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Martin Luther King’s Dream Revisited

Alveda King

It has been forty years of unrestricted abortion across the United States under the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling. It proved that even a nation’s highest court can make the lowest of decisions.

The January 2013 edition of the magazine Columbia published by the Knights of Columbus deals with abortion in America. Supreme Knight, Carl A. Anderson, wrote an excellent column entitled “Our Moral Responsibility”. He stated that it is not possible for any legal system to hold up human rights if it supports the principle that it is acceptable to kill the most innocent members of society. Anderson then wrote: “Roe v Wade not only accepts this principle, but it elevates it to a constitutional right.” He said that “no person is entitled to claim absolute control over another human life already called into existence.”

The truth of Mr. Anderson’s pen cuts with the precision of a freshly sharpened knife. Think about it. Wasn’t that the same moral position that ultimately stopped slavery in America?

It was odd that the most pro-abortion President America has ever known was inaugurated for his second term on Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Day (January 21st 2013). The great civil rights leader’s immortal speech I have a dream still rings the bell of liberty 45 years after his assassination.

The root of that speech drew upon the foundational principle upon which America was founded: “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.” Dr. King dreamed of a day when black Americans would truly stand as equals with white America and that they would not be “judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character.” That dream is coming to pass as a black American has risen to the highest Office in the land. But that President sullies the dream of Martin Luther King making it once again incomplete and corrupted: This black President believes in a different kind of human oppression and inequality of a class of humanity: the unborn.

And so Dr. Martin Luther King’s niece has risen up to carry the torch for human equality. Dr. Alveda King speaks for the lives of unwanted children being sacrificed on the altar of so-called sexual freedom of their parents. There is nothing free about it. The children pay the price with their lives before they ever see the light of day or feel the sun’s warmth on their backs! I am so grateful another member of the King family again points the way for the nation when it is falling so terrible short of its potential. Alveda King is calling America to recognize its blind spot about abortion. Liberty can not live without human equality. America is far from that noble ideal as long as abortion clinics operate and prosper across the land.

Understand the scale of human oppression and slaughter: since 1973, over 54 million preborn American children have lost their lives at a rate of over 4,000 each day. The abortion industry churns on day after day all across America aborting babies and preying on vulnerable and frightened young women in crisis pregnancies.

It does not need to be that way.

Americans of good will must welcome women in crisis pregnancies into their homes, churches and communities. Welcome their babies into your spheres of abundant nurture.  Shut down the abortion clinics in your towns and cities. Peacefully rise up in righteous indignation against this evil of our age. Do not rest until all human life — from the spark of conception to the last breath of life’s natural conclusion — receives the care and protection it deserves as valued members of the human family.

Remember Martin Luther King’s dream:

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

“… This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

Alveda King, take the torch of liberty from your uncle’s fallen hand. Renew his dream of human equality and liberty — this time for the smallest voices yet to sing and breath. Call your countrymen to make rough places plain and crooked paths straight. America’s blood-stained soil can yet be washed clean with the tears of national repentance. The glory of the Lord can be revealed. And I will pray for you from far away. I have such love for America.


Mark Davis Pickup is chronically ill and disabled with degenerative multiple sclerosis. He is an advocate for life issues and disability inclusion across North America. He and his wife, LaRee, have been married for 38 years. They live in Alberta Canada with their two adult children and five grandchildren. Mark is available to address issues of euthanasia, assisted suicide, and issues revolving around suffering that often fuel calls for euthanasia. He writes regularly at http://markpickup.org and http://humanlifematters.org. For bookings, contact him by e-mail at MPickup@shaw.ca or telephone (780) 929-9230. Mark Pickup's bi-weekly column can be read in the Western Catholic Reporter (Canada) at http://www.wcr.ab.ca/.