Lately, I’ve been learning a new vocabulary: radiation, infusions, chemotherapy, stem cell transplant.

Someone I love got a tough cancer diagnosis. There is nothing quite like bad news from a doctor that makes you think about how much time you have, and how you want to spend it.  

Life is a fleeting gift. We should not waste a moment.   

Sadly, in America, in so many ways, life is not valued. I’m not talking about the mindless hours squandered in front of a glowing television, computer, or phone screen. Most of us spend too much time in such useless pursuits. But that is a personal choice.  

It is the government-sanctioned disregard for life that harms so many, and should trouble us all. Under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the U.S. has seen more abortions, political prisoners, and forgotten disaster victims.

Biden and Harris don’t value human life.   

Babies’ Lives Matter

Abortion is just one example. While campaign commercials for Kamala Harris scream that states are banning abortion and that access to the deadly procedure is at risk without Harris at the helm, the US saw, in 2023, the most abortions in a decade: an estimated 1,037,000 in the formal health care system. It’s an 11 percent increase since 2020, the last year estimates were available, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion data.

That is enough babies to fill the University of Michigan’s “Big House” football stadium 10 times.

Abortion is big business, and politicians who pledge to keep the abortion racket thriving get huge campaign donations. They can afford it. The nonprofit Planned Parenthood Federation of America showed more than a half billion dollars in gross receipts in 2023. President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson earned nearly $584,000 that year, outpacing the $400,000 annual salary of the U.S. president. With so much money on the line, the idea of making abortion safe and rare is not the goal anymore. Killing the unborn is profitable, and it shows in the tone Harris uses when defending the grisly practice.

If Harris valued life, she would work to develop programs that reduce abortions. Instead, under the Biden/Harris administration pregnancy resource centers have come under attack, and abortions have soared to record numbers.

Pro-Life Americans’ Lives Matter

The Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) sentenced three pro-life activists in late September for praying, singing church hymns, and standing in the hallway of a now-shuttered abortion business in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, back in 2021. They were there to persuade women not to have an abortion and were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which makes it a federal crime to interfere with someone getting an abortion. The DOJ added a conspiracy charge, making the maximum possible sentence 11 years in prison.

These three had their sentencing delayed because they were charged in other, similar cases. They were part of a larger group that has already been sentenced.

Chester Gallagher of Tennessee was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Heather Idoni was sentenced to eight months in prison, to be served concurrently with the 24-month sentence she is now serving for similar charges in Washington, D.C., and she will be sentenced for another case in Michigan.

Eva Edl, 89, was given three years of probation. As a child, Edl was taken by train cattle car as a prisoner to the Gakova (also spelled Gakowa) communist-run concentration camp in Yugoslavia, where she faced starvation. Today, she considers sitting in front of the doors of abortion businesses her way of sitting on the train tracks to stop children from dying.

After the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe. v. Wade, Biden issued an executive order directing his administration to address security risks at abortion businesses.

In July 2022, the DOJ announced it was forming the Reproductive Rights Task Force, with a goal of enforcement of the FACE Act. Since then, the DOJ has sent the FBI to the homes of pro-lifers, intimidated them, and thrown many in federal prison for years for FACE violations that happened before the crackdown.

These pro-lifers have spent much of their lives rescuing babies. Children are alive today because they convinced mothers to turn away from the abortion mill. They didn’t steal a car or stab someone — both serious crimes that have received less punishment. But their lives have been turned upside down by Biden’s policies.

The business of abortion gets more protection that a typical crime victim because Harris and Biden don’t value the lives of babies, the lives of the pro-lifers, or the lives of violent crime victims.   

No matter how you feel about abortion, all Americans should be concerned when politicians use the force of the government to impose harsh prison sentences on gentle people, stealing years of their lives.

Policies Honoring Life Matter 

If Harris and Biden valued the lives of the people hurt by Hurricane Helene, they would have swiftly focused on hurricane relief. The administration would have communicated directly with the victims without prompting, they would have set up searches in the hardest hit areas, and they would have quickly moved food, water, shelter, and medical supplies to the affected areas.

They would try to negotiate an end to wars around the globe instead of perpetuating human misery with endless funding.

If they valued human lives, Harris and Biden would admit human trafficking, and all the suffering it causes, is intertwined with our open border, and make it stop. And they would develop dignified solutions to homeless encampments.

But none of this is second nature to leaders who don’t honor life.

Time is not on our side. Life is a fleeting gift.

Let us choose leaders who show up in hard times, seek policies that help people thrive in their lives, and work to bring peace to a groaning world.