To the editor:
Recently the Alexandria City Council removed the name of former Alexandria Mayor Col. John Fitzgerald from the park at the foot of King Street on Alexandria’s waterfront due to the fact that he was a slave owner. As Americans today, we realize that slavery was morally reprehensible, inhumane and heartless. However, many citizens of Fitzgerald’s time believed since it was legal it was acceptable. It took President Abraham Lincoln’s leadership to put an end to this crime against humanity.
Fast forward 155 years to 2019 and look at what took place last week in Virginia’s General Assembly. Several of Virginia’s elected representatives put forward a bill that would have loosened abortion restrictions to make it easier for a full-term, nine-month un- born child to be aborted up until the time of delivery. Our governor, Ralph Northam, even implied the child could be killed in some cases after being delivered.
A recent Gallop poll shows more than 80 percent of Americans think third trimester abortions should be illegal and a much higher percentage oppose abortion up until the time of delivery. Virginia’s elected leaders, who are advocating for abortion extremism, are not representing their constituents but working for the pro-abortion lobby that funds their campaigns and donated more than $5 million to Northam alone.
Abortion is not a political issue, but a human rights issue. Where are we as a country and a Commonwealth when our elected leaders are proposing these inhumane laws allowing abortion up until the time of birth?
A few generations from now, long after the Supreme Court has made abortion illegal, Americans will look back on this dark period in American history that took place from 1973 until the early 2020’s. Many of these modern-day, pro-abortion politicians will be dealing with public ridicule similar to that being heaped on former slave owner and Alexandria Mayor Col. John Fitzgerald.
Just like slavery, abortion of a full-term, unborn child is morally reprehensible, inhumane and heartless. Evil will always lurk when good people do nothing. As we learned from slavery, just because something is legal does not make it right.
-Frank Fannon, Former member, Alexandria City Council
