Biblical morality – the Law as prescribed by God – has for some time been in a defensive mode here in America. Intrinsic in that decline has been the legal allowance for abortion which has thus far resulted in the deaths of over 40,000,000 babies. A holocaust of this magnitude is a crushing weight on morality and a disaster for Christianity. The late Mother Teresa of Calcutta speaking at a Presidential Prayer Breakfast during the Presidency of William Jefferson Clinton said, “I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”
The birthing of legal abortion, though it lacked the prodigious magnitude, was as heinous as the act itself. Norma McCorvey, at the time a hapless young women pregnant with her boy friend’s baby, became a tool for Planned Parenthood to challenge the Texas abortion law. As the story now goes, McCorvey was coached into testimony that she had been raped by three men and a women. She was joined by a doctor named James Hallford who wanted to perform legal abortions and a couple, John and Mary Doe, who for medical reasons could not bear children or take contraceptives.
In March, 1970, the suit was filed which began the process of legalizing abortion. The Doe’s and Dr. Hallford’s cases were dismissed and ultimately McCorvey’s as well. After the State of Texas threw out these cases, a prominent Dallas attorney named Sarah Weddington and her colleague, Linda Coffee, filed an appeal of the McCorvey case with the U. S. Supreme Court (Roe vs Wade). This appeal and a companion case filed from the State of Georgia by a feminist attorney named Marjorie Pitts Hames on behalf of a young women name Sandra Bensing (Doe vs Bolton) were successfully argued before a profligate Supreme Court and in 1973 the Court substantially overturned America’s Christian legal system by finding in favor of the plaintiffs. Justice Blackmun wrote the favorable decision for the Court. He was joined in the opinion by Justices Stewart, Burger, and Douglas. Justices Rehnquist and White dissented.
Neither Norma McCorvey nor Sandra Bensing received an abortion. Both contend they were unaware of the implications of the suits and were duped into the filings. Norma McCorvey has become a Christian and both she and Sandra Bensing delivered the babies they carried at the time of the filings. The great evil of abortion was stained at its inception and that crimson continues to spread in America and around the world.
Since law forms the religious base of society, this case not only drastically altered the nature of American society but set the stage for a precipitous moral decline. As Mother Theresa writing in the Wall Street Journal so aptly put it, “America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts – a child – as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience.”
Though the responsibility for writing and maintaining the nation’s legal purity is vested in the House of Representatives, there has been little protest and no political progress against the heinous practice of killing babies in the womb.
Here in Ocala, Florida, we have an unheralded County Commissioner who is pursuing righteousness and fighting abortion with an unequaled intensity and with unusual success.
Considering the shabby moral standards of many of our political leaders and the pandering and equivocation which marks their conduct, it is refreshing to see a budding statesman who can properly discern the right course, bring it to public attention, garner support, and see it through to fruition.
Most of today’s political flock have their wet fingers positioned in the wind stream of public opinion which has been pre-molded by a partisan press and media. To many, their function is the spending of public money, to others it is the advancement of a hidden agenda. By hook or by crook, no matter how injurious, they seem to find a permanent home in government.
Leaders are able to garner support and deploy it effectively. They do not disdain unpopular issues and can bring many of them to fruition in spite of stout opposition. Knowing it is the only road to improvement, real leaders seek controversy which they promptly destroy with righteous consensus.
A native Floridian, raised, educated, and work-honed in Ocala, Randy Harris presents a cherubic countenance coupled with a mature sense of right and wrong. He is fiscally conservative, socially moral, and with uncanny timing has the temerity to speak up.
In 1996 Randy Harris came up with a vision for funding the fruition of unwanted pregnancies with money generated by an automobile license plate. It was a controversial project. Randy did his home work. He wrote the Bill himself to be sure the funds would go to the proper places. In 1997 the Marion County Commissioners unanimously approved a petition requesting approval by the Florida Legislature of a “Choose Life” plate. This petition was sent to all 67 Florida counties and several municipalities. That same year, in order to fulfill statute requirements, $30,000 was raised and 14,500 people signed to purchase the plates. The money and signatures were submitted to the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles and the Bill to the legislature. Randy Harris traveled to Tallahassee and lobbied the individual legislators. The Senate Transportation Committee stymied the bill on the first submission. In 1998, Randy again traveled to Tallahassee. This time the Bill passed the House and Senate but was vetoed by Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles.
During the interim, before final approval, Choose Life, Inc., an organization formed to promote the license plate, produced and sold a promotional plate which garnered public attention and produced part of the funding for the required $30,000 submission fee.
The Bill was finally signed by Republican Governor Jeb Bush in 1999. By this time, many of the bright yellow promotional “Choose Life” tags were already seen around Florida.
The Bill provides that the annual use fees obtained from the sale of the Choose Life plates be distributed to each county in a predetermined ratio and that each county distribute the funds, “to nongovernmental, not-for-profit agencies within the county, which agencies’ services are limited to counseling and meeting the physical needs of pregnant women who are committed to placing their children for adoption. Funds may not be distributed to any agency that is involved or associated with abortion activities, including counseling for or referrals to abortion clinics, providing medical abortion-related procedures, or pro-abortion advertising, and funds may not be distributed to any agency that charges women for services received. Agencies that receive the funds must use at least 70 percent of the funds to provide for the material needs of pregnant women who are committed to placing their children for adoption, including clothing, housing, medical care, food, utilities, and transportation. Such funds may also be expended on infants awaiting placement with adoptive parents.”
The initial germination of Randy Harris’s idea has resulted in inquiries from 35 states of which at least twelve have legislation before their state officials. Few, if any, politicians can point to an endeavor that has enhanced the cause of righteousness to this extent.
This bit of goodness has not gone unnoticed by anti-Christian forces. In November, Judge Nikki Ann Clark in Tallahassee dismissed a case brought by a Jewish Synagogue in Palm Beach and the National Organization for Women, finding a lack of proof that the Choose Life plate was unconstitutional.
Since August of 2000 when the Florida Plate went on sale – 25,272 plates have been sold producing $668,000.00 to be used by the counties to promote adoption.
The Plate has been approved in Alabama so far without challenge. In South Carolina and Louisiana, the plate has been approved and is under challenge in court.
Christian politicos have not been noted for their forceful support of moral absolutes. The deterioration of morality is a result of shunning controversy and disobedience to the law. Pragmatism erodes righteousness and silence enhances evil. Christians need to discern the righteous path, express it forcefully, and support it without compromise. Here in Ocala our unassuming County Commissioner announces what is right, stands quietly during the vituperation, makes no effort to compromise, and succeeds in extending righteousness. In this era of poltroonic acquiescence, Randy Harris shines like a diamond.