Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared in the Billings Gazette.
Rugged individualism and self-reliance are highly prized traits in Montana. We agree that people should be as free as possible to make their own way in life. To succeed through your own effort is a worthy goal. If we’re being honest, though, most of us, probably all of us, have needed someone to be there for us at a crucial moment.
That’s why even in Montana, you’ll find neighbors helping neighbors. You’ll see churches ministering to the vulnerable all around them in their communities. And you’ll witness moments of incredible generosity as complete strangers lend a helping hand to those in need. In short, the big skies of Montana are only matched by the big hearts of her citizens.
Despite this big-hearted neighborliness, Montanans are being asked to turn away from those who need the most help, who have no voice, and too often find themselves with no one to defend them: our preborn sons and daughters. We’re being prodded by a multi-million-dollar, out-of-state campaign to withhold the simple decency and Montana values that unborn children need from us to get their own start in life.
This badgering comes in the form of Constitutional Initiative 128 – a ballot question that seeks to drive a deadly wedge between mothers and their children in the name of freedom. Because Montanans rightly cherish the idea of self-determination, it makes sense that the pro-abortion authors of this initiative would use the language of freedom to try to persuade us to vote for it. But, how is it a Montana value to kill the innocent in order to advance a personal agenda?
Read the full article at Baptist Press.
