At RedState, we recognize that abortion is not likely to be the foremost issue in this year’s federal elections. We know that at a time when the economy continues to spiral out of control, massive numbers of people remain unemployed or underemployed, and Obama’s reckless spending threatens our fiscal health, it is difficult to force people to focus on a problem that remains largely unseen, and does not ultimately impact the ability of families to put food on their table. Yet it remains appropriate to take a moment to grieve the lost and to reaffirm our commitment to the basic principles to which we are committed.

The first and foremost responsibility of any legitimate government, no matter its form, is to prevent where possible the taking of innocent life. The second responsibility of any government is to punish the taking of innocent life when the government has failed at its first responsibility. Thirty-nine years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States broke with centuries of precedent and the plain text of the Constitution and declared that the Government of the United States was constitutionally prevented from carrying out these responsibilities when the innocent life in question was contained within a woman’s womb. Since that time, the gears of death and slaughter have marched inexorably onward, and the blood of tens of millions has been spilled on our soil with nary a second thought by the vast majority of our populace.

Were this a tragedy of any other sort, we might pause here to list the names – or at least a portion of the names – of the fallen. Yet here we cannot, because the fallen have been denied the dignity of a name, or of a life that anyone might remember and lament, or of a proper burial. This is a perfect encapsulation of the evil Roe has wrought, that we all instinctively mourn the most the young who die without the chance to live a proper and full life – except in the case of children who are unwanted by their parents, who we have somehow been conditioned to not mourn at all. This injustice cannot and will not be sustained forever, and we renew our commitment this year and every year to do everything within our power within the lawful political process to see Roe overturned. We do not now and will not ever support any candidate who pledges fealty to this judicial usurpation and the machinery of death it enables.

On this day, we remember.