The term “pro-life” primes an immediate thought — anti-abortion.
People don’t think of food stamps, drug rehabilitation centers, Women, Infants, and Children program benefits or mental health institutions.
“If you’re pro-life, that means you got to be pro-life for the whole life. Not just for the nine months they’re in the womb. They haven’t done anything to disappoint us yet. They are perfect in there. But when they get out that’s when it gets tough,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said at a recent New Hampshire town hall event.
While by no means am I a Christie 2016 die-hard supporter, I couldn’t help but fall in love with his emotional speech outlining the necessity for anti-abortion supporters to fight for life, even in at its lowest points.
I’m a “pro-life Democrat,” something Republicans claim doesn’t exist. But, once these children are born, does society forget about them?
Do we allow a mother to starve as she uses all of her earnings to feed her baby, but there isn’t enough food for herself? Do we cut funding to welfare so 10 people are forced to crowd in their
relative’s two bedroom apartment? Do we refuse the Medicaid expansion so thousands of lower-middle class families remain uncovered?
Government spending cuts will happen, and programs will be cut. But we can’t gut programs that leave the poor to fend for themselves. This isn’t 19th century liberalism. We don’t leave fellow Americans to die in the streets because somehow it must be there fault that they are poor.
In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal cut mental health services since 2009, closing mental health institutions and shifting the care of the mentally ill from professionals to the criminal justice system.
A bipolar man who runs into trouble with law enforcement during an episode no longer goes to a regional mental hospital for care and treatment. He goes to the parish prison. Our state leaves him for dead. Louisiana ignores the illness he can’t control without proper help. What we’ve allowed to happen is not “pro-life.”
“The 16-year-old teenage girl on the floor of the county lockup, addicted to heroin, I’m pro-life for her too. Her life is just as much a precious gift from God as the one in the womb,” Christie said.
Christie points out we need to stop judging fellow Americans with drug addiction and start giving them the tools they need to recover. Whether it be through a strictly moral code or religious instinct, politicians and their constituents need to lend a helping hand to the traveller on the dusty road.
We can no longer be the priest and Levite to pass by our bleeding, naked compatriot half-dead. We must be the good Samaritan.
Because the hardships fallen on the men and women needing food stamps, mental health treatment or drug rehabilitation may one day fall upon us.
As Christie said in his speech, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”
Justin DiCharia is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Slidell, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @JDiCharia