Scott Peterson got off lucky. Yeah, he was duly convicted of killing his wife, Laci, and unborn son, Conner, and sentenced to death for his trouble, but in truth he’s fortunate he was only charged with those two murders. For reasons that remain unclear, prosecutors chose not to charge Peterson in the deaths of any of his and Laci’s potential children, of which there could eventually have been as many as three or four, and maybe more. Those of us who take a hard, uncompromising stance on the sanctity of life are understandably dismayed by the DA’s refusal to send a clear message to those who would harm the millions and millions of defenseless unconceived Americans.

As I reflect on this travesty, I find myself pondering the fate of my own unconceived children, Sam, Jr., Helena, and little Laura, who we’ll be naming after my wife’s sister. Were something to happen to my wife and me (God® forbid) before our beloved children can be conceived, I’d like to think that I could count on our elected officials to act swiftly and surely to exact justice in their names as well as ours.

Perhaps I’m overreacting. Peterson had the good sense to commit his acts of treachery in California, a vile enclave of liberal excess where a majority of citizens view unborn humans as little more than stem cell factories and sources of cheap tissue for the state’s booming vanity and plastic surgery industry. One might expect a sounder sense of moral justice to prevail in other states.

I urge you to call your legislators and insist that they pass laws insuring legal protection for unconceived children, who represent not just a moral imperative, but are the very embodiment of our nation’s future.