If you've ever seen the clearest and bluest of the Atlantic in the Caribbean, you have a sense of what the weather has been like in Washington, D.C., in recent days. I haven't been here in a while, but it sure welcomed me back well. I had the opportunity to see the town from a Virginia balcony with a comprehensive view. And for a bit, all I could look at was the Jefferson Memorial.
Later on, I opened up Mike Pence's new book, "What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience." Right away, I realized why I couldn't take my eyes off Jefferson's spot on the Tidal Basin. It's the inscription, which Pence remembers taking note of when he and his family first moved to the nation's capital.
"Etched on an inside wall of the open-air structure, it faces the statue of the primary author of the Declaration of Independence: 'God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?'"
Jefferson, of course, was writing about slavery, "which haunted the man from Monticello to the end of his days." They immediately haunted Pence, as "applied to the plight of the unborn."
"That's the thing about timeless values," the former vice president writes. "They possess the power to instruct and inspire in different times and circumstances."
We will be judged by how we treat our most vulnerable. That's a paraphrase of what Pence wrote. It's my conviction. No "may" about it. No question about it. Not that I think Pence has any doubt. He goes on to define the most vulnerable as: "the aged, infirm, disabled, and the unborn." He writes: "No class of Americans is more vulnerable or marginalized than unborn children. They are truly the least among us, utterly dependent on others for everything." He insists: "The starting point for protecting them is the recognition that everyone born and unborn enjoys a God-given right to life, from conception to natural death and at all points in between." Most baby boomer Democrats once basically held that view — it was mainstream. Now abortion is being delivered by your mailman, and assisted suicide can come by doctor prescription — and for situations that are far from terminal.
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Pence writes that he "saw Roe v. Wade as a rejection of the opening line of the Declaration of Independence." The Indiana native says: "The right to life is our first freedom, and our unalienable right as Americans. It is the foundation upon which every other right rests. None of them matters without this one."
"Conservatives," Pence writes, "must seize the opportunity to pursue a future in which Americans celebrate the gift of life, honor the promise of the Declaration, come alongside women in need, stand up for the weak, and declare without apology that every life matters and every child deserves a chance."
This is not just a cause for conservatives. But if the word means anything, conservatives better be for these. Consider this year's Independence Day fireworks your starting command to renew the face of the earth with the spirit of God flowing through our authentic desire to conserve the good, and let us consider it our duty to pass on this country and its commitment to life, with a declaration to live by.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.
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