Ruling on deportation mystifies abortion foes (unborn child US citizen with Const. rights-what?)

The Kansas City Star ^ | 6-6-04 | DONALD BRADLEY

[cpforlife.org]

Judge let pregnant woman stay in U.S.

By DONALD BRADLEY

The Kansas City Star

Abortion opponents got a surprise when federal Judge Scott O. Wright refused to deport a pregnant Raymore woman last month.

He was talking their talk.

Wright ruled that the government could not send Myrna Dick back to Mexico, because her unborn child was an American citizen with constitutional rights. As such, the baby was entitled to stay in the country.

Anti-abortion forces have been using a similar argument since the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in 1973: A fetus is a human being and worthy of constitutional protection.

The irony is that Wright often has been at odds with abortion opponents during his 25 years as a federal judge. They have accused him of legislating abortion rights from the bench.

How, a Missouri lawmaker wondered last week, can Wright block a ban on partial-birth abortion one day and rule that a fetus is an American citizen another day?

“How does he possibly reconcile these two positions?” asked state Rep. Ed Emery, a Lamar Republican and an ardent abortion opponent who has called for Wright's impeachment. “I would be very interested to hear his explanation.”

Simple, Wright said: “I go by the law.”

Besides the rights of the unborn, the Mryna Dick case also has touched on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the high-profile Scott Peterson murder trial, now under way in California.

And the man with the gavel is the 80-year-old Wright, a World War II-era aviator who once denounced the country's war on drugs as “absolutely destroying our inner-city communities.” The judge has railed against racial profiling, the loosening of search-and-seizure laws and a school district's ban on students wearing hair in cornrows.

A fan of Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff, Wright once wrote that one of his most interesting cases was whether the Grand Ole Opry had exclusive copyright to the word “opry.”

He ruled it did not.

Few would deny that Wright is legally savvy, but abortion opponents say he is a liberal who needs to go.

In 1999, Wright issued a temporary restraining order against a ban on partial-birth abortion. Last year he blocked a Missouri law that required a 24-hour waiting period before someone could get an abortion.

In April, Emery presented a resolution to the Missouri House asking the U.S. Congress to impeach Wright because of his abortion rulings. Emery said then that Wright had ruled in favor of abortion rights in every case before him.

The resolution never made it out of committee.

Now comes the Myrna Dick case.

Dick, 29, immigrated to the United States as a young girl and has spent most of her life here. She is married to an American citizen and is pregnant with the couple's first child.

Dick had kept her work permit current and had sought permanent resident status. But in April, when she went to immigration offices to renew her work permit, authorities arrested her. They accused her of claiming false American citizenship during a 1998 border crossing, a violation punishable by immediate and permanent removal from the country.

Dick denied the allegation and hired attorneys. They argue that she was caught up in heightened security measures put in place after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Shortly before she was to be put on a plane to Mexico, Wright issued a stay and ordered both sides to appear in court.

During that May 27 hearing, Dick's attorney, Rekha Sharma-Crawford, challenged the government's evidence that Dick was the person involved in the 1998 border crossing. Sharma-Crawford asked why the government would wait all these years to arrest Dick if they knew her identity.

Jeffrey P. Ray, an assistant U.S. attorney, countered that the government had solid evidence against Dick, including fingerprints. Ray asked that the stay be lifted so that Dick could be deported.

Wright denied the request, saying the government had no grounds to deport Dick's unborn baby. He asked the gender of the baby and from then on referred to it as “he.”

Then, Wright mentioned Scott Peterson, who is charged with killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and the couple's unborn son. The case led to the passage earlier this year of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as “Laci and Conner's Law.”

The act basically grants unborn children equal protection under the law.

When Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansas for Life and former head of Missouri Right to Life, first heard about Wright's ruling, she wondered whether the judge was trying to discredit the new law.

Abortion-rights groups had fought the measure, even though it contained an exception for abortion.

“They didn't want any law that included the notion that the unborn is a human, because they lied about that for 30 years,” Culp said.

The national Planned Parenthood Federation of America had argued that the law did nothing to protect pregnant women or punish their assailants. President Gloria Feldt said the law was a deceptive anti-choice strategy to undermine Roe v. Wade.

Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood in Kansas and Mid-Missouri, declined to comment on the Myrna Dick case.

Culp said that if Wright was sincere in his recent decision, “then he has a whole lot of cases he needs to reverse.”

Wright said he typically did not comment on pending cases, but he denied any motivation beyond the law in the Dick case.

In court, he said that if Scott Peterson could be charged with the murder of an unborn child, then the government could not deport an unborn child who had done nothing wrong.

But then what about abortion?

Wright, citing the abortion exception in the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, said the new law did not contradict Roe v. Wade.

“I'm against abortion, personally, but I feel like it's a woman's choice,” Wright said.

“And we still have Roe versus Wade. As long as it's on the books, then that's the law.”

[Egon]

WTF Ping.

[Torie]

You can kill them but you can't deport them

At the risk of going out on a limb, I take it that you disagree with the above as a public policy matter. Would that be a fair assessment?

Moving right along, you will not like this, but the judge's decision is totally correct, as a legal matter. What critical distinguishing element are you missing here, John? This is a test of your mental agility and perspicacity. (By the way, I have not read any of the other posts on this thread. Maybe somebody else got it, maybe not.) I saw Askel's name. Maybe she cut the legal knot here. :)

[Lorianne]

Let me get this straight, the unborn in the USA are entitled to the rights of a citizen, EXCEPT the right to life ???

Did I get that right?

[GovernmentShrinker]

Article. XIV.

Section. 1. All persons BORN or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"That reading of the Constitution goes against the plain wording of the Constitution itself.The Constitution does not define life but clearly says that people born in the United States are citizens. It does not say that people conceived in the United States or carried in their mothers' bellies into the United States are citizens."

---

But the 14th Amendment of the Constitution does not say that *only* persons born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens. In fact, since the Naturalization Act of 1789, persons born outside the U.S. whose parents are U.S. citizens have been U.S. citizens from birth---while they used to require that both parents be U.S. citizens, now it's only one parent so long as he or she has lived in the U.S. for X years, Y of which were after age 18 (I believe that X=7 and Y=5, but I could be wrong). In the case at bar, the baby would be a U.S. citizen whether he is born in Missouri or Mexico. Of course, our current law does not grant citizenship until actual birth, but it's not like the judge is acting in a way that, but for his action, the baby would not be a U.S. citizen at birth.

I think that, as conservatives, we should be glad whenever any decision is made that recognizes the humanity of unborn children. While this is a liberal judge whose decision surely will be overturned, it is a positive step towards the recognition of rights for unborn babies.

[GovernmentShrinker]

At fertilization the egg and sperm cease to be. They become a one celled blastocyst

Better brush up on your terminology. There is no such thing a "one celled blastocyst". "Blastocyst" refers to the many-celled stage where the embryo has differentiated into two different types of cells, in two separate regions, one of which will become the placenta and the other of which will become the fetus.

[sc2_ct]

Thanks, I was thinking about that over dinner, but I didn't know whether the father was an American citizen. That's great news, hopefully this will start a trend that forces people to actually *think* :)

[cpforlife.org]

Let me get this straight, the unborn in the USA are entitled to the rights of a citizen, EXCEPT the right to life ???

Did I get that right?

Yes in the depraved mind of this sick INjustice.

[cpforlife.org]

Brushing up. Thanks.

[CyberAnt]

Doesn't the Constitution say you have to be "born" in the USA to be a citizen ..?? I don't recall ever reading a provision saying "pregnant" is the same as ..!

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Thanks for the ping. Orwellian!

[Calpernia]

Hence the new legal symantic!

This one will be a winner.

Cause if you are citizen upon conception....abortions will be murder.

Then let the introduction of new INS forms begin for all the 'vacationers' visiting the USA and conceiving.

One freeper pointed out the worries of Anchoring. I have since thought of a conga line of other technicalities.

But abortion being ruled as murder would be a step in the right direction. I think working backwards from there would be easier.

[F.J. Mitchell]

You can't deport a pregnant woman because the unborn is an American citizen with Constitutional rights. Yet if the mother decided to snuff the kid, he/she has no right to not be murdered.

Anyone else remember the bazoro Superman, from the planet bazoro? His secret identity is the Judge in this case. Hee Hee, he has been outed.

[Condor51]

How come a woman has the right to decide to kill her child and I dont(sic) have the right to decide whether or not I wear a seat belt?

Because Sarge, Abortion is in the Constitution and NOT wearing a seat belt isn't!

Wait.... Never Mind :-)

[RichardMoore]

I think that this judge is using this case knowing that it will be challenged all the way up to the Supreme Court. The child is a citizen only after it is born and he knows that. This is a clever deception on the part of pro-abortion forces in this country.

[zip]

ping