In the world of conservative millennials, two things have come to the forefront of the conversation over the past week: Tomi Lahren and the pro-life versus pro-abortion debate.

Lahren, now with Fox News, gained popularity with her former “Final Thoughts” segment for The Blaze. She is known for her blunt pomposity, out-there stances, and condemnation of safe-space and trigger-warning culture. Even though many still consider her to be the sweetheart of conservatism, Lahren has been under intense fire ever since she announced that she was pro-choice and spoke harsh words against pro-lifers.

In recent news, several students are accusing Lahren of censoring them when they attempted to ask her questions about her approval of abortion. Although this was the igniting event, it has led to a digital (and presumably face-to-face) civil war between pro-life conservatives and conservatives who label themselves pro-choice.

Even though it is concerning that so many conservatives are now labeling themselves as “pro-choice,” what is just as concerning to me is a third segment that is gaining popularity among millennials. These conservatives are not necessarily pro-life or pro-choice — they just don’t want to talk about the life issue whatsoever.

I have personally met multiple conservative millennials in this category. No matter what side they fall on, they come to the same conclusion: “There are better things to talk about.”

Thus, this segment abdicates the life issue completely in exchange for focus on taxation, elimination of big government, deregulation, and other issues. They argue that “there are more important things at stake,” and that talking about life versus abortion “distracts and detracts” from these more significant issues.

This is an extremely dangerous movement because, for the sake of the liberty that most conservatives hold dearly, millennials cannot afford to make abortion a side issue.

From the moment America’s Founders declared this nation to be independent, we have held firmly to the truth that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, [and] that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Americans who love liberty should be the greatest supporters of life. The Founders had the order correct when they affirmed life as an unalienable right before liberty. In order to pursue happiness, you must have liberty. In order to have liberty, you must have life.

Before the year of 2017 is over, there will have been almost 920,000 Americans murdered before they were born. Since Roe v. Wade in 1973, over 60 million babies have been murdered before they could take a breath outside the womb.

How is that not a threat to life and liberty?

When scientific progress and innovation allows us to see human beings in the womb — and when we can hear their hearts beat and know they feel pain — how is it possible for us to make their life a side issue? If life is the precedent to liberty, how could we act as if the discussion is not pivotal within the conservative movement?

Millennials who love liberty cannot afford to make life a side issue — even if for no other reason than that it is the very thing liberty hangs on. Apathy and the sanitized guise of  “pro-choice” must be eliminated. If we are willing to allow the murder of thousands and thousands of innocent people and not stand up for their rights, we allow our own right to life to be compromised as well.

The removal of rights for one group of people provides the pathway to the removal of rights for so many more. The fight for life is a fight for liberty, and it is one that must not be abdicated.

Aleteia Image Department via Flickr, CC BY 2.0