Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 103 Part 3.djvu/916

 103 STAT. 2984 PROCLAMATION 5931—JAN. 9, 1989 social benefits—that come from a productive partnership of industry, labor, and government. The Congress, by Public Law 100-672, has designated the week begin- ning the second Simday in May 1989 as "National Toiu-ism Week" and has authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this week. NOW, THEREFORE, I, RONALD REAGAN, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 14-May 20, 1989, as Na- tional Tourism Week, and I call upon the people of the United States to observe the week with appropriate ceremonies and activities. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of January, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hun- dred and thirteenth. RONALD REAGAN Proclamation 5931 of January 9, 1989 >> National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 1989 ^ By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation Reverence for human life and recognition of the sanctity of individual life are among the defining characteristics of a just civil order. For cen- tiuy upon century, mankind has struggled to establish such principles in law—^not merely as right ideas confirmable by experience, but as self-evident truths that provide the only possible basis for the creation of durable political institutions. Age after age of wars and persecutions, serfdom and slavery, have left bitter reminders of the consequences that everywhere follow a failure to recognize the fundamental dignity and equality of human beings in the sight of God. Oiu" Nation was born in the midst of a struggle in which these princi- ples were the real field of battle. The United States of America was founded by visionary people who believed, and said forthrightly, that the test of any just political system lay in whether it affirmed the una- lienable rights endowed by God, rights that no civil authority was ever free to deny or contravene. In this context, it is no wonder then that the first right proclaimed by our Founders in the Declaration of Inde- pendence was that of life, and that the care of human life and happi- ness, as Jefferson declared in words now inscribed on the marble walls of ovx national Memorial to him, was held to be the first and only le- gitimate object of good govenraient. Today our Nation, economically prosperous and at peace, bears a fresh, dark wound upon its conscience, a wound created by a stark de- viation from the coiu'se of our national journey. Contrary to the pur- pose of law, to the character of medicine, to the habit of charity, and to the spirit of our founding, abortion has become routinized in America. No one can mistake abortion for the gentle art of healing. Each day in oxu* land the promise of life is stolen from thousands of the imborn, the

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