Life, Liberty and the... I'm sorry, what was the first part?

My daughter and I were discussing our country and the idea of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

It's no fluke that Life is the first on the list... the most important, the most fundamental to our existence. Granted, when the country was founded there was some question as to the Liberty part... women could not vote, slavery was common place. But Life... well, that was a given right to all.

Or is it?

Fortunately, over the centuries our country has dealt with the unfulfilled aspects of national Liberty. Women were given the right to vote and work. Minorities were allowed to have equal civil rights and slavery was abolished. These growing pains of our nation were not easy, but necessary.

And, as it turns out, the growth in Liberty appears to have destroyed the first and third parts of the equation for others. When you look at the overall evolution of this country, only one segment of society has lost their three rights.

The unborn.

It seems odd that by rightfully expanded the role of ALL people in our society that it has, in turn, taken away the most first fundamental right to us all, Life, from the most vulnerable within our society.

Must our society be so?

Is that the cost of Life and Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Does that mean I am allowed to dismiss those three rights from others in order to achieve them myself?

If my Life and my Liberty and my Pursuit of Happiness means I kill a child in the womb and destroy their Life, their Liberty and their Pursuit of Happiness... is that okay?

Is that what the founders intended? I'm sure it's not.

It seems that Liberty is a two-edged sword, with the sharp blade held at the throats in the womb of the most innocent and helpless of our society. How did a country that so obviously recognized the evil of slavery embrace what is so obviously a more horrendous evil in abortion?

When did the second part of the equation erase the first and negate the third?