics of Planned Parenthood—From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
Let us speed up the day when all of G-D’s children: White, Black, Brown, Gentile, Catholic, Protestant, and Jew alike will be able to sing the words of that old Negro spiritual: “Born at last! Born at last!—Thank G-D Almighty, we are born at last!”