One Battle Won
I have been working with lawmakers and policy influencers for decades. I have fought alongside some of the kindest, most generous, and most altruistic people the world has to offer. The battle for the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not for the faint of heart. It is not one battle to be won, but a series of many battles in the war for the hearts and souls of people.
The Right to Life
I’ve worked with advocates in the battle for the right to life for over a quarter of a century. The blood of the innocents is still being shed all over the world. In New Hampshire, where I am from, I have long been ashamed of my lawmakers. Well, certainly not all of them. There are between fifty and eighty truly Honorable State Representatives and a half dozen remarkable Senators serving each term.
This year, although we have some great people serving, the NH House couldn’t even pass a bill prohibiting coerced abortion. For this, I hang my head. There are simply too few good men and women in positions of power. If you are of a mind to run to serve as a representative with virtually no pay for half a year’s work, let me know. I will help you by connecting you to the people, education, and resources you’ll need.
If not, please pray. We do have some really great people who are doing their level best to protect your rights. They need your prayer and your involvement.
The Right to Liberty
The NH House was convinced by an ostensibly well meaning representative to study decriminalization of prostitution this year. A previous bill’s original construction would fully decriminalized prostitution. That means the pimps and traffickers would be free to operate at will. There would be little the police could investigate, if prostitution were no longer prohibited.
Police need probable cause to investigate any person. They must be pretty sure a crime is being committed. Where prostitution is decriminalized, organized crime, trafficking, and violence increase. This is what we have seen in places like Germany and even in Rhode Island, where prostitution was decriminalized for 29 years.
We do not need to study a failed experiment. The evidence is in. The bill, HB 287, would simply give pimps and traffickers a platform to use their charm on our lawmakers. It called for a committee and not a commission. A committee is filled with lawmakers. A commission includes private sector members.
Lawmakers are more likely to listen to lawmakers, just as you are more likely to listen to members of your community. So, a committee would be giving the pimps and traffickers access to convince our lawmakers that purveyors of human flesh would police themselves. These are the same people who are so charming that they can convince other people to sell their only worldly possession -their body- to be raped, beaten and infected over and over again.
Can you imagine someone so charismatic that they can take a young woman or a young man and convince them that it would be a good idea to have sex with many others and suffer all sorts of degrading acts for money that is given over to the trafficker? It happens.
One Battle Won
Thankfully, the Senate killed the bill 21-3, but it will be back.
Just as the bills to decriminalize abortion were back until there was no longer protection for women and children from abortionists. The brutality of abortion and the disregard for human life has degraded society as a whole.
From school shootings and child rape to abuse and abandonment of all kinds, we have a long way to go before we live in a society where every life counts.
The battle for the rights we treasure is not a singular one. Each is part of a larger war.