Since January 22 marks the 47^th year since the U.S. Supreme Court decisions of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton which legalized the killing of an unborn baby’s life for any reason and at any stage of development, President Donald Trump proclaims today as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. 

Since 1973, approximately 62 million unborn U.S. children have been taken from what should be the safest place--the womb. 

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation designating January 22 as the National Sanctity of Human Life Day as the result of the influence of one woman, Dr. Mildred Jefferson, who worked tirelessly in support of personhood for every unborn child. 

Dr. Jefferson was the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and the first female surgeon at the Boston University Medical Center. During her career, she was awarded 28 honorary degrees. Dr. Jefferson’s Christian faith compelled her to testify several times before Congress. She said, “I became a physician in order to help save lives, not to destroy them.” Dr. Jefferson recognized that abortion was Satan’s tool for eugenicists such as Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger. 

A Boston public television station featured Dr. Jefferson in a 1972 episode of their series “The Advocates” dealing with the abortion issue. Her presentation was so effective she received a letter that read: “Yours was the most clear-cut exposition on this problem that I have ever heard. . . Several years ago I was faced with the issue of whether to sign a California abortion bill. . . I must confess to never having given the matter of abortion any serious thought until that time. No other issue since I have been in office has caused me to do so much study and soul-searching. . . I wish I could have heard your views before our legislation was passed. You made it irrefutably clear than an abortion is the taking of a human life. I’m grateful to you. Signed, Ronald Reagan.”

Dr. Jefferson believed that pro-life Americans have a duty to engage in political processes in order to give a voice to unborn children. She understood that if she didn’t speak up, no one else would take her place. She knew it was her duty despite any personal cost to herself. Dr. Jefferson said, “I am at once a physician, a citizen, and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged, and the planned have the right to live.” 

In today’s culture where babies are often aborted because of convenience, race and gender, Dr. Jefferson remains an inspiration because of her tenacity and tireless service in the pro-life movement. Her life is an example to Americans to embrace their duty to protect all human beings from creation until death and to create a culture of life. 

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