Free Republic

Earlier this week, abortion and pro-life advocates observed the 39th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, which, along with its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, recognized abortion to be a constitutionally protected right while giving states some leeway in restricting its availability. Roe dominates America's abortion debate. If you had asked any of the scores of thousands of pro-lifers who poured into Washington, D.C., on Monday for the annual March for Life to name their most urgent priority, most would have said overturning Roe. Abortion advocates, meanwhile, talk about Roe as if it were the only thing...

President Barack Obama says the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade is the chance to recognize the “fundamental constitutional right” to abortion and to “continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.” The 1973 U.S. Supreme Court nationalized abortion law, prohibiting states from deciding on the matter. In his written statement, Obama acknowledged that abortion has been a divisive political issue. Obama, while serving in the Illinois State Legislature and as president of the United States, has taken a hard line on abortion rights. In his...

January 23, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new analysis from the National Right to Life Committee’s (NCLC) education department estimates that since the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973, over 54.5 million American babies have died through abortion. Dave Andrusko, the editor of National Right to Life News, said that the number is “so huge that we can’t really come to grips with it.” “But what it means is that there are over 3,300 abortions every day—137 per hour–or about one dead baby every thirty seconds.” This week pro-life advocates are mourning the 39th anniversary of Roe v....

Today marks the 39th anniversary of the US Supreme Court's decision to constitutionalize abortion over the opposition of all but three state legislatures, which had criminalized it. The author of that bloody decision--nearly 60 million US babies sacrificed on the altar of their mothers' convenience--was Justice Harry Blackmun, a Nixon appointee to the Court. How might have the course of history been changed had the Court rebuffed the secular Left's stratagem to establish its contempt for metaphysics in the nation's laws? Besides less strife, social decay and personal bitterness occasioned by the choice of death for one's baby, there would...

President Barack Obama, today, release a statement celebrating the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision that allowed for 54 million abortions. The decision, handed down on January 22, 1973, overturned pro-life laws offering protection for unborn children in most states across the country, and made abortions legal and virtually unlimited. The statement Obama release says: As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. I remain committed...

In his book How to Stop Dialogue In Its Tracks, Sacha Baron Cohen provides three awkward statements for guys that can be employed to bring a lousy date to a quick conclusion; “I just believe that environmentalists should mind their own business.” Or, 2. “Don’t you find the obsolescence of the slide rule to be terribly regrettable?” And, 3. “Does the Roe versus Wade decision trouble you as much as it does me?” In recognition of the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling this week, I am going to jump right on topic number three. OK, there is...

Christmas Day is near, and the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ should not only be based upon a notion of just giving gifts, sharing songs of good cheer. Why not open up one more present and present it to God and to Christ. Whether you are in Cleveland, Ohio, Tampa, Florida, or Atlanta, Georgia, give a commitment in the New Year to be accountable to the right to life. Yes, that is correct; Christmas is the perfect opportunity to pray for life, but also to firmly commit to the right to life. Ever since the 1973 U.S. Supreme...

This morning, as expected, the Supreme Court agreed to take up Obamacare. What was unexpected — and unprecedented in modern times — is that it set aside five-and-a-half hours for the argument. Here are the issues the Court will decide: 1.Whether Congress has the power to enact the individual mandate. – 2 hours 2.Whether the challenge to the individual mandate is barred by the Anti-Injunction Act. – 1 hour 3.Whether and to what extent the individual mandate, if unconstitutional, is severable from the rest of the Act. – 90 minutes 4.Whether the new conditions on all federal Medicaid funding (expanding...

Today's column is drawn from Paul Greenberg's remarks October 27 accepting the Human Life Foundation's annual Great Defender of Life award: Life is just full of surprises. What's an old boy from Shreveport, La., doing talking at the Union League club in New York City? In a hall adorned with portraits of Mr. Lincoln and members of his cabinet during The War. Our newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has got to be one of the few left in the country, if not the only one, that still devotes a full editorial page every January 19 to celebrating the birth of Robert...

From the proposed law: 'Prenatal murder' means the intentional removal of a fetus from a woman with an intention other than to produce a live birth or to remove a dead fetus; provided, however, that if a physician makes a medically justified effort to save the lives of both the mother and the fetus and the fetus does not survive, such action shall not be prenatal murder. Such term does not include a naturally occurring expulsion of a fetus known medically as a 'spontaneous abortion' and popularly as a 'miscarriage' so long as there is no human involvement whatsoever in...

Sen. Dick Blumenthal has a really, really bad habit of making up outlandish lies. Problem is he is also really, really bad at getting by unscathed. First, Blumenthal said he was a veteran in Vietnam, when in fact that was a lie. Now, Yid With Lid caught another flab and promptly corrects this outright fabrication of the truth from a presser on abortion rights. Blumenthal states: I’m new to the Senate but I’m not new to this battle. Since the days of Roe v. Wade, when I clerked for Justice Blackman, as a state legislator, as attorney general, I have...

On the 38th anniversary of the passage of Roe vs. Wade, a decision that has now meant the death of over 50,000,000 babies in the United States, we must remember: Abortion destroys lives. Abortion destroys women. Abortion destroys men. Abortion destroys families. Because of someone's choice, a baby does not have a chance at life, nor a choice. As the venerable John Paul II once said: "The Law of God is univocal and categorical ... 'You shall not kill.' No human lawgiver can therefore assert: it is permissible for you to kill, you have the right to kill, or you...

It was morbidly appropriate that the very week when our nation was observing the sad anniversary of the infamous 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, which created a constitutional right to slaughter unborn babies, a macabre story broke about the discovery of an abortion mill officials are describing as a “house of horrors.” Over the past three decades, Kermit Gosnell, 69, has raked in millions of dollars in blood money running his own little genocidal killing factory out of a run-down storefront in a poor West Philadelphia neighborhood. Gosnell, who is black, specialized in murdering the babies of blacks,...

As I noted yesterday in an earlier post, the grand jury report incident to the indictment for murder and infanticide of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was released earlier this week, and it suggests that what those most opposed to abortion have always claimed about the so-called abortion mills is all too true. As at one reporter put it, Gosnell and his associates not only broke state law by performing abortions after 24 weeks—they also killed live babies by stabbing them with scissors and cutting their spinal cords. Law enforcement officials found blood-stained furniture, unsterilized instruments and fetal remains scattered about...

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (Photo: Stephen Masker) January 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a recent interview with California Lawyer, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stated that abortion is not included in the U.S. Constitution. Scalia, who is opposed to the notion of an “evolving” or “living” Constitution, told interviewer Calvin Massey that by giving some of the “necessarily broad” provisions of the Constitution an “evolving meaning,” these provisions fail to do their job, which is to put in place limitations on what society can or cannot do. Even if “the current society has come to different views [than the...

Last October marked the 24th anniversary of Justice Antonin Scalia's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Well known for his sharp wit as well as his originalist approach to the Constitution, Justice Scalia consistently asks more questions during oral arguments and makes more comments than any other Supreme Court justice. And according to one study, he also gets the most laughs from those who come to watch these arguments. In September Justice Scalia spoke with UC Hastings law professor Calvin Massey. Q. How would you characterize the role of the Supreme Court in American society, now that you've been a...

The use of birth control has been an issue debated by ethicists in the United States for over a century. Until now, it’s been a moral issue, and few mainstream voices ever advocated the use of birth control for environmental reasons. On Scientific American’s website, an Oct. 11 article by David Biello argues that if we were able to lower the growth of the world’s population, the amount of carbon that is expected to be emitted into the atmosphere would significantly diminish. He cited a study from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research that explained demographic ties to the...

A Diverse Group of 13 State and National Organizations Challenge RNC Chairman Michael Steele to Demand an Inclusive Platform WASHINGTON, DC - A broad coalition of nonpartisan organizations raised their voices to issue a joint statement calling on RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Texas Republican Party Chairman Steve Munisteri to forcefully reject the platform of the 2010 State Republican Party Platform of Texas. The platform has numerous tenets that are divisive and bigoted, including: • Eliminating those with HIV/AIDS, learning disabilities, behavioral disorders and mental stress disorders from the Americans with Disabilities Act; • Urging Congress to withhold Supreme Court...

In April, a group of Mississippi citizens, including Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, filed the first private class-action suit to challenge the Obama health-care law. The complaint cites all the legal precedents one would expect, but there is one big surprise: Roe v. Wade. That’s right: The 1973 Supreme Court decision declaring a woman’s right to an abortion could be a key weapon against Obamacare. The Mississippi lawsuit (Bryant et al. v. Holder) is the first to highlight the inherent contradiction between the new law’s individual mandate and the “zone of privacy” first introduced in Roe. -snip-

More important, the public's issue focus has changed. And while the issue of whether to criminalize abortion tended to favor Democrats, the political issues that now raise constitutional questions tend to favor Republicans. Those are issues raised by the big government programs of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders, in particular by the health care legislation they jammed through Congress despite huge public opposition last month.