Amazing Grace

I recently began reading Amazing Grace, the biography of William Wilberforce written by Eric Metaxas. Wilberforce dedicated his career in Parliament to ending slavery. I'm not usually drawn to biographies, but this one has had me riveted since the first page of the Foreward. It's impossible to miss the parallels between the campaign to end slavery and the campaign to recognize the human rights of unborn children.

This paragraph spoke volumes to me:

"At the time of the [historically black college's] establishment, there was polite conversation in America's parlors and colleges about the basic humanity of African Americans. Even more unrealistic for many in that conversation was the ability of African Americans to learn, contribute to society, and exist beyond the pale of forced servitude."

Then the author's Introduction states, "The opposition that [Wilberforce] and his small band faced was incomparable to anything we can think of in modern affairs. It was certainly unprecedented that anyone should endeavor, as if by their own strength and a bit of leverage, to tip over something about as large and substantial and deeply rooted as a mountain range. From where we stand today--and because of Wilberforce--the end of slavery seems inevitable, and it's impossible for us not to take it largely for granted. But that's the wild miracle of his achievement, that what to the people of his day seemed impossible and unthinkable seems to us, in our day, inevitable."

It is my hope and prayer that one day, this will be said of legalized abortion. Today it seems ingrained in our society and nearly impossible to reverse. May it one day be unimaginable to us that our laws ever sanctioned the destruction of human life as a matter of personal "choice."