But this idea certainly did not originate with John Paul, indeed the idea that life and death are set before us has deep roots in our Judeo – Christian tradition. From the perspective of this tradition, the idea of a choice between life and death goes back to the garden. But perhaps we can see this idea most vividly articulated in the OT book of Deuteronomy. Now before any one gets worried I do know I’m giving a political speech here and not a sermon. And so I am going to point us to a biblical text, not to make an explicitly religious point, but just to clarify how deep this notion of cultures of life and death run in the Western intellectual tradition. To show as it were that when we raise this issue we do so in continuity with the system of values that lies behind out laws our culture and our system of Government.

So then in Deuteronomy 30, starting in verse 15, God the Father, through Moses, says, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep his commandments, His statutes, and His Judgments, that you may live and multiply …But if your heart turns away …. I announce to you today that you shall surely perish… I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life that both you and your descendents may live.” It is at least in part from this strong footing that John Paul the Second articulated so profoundly the notion of a culture of life set over against a culture of death?

Now when we quote a text as old as Deuteronomy, it is fair to say that some aspects of the culture of death have been with us always, they are simply part of what it means to be human in a fallen world. But there is also a more modern aspect to this issue, an aspect that makes the problem we confront especially pressing for we moderns. Since at least the French Revolution in the late 18th century there has been a revolution in Western thought regarding the value and dignity of the human person. A concept of Social utility has replaced the notion of inherent human dignity. In our own day the losers in this ethical sea change have been the elderly, the poor, the disabled and politically marginalized. None of these pass the utility test; and yet, they at least have some presence. They at least have the possibility of organizing to be heard. Those who are unborn, infirm and terminally ill have no such advantage. They have no "utility," and worse, they have no voice, unless we provide it. As we tinker with the beginning, the end and even the intimate cell structure of life, we tinker with our own identity as a free nation dedicated to the dignity of the human person. And I want to say something bold here, that is that when American political life becomes an experiment on people rather than for and by them, it will no longer be worth conducting. We are arguably moving closer to that day. Today, when the inviolable rights of the human person are still sometimes proclaimed, the most basic human right, "the right to life”, is being denied or trampled upon, especially at the more significant moments of existence: the moment of birth and the moment of death.

CS Lewis saw this trend in our own century and noted in his book the Abolition of man (a short book I re-read every year at Christmas), "For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please.” In abortion, euthanasia, human cloning and a host of other issues we see Lewis’s prophetic voice ringing true. The power of some men and women over others has trumped the concept of human dignity.

Yet, we can take courage from the fact that at a very basic level, our American Polity was founded on principles at odds with the culture of death, principles that we can reclaim and use as tools in the construction of a culture of life. At our best Americans believe that universal understandings of human dignity and truth are "written on the human heart." America's founders also believed this to be true. In 1776 John Dickinson, one of my favorite founding fathers, sometimes called the American Edmund Burke, (Burke of course being the great conservative English statesman of the late 18th century and trenchant critique of the radical enlightenment), in any event Dickenson affirmed: "Our liberties do not come from charters for these are only the declaration of pre-existing rights. They do not depend on parchments or seals, but come from the king of kings and the Lord of all the earth." This notion, that our dignity as persons is not subject to the winds of political change, but finds its roots in who we are as human beings is a great strength of our political tradition. By standing in continuity with this principle we stand in continuity with a culture of life.

Now having said all of this let me take a stab at approaching this question of what exactly constitute the culture of death from another direction. Many of you are probably familiar with Dostoevsky, the 19th century Russian novelist, his body of work stands in my mind as one of the great defenses of the culture of life, a defense made by staring unblinkingly at the culture of death and what it had done to Russian society. In any event in his work The Brothers Karamazov there is this line, “For the mystery of man’s being is not only in living, but in what one lives for. Without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth.” Ladies and gentlemen I would submit to you that we are living in an age where many, especially among the so called elites, have no idea what they are living for, and as such are embracing a culture of death.

Now at this point I’d like to take a step back and ask what is the role of government in all of this, for in some ways that role is limited. Perhaps my very favorite author is a man named Russell Kirk who passed away about a decade ago, Mr. Kirk wrote: “It has been said by liberal intellectuals that the conservative believes all social questions, at heart, to be questions of private morality. Properly understood, this statement is quite true. A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be.”

The point is that the line between the culture of life and the culture of death runs ultimately not between political parties, but through every human heart. As President Bush is so fond of saying there is no law that we can pass that will make people love one another or do good. As such out political activity and my work in the legislature, will always be something of a rear guard action, buying time for the culture to be renewed by the changing of human hearts. But rear guard actions can be important, some of you may know that early in World War II, the U.S. actually utilized a horse mounted cavalry regiment made up of Philippine Scouts who covered the withdrawal of U.S. and Philippine forces to the Bataan peninsula. This unit fought a classic cavalry rear-guard action from Lingayan to Bataan. Its mission was accomplished, in buying time for the other allied units some of whom lived to fight on to victory another day, although in all honesty the regiment was virtually annihilated.

Now I have no intent of being annihilated, but I mention that story just to emphasize that, people like those of us in this room who fight the rear-guard battle of political engagement do a noble thing, regardless of any temporary setbacks we may face.