Zell Miller's March to Life

"I watched the demonstrators as they came to Washington, and the advocates for life, and the number of 42 million human beings having been killed because of Roe vs. Wade," Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia told me last week in an interview for Human Events, "and it just grabbed ahold of me very strongly that what if one of my four great-grandchildren or four grandchildren had been one of those that never did get to enjoy the life that they have now."

I asked: "So, now you've actually come all the way around to the opinion that you would like to see Roe vs. Wade overturned, and you would like to see unborn children protected in law in this country?"

"That's exactly right," said Miller. "I've come to feel very strongly about that."

In his best-selling book, "A National Party No More -- The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat," Miller dedicates a chapter (entitled "Abortion and a God Above") to describing his conversion from a pro-choice Democrat who supported Roe v. Wade, to a pro-life Democrat who doesn't. Many sources influenced his thinking. They range from the birth of his great-grandchildren, to Sean Hannity's apt comparison of Roe to Dred Scott, to Newsweek's cover of an unborn child, to two female college students who challenged him on the right-to-life, to signs carried by some women in the March for Life.

"The most poignant sight for me at this year's annual pro-life march and demonstration in Washington, D.C.," wrote Miller, "was the large number of women holding signs saying they regretted their abortions."

Unlike some pessimists who argue that abortion is a settled issue, Miller, a former history professor, brings a positive perspective to the cause. "Just as Dred Scott was overturned, I believe Roe v. Wade someday will also be rejected," he writes.

His optimism reminds me of a concept I learned in college Shakespeare lectures. It is called discordia concors: To mirror nature, art must show how order inevitably emerges from chaos. The perceptible rational design of God's creation is the inalterable template against which all works of music, literature and public policy must be judged. It is the natural law, which St. Paul said is written on every heart, and which America embraced as our founding creed in the Declaration of Independence. Any human law that acts against this divine law cannot be deemed right any more than caterwauling can be deemed a symphony.

Just as sound without design is mere noise, a story of human suffering without moral resolution would be, well, a tale signifying nothing. Shakespeare ends even his most bitter tragedies by pointing the way back to moral and civic order. The weak and vacillating Hamlet gives way to the strong and steady Fortinbras. Things will be rotten in Denmark no more.

Zell Miller is no Hamlet. Ask him a straight question, and he gives you a straight answer.

I asked if he believed that by continuing the debate on abortion in America "more Democrats such as yourself can be converted and that in the end we can actually overturn Roe vs. Wade and return to being a pro-life country?"

"I think without any question it ought to continue to be debated," he said, "because I think there are more and more people out there hopefully like I am who are troubled by the way that it is now. And I think the more discussion, the more troubled they may become, until they finally come to the same conclusion that I came to."

In his book, Miller noted a "national trend" toward the pro-life position. "Support for abortion rights," he wrote, "has steadily dropped for a decade from 67 percent in the early 1990s to 54 percent in 2003." He concludes: "I think the reason this is happening is that the debate has shifted from the right of the woman to the right of the baby."

Pro-lifers take heed. Raise your signs high, and march on. The Supreme Court cannot declare dissonance a song, nor make human hearts embrace the killing of unborn children. There will be a happy ending: the chaos let loose by Roe will give way to restored justice.

Page 3 -- Zell Miller: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat

One of the things I was impressed about in reading your book is your discussion of the fact that, unlike some Democrats like Jesse Jackson and Bill Clinton, who migrated from being pro-life to being pro-choice, you made the reverse migration from being pro-choice to being pro-life. Why did that happen?

MILLER: Well, I tried to explain that in the book by pointing out that I sort of automatically took that position back then because that was the position that was being taken by a lot of Democrats, by a lot of people. And I no sooner had taken that position than I began to see that, hey, there are certain qualifications to that position and that I've got to have in order to be comfortable. I talked about how I first was very much in favor of parental consent, not only parental consent but also notification. And I came out for being against any kind of public funding being used for abortions. Then on and on, until the partial-birth abortion legislation that I signed when I was governor, which I was very comfortable with and supported. Then, finally, as I got older, and as I got to see more and more of my progeny come along with my grandchildren and then four great-grandchildren, I realized how blessed I was to have these little ones and I could not imagine how my life would have been, how my life would have changed, had one of my children, or one of my grandchildren, made the decision to abort one of those little, wonderful human beings.

So, all this time I was also reading more on the subject. I was particularly impressed with Sean Hannity's chapter on it in Let Freedom Ring, in which he talked about the Dred Scott decision and how at that time it was argued and how that later it was changed, and why it was changed. I watched the demonstrators as they came to Washington, and the advocates for life, and the number of 42 million human beings having been killed because of Roe v. Wade, and it just grabbed a hold of me very strongly that what if one of my four great grandchildren or four grandchildren had been one of those that never did get to enjoy the life that they have now.

So now you've actually come all the way around to the opinion that you would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned, and you would like to see unborn children protected in law in this country?

MILLER: That's exactly right. I've come to feel very strongly about that.

You know, senator, on my side of the aisle, among Republicans and conservatives, you sometimes hear the argument that we just ought to forget about this abortion debate, we ought to leave this issue behind, it narrows the base of the party and it's really hopeless, people are so dead-set in their views on this that we just ought to forget about it. Do you think that's wise? Or do you believe there's hope that if we continue debating this that more Democrats such as yourself can be converted and that in the end we actually can overturn Roe v. Wade and return to being a pro-life country?

MILLER: I think without any question it ought to continue to be debated because I think there are more and more people out there hopefully like I am who are troubled by the way that it is now. And I think the more discussion, the more troubled they may become, until they finally come to the same conclusion that I came to.

Is it your perception that gun-control interests and the labor interests and so forth are actually pushing the pro-abortion agenda in the United States Senate among Democrats?

MILLER: Well, I think that they all go together. I think indirectly that's it. They support one another. They're intertwined. It's hard to separate them. They would probably deny that, but I think they scratch each other's backs all the time.

Do you think that some of your Democratic colleagues in the Senate who have voted to maintain these filibusters [and who] in their professional political careers are adamantly pro-abortion, that in fact in their hearts they really are pro-life and that they are capable of going through the same evolution you are, it's just that these interest groups and fear for their political careers is what's holding them back?

MILLER: I think that's true. I think that's true. In fact, I know it's true.

You know its true? You actually know of Democratic colleagues in the Senate who might have even expressed that point of view to you? I'm not asking you to name names. But-

MILLER: I think that you can look at some of the individuals in the Senate who are, some of the Democrats in the Senate, who are pro-life. And, yet, they vote against cloture. I think it has to do with how the special-interest groups have all kind of joined together. There's so much opposition to President Bush out there that that also brings them together as well. It's probably more than just this one issue. But I don't think there's any doubt that they work within one another to help each other's causes that sometimes are not what the organization itself was organized to do.

Testimony of U.S. Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing "Judicial Nominations, Filibusters and the Constitution: When A Majority Is Denied Its Right to Consent" May 6, 2003

The United States Senate is the only place on the planet where 59 votes out of 100 cannot pass anything because 41 votes out of 100 can defeat it.
Try explaining that at your local Rotary Club or someone in the Wal-Mart parking lot or, for that matter, to the college freshman in Poly Sci 101. You can't because this silly senate math stands democracy on its head.
James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, feared some future political leaders would pervert the legislative process in just this way. And he warned in Federalist Paper Number 58 that when it happened, "The Fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule. The power would be transformed to the minority." So what's happening today, I'm sure, has the man who wrote the Constitution spinning in his grave.
And Alexander Hamilton as well, because he agreed with Madison on this. He pointed out in his Federalist Paper #68 that the vice president was given a tie-breaking vote "to securing at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of that body." A "definite resolution, how well put. That's what we need around here: "a definite resolution."
For many years, I taught political science and history at four different colleges and universities, I don't think I ever taught a class without telling the old story about the origin of the Senate.
Thomas Jefferson was in France when the Constitutional Convention was being held and later, the story goes, he asked his friend George Washington, who presided over the convention, about the purpose of this upper chamber, the Senate.
Washington, according to the anecdote, then asked Jefferson "why do you pour coffee into your saucer?" "To cool it," Jefferson replied. And Washington responded, "Even so, we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it."
But there is nothing said in the Constitution at all about extended debate. Washington, I believe, thought the smaller size, longer and staggered terms, as well as chosen by state legislation, would provide more wisdom, hopefully.
Some constitutional lawyers have argued that any kind of super majority vote is unconstitutional, other than for those five areas specified in the Constitution itself: treaty ratification, impeachment, override of a presidential vote, constitutional amendments and expelling a member of Congress. Nowhere does it say it now should be a super majority on judicial nominations. But that is what we have going on today.

Article 3, Section 2, Clause 2

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. [ As you contemplate this, keep in mind the words of James Madison, "Father of the Constitution," "But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates." -Federalist #51. And Hamilton, "Of the three powers above mentioned, the judiciary is next to nothing.''- Fed #78. ]

Over the last 200 years, Congress has exercised this authority to except certain areas from the jurisdiction of the federal court system. In Turner vs. Bank of North America 4 Dall. (4 U.S.,8(1799)),the Supreme Court concluded that the federal courts derive their judicial power from Congress, not the Constitution.
In Cary vs. Curtis 3 How, (44 U.S.), 236 (1845), a statute made final the decision of the secretary of the Treasury in certain tax deductions. The statute was challenged as an unconstitutional deprivation of the judicial power of the courts. The Supreme Court concluded that the jurisdiction of the federal courts (inferior to the Supreme Court) was in the sole power of Congress.
In Sheldon vs. Sill 8 How (49 U.S. 441 (1850)), involved the validity of the assignee clause of the Judicial Act of 1789 restricting such action to establish federal court jurisdictions. The Supreme Court sustained the power of Congress to limit the jurisdiction of the inferior federal courts.
In Ex Parte McCardle 6 Wall. (73 U.S.) 318 (1868), the Supreme Court accepted review on certiorari of a denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus by the circuit court. Congress, fearful the Supreme Court would honor the writ, passed a law repealing the act which authorized the appeal. The Supreme Court dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.
In Lauf vs. E.G. Shinner & Co. 303 U.S. 323, 330 (1938), the Supreme Court upheld the power of Congress to define and limit the jurisdiction of the inferior courts of the United States in the form restrictions on the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes under the Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932.
In Lockerty v. Phillips 319 U.S. 182 (1943), Congress provided for a special court to appeal price control decisions under the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942. The Supreme Court sustained this restriction.
In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), Congress used the authority of Article III, Section 2, clause 2 on 12 occasions to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts. ^{Article III, Section 2 - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED}

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