As a child, I recall studying ancient Sparta, where children born unhealthy were immediately killed. Parents experiencing financial difficulties would take their own children out to the mountains, leaving them to die by starvation or exposure. The desire of the state for wealth and military strength took precedence over the value of innocent life. Although Sparta became a major world power, after only 33 years it was overthrown, ultimately fading into insignificance.

The same ruthless disregard   for the rights of the defenseless that undergirded Sparta’s strength led to its downfall, as Sparta’s subjects reared up and overthrow their cruel masters. The lesson from history is this: By devaluing life and trampling the rights of the weak, a nation may seem to gain strength, but any apparent victories will be fragile and temporary.

Today in America, family finances and convenience are deemed more important than the life of a family member. Thus, there is a wide-open "right" to abortion at any time, for any reason; a corollary "right" to assisted suicide; and a growing tendency to ration medical care, so that only those whose lives are considered useful are allowed medical treatment.

How did we get where we are? About 150 years ago, scientific respectability was granted to the old idea that there is no God and that nature created itself. Today, most scientists define hydrogen as a colorless, odorless gas that, heated over long periods of time, ends up being human. If humans are but a natural product of a lifeless gas, then there is no spirit and life has no value. This belief, which is of a religious nature, has been the basis of such paragons of humanity as Marx, Stalin, Hitler, and Margaret Sanger, founder of an organization I call Planning Against Parenthood (PAP).

Sanger, an avowed racist, founded PAP to reduce the number of black people in America, by limiting the number of their children. She once wrote, "The most merciful thing a large family can do for one of its infant members is to kill it."

Today, PAP receives hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars each year to promote sexual promiscuity in the schools, which feeds their abortion business. Americans bankroll PAP’s programs, in spite of the fact that it violates many religious beliefs. This fact is conveniently overlooked by those who briskly parrot the doctrine of "separation of church and state." PAP peddles thousands of abortions each week, comprising over 90% of the services they offer to needy women.

PAP’s activities in the area of sex education--promoting sexual activity and teaching the lie that condoms prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs)--have led to a huge increase in teen pregnancy and an epidemic of STDs among teenagers. One PAP executive has asked for PAP's tax subsidies to be doubled, and for abstinence programs to be eliminated. A more self-serving and pernicious combination of policies would be difficult to imagine.

Since PAP’s policies do not work, why should we squander more money on them? Recent research has demonstrated that abstinence-only sex education leads to a significant reduction in sexual promiscuity, teenage pregnancy, and STDs. To address these problems, government needs to invest its money in abstinence-only programs, not condoms and sex-promoting education.

I call upon our state and national legislators to stand up to the abortion lobby, courageously addressing this issue in a rational and morally responsible manner. Such decisions are necessary to halt America’s moral implosion, and prevent this still-great nation from becoming a modern-day Sparta.