Not since the 1850s has our nation been so divided over the words that launched our republic: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Before the Civil War, many Americans rejected the true meaning of these words and excused the enslaving of millions. Today, many Americans similarly reject these words, excusing the destruction of millions of unborn children. As was the case prior to the Civil War, the gap between these positions is inflaming our politics. (READ MORE from Keith Rothfus: A Nation at War: Liberal Mayor Eric Adams Hints at Root Cause of America’s Culture of Violence)

For those fighting to uphold the inalienable right to life, it has been tragic to see some formerly prolife Republicans backpedaling. Rather than trying to persuade voters that following the Declaration’s inalienable rights framework is vital for sustaining our republic, these politicians, including presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, are abandoning the thought of Abraham Lincoln and adopting instead the states’ rights/popular sovereignty philosophy of Lincoln’s rival, Stephen Douglas.

By contrast, there is no such weakening among Democrats holding the extreme position rejecting any limits, even up to birth, on abortion. Indeed, Democrats have moved from “safe, legal and rare” to abortion being a positive good, even “sacred,” a position analogous to pre-Civil War Democrat Senator John Calhoun’s positive good view of slavery.

With Trump now in the Stephen Douglas camp, the 2024 election has become a contest between the two views of the Declaration that were defeated in the Civil War. Missing is the view that actually won. I am left recalling the 60s classic with the lyrics “anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?”

Rather than running from Lincoln, Republicans must embrace him. While Douglas and Calhoun argued to permit slavery, history favorably remembers old Abe. Lincoln tied slavery’s demise to the Declaration:

Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur, and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back[, C]ome back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence.

Remarkably, today’s abortion advocates simply ignore the Declaration’s language. In a speech marking Roe v. Wade’s 50^th anniversary, Vice President Kamala Harris demanded a national law for unrestricted abortion. She referenced the Declaration, but conveniently left out the right to life:

America is a promise … a promise of freedom and liberty — not for some, but for all. A promise we made in the Declaration of Independence that we are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness …

In calling for nationwide abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, today’s abortion crusaders echo slavery’s proponents who sought national protection and the extension of slavery into even free, anti-slave states.

The Declaration, however, is a stumbling block for both slavery and abortion advocates. While Calhoun and Douglas disputed the Declaration’s plain meaning and applicability, Lincoln credited the Declaration’s author for its timelessness and universality:

All honor to Jefferson, to the man who … had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.

The abortion debate is painful. Decades of unrestricted abortion have conditioned many to accept aborting a baby at any time for any reason. But this cultural trend has not been positive, with hundreds of women legal scholars arguing happiness among women has been declining for decades. If we are, as Lincoln exhorted, to return to the Declaration’s truths, it may take time to change hearts and minds. To realize the vision of the Declaration — that governments are to protect inalienable rights, including the right to life — we should consider Lincoln’s pragmatism as he sought to end slavery. (READ MORE: These Two States Reveal the GOP’s Problem)

What might a Lincolnian approach to abortion look like? First, because the inalienable right to life is both recognized in our Declaration and safeguarded by the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee that no state may deprive one of the right to life without due process of law, we begin with the premise that the federal government has a role here. Consequently, we must prevent the federal government from interfering with states’ efforts to protect life, prohibit federal taxpayer funding of abortion, and strengthen First Amendment-based conscience protections.  Further, federal law should be expanded to protect the right to life of the unborn, even if done incrementally.

Fulfilling our Declaration’s promise is not going to be easy, and it will require leaders with the vision and courage of Lincoln. So in a world of Calhouns and Douglasses, be a Lincoln!

Keith Rothfus is an attorney in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Between 2013 and 2019, he presented Pennsylvania’s Twelfth Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.