Judge Admits "facts no longer matter" in Abortion Decisions. MUST READ!

LifeSite Daily News ^ | Friday September 17, 2004

[cpforlife.org]

Home | Previous Page | Source URL: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/sep/04091703.html LifeSite Daily News Friday September 17, 2004 Judge Admits "facts no longer matter" in Abortion Decisions McCorvey motion to overturn Roe v. Wade moves toward Supreme Court SAN ANTONIO, September 17, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Circuit Court judge has dismissed the motion brought forward by Norma McCorvey, known to legal history as "Roe" in Roe v. Wade, to overturn the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the US. However the judge, Edith Jones of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has made some surprising statements in her ruling that gives hope that Roe v. Wade is itself on its way to being history. McCorvey provided the Court with over 5000 pages of evidence, inlcuding over 1000 affidavits from women hurt by abortion. "The ruling is not a surprising development," said Allan Parker, President of The Justice Foundation, the organization that is helping to fight the case. "It moves us one step closer to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will ultimately decide this case," he said. Judge Jones said that the knowledge and social conditions that now exist have effectively changed the landscape on abortion. She implied that had the facts been known at the time, the decision might have been different. "If the Courts were to delve into the facts underlying Roe's balancing scheme with present-day knowledge, they might conclude that the woman's "choice" is far more risky and less beneficial, and the child's sentience far more advanced, than the Roe Court knew." However, she warns that because laws have become entrenched, no 'live controversy" will arise that would allow the Supreme Court to re-criminalize abortion. She admits that the Courts over the years have taken the issue of abortion out of the hands of representative, democratic legislative bodies. "The perverse result of the Court's having determined through constitutional adjudication this fundamental social policy, which affects over a million women and unborn babies each year, is that the facts no longer matter." She wrote. Judge Jones concludes, One may fervently hope that the Court will someday acknowledge (scientific) developments and re-evaluate Roe and Casey accordingly. That the Court's constitutional decision making leaves our nation in a position of willful blindness to evolving knowledge should trouble any dispassionate observer…about the abortion decisions…" To read Judge Jones ruling: http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/abortio n/mccrvhill91404opn.pdf

[Torie]

I might add that on fundamental issues involving constitutional interpretation overriding existing laws, stare decisis is rather fragile. Where controversy continues, it is even more fragile. Nothing is entrenced. In that sense, Jones is wrong, completely wrong. It just depends on the personalities with the power of the judicial decisional pen.

[cpforlife.org]

Roe v. Wade was based on "science."

Well, I think I know what you mean, but IMO it was based on a falsification of scientific truths, AKA LIES.

See in post 2: "After relating the biological facts of fetal development, the court stated that "those decisions which strike down state abortion statutes by equating contraception and abortion pay no attention to the facts of biology." From a Federal case THREE YEARS BEFORE ROE.

[rotundusmaximus]

please add me to your ping list.

Thanks, God Bless You,

[Torie]

So many of the "facts" depend on a piori assumptions about what stage of nascent human existence mandates some legal protection, or none. The courts are particularly ill suited to decide that one as a matter of law. If any issue demands being resolved in the public square via the ballot box it is this one. The "truth" is totally subjective, and thus in a democracy requires majority rule. I put "science" in quotes for a reason. It is a canard. Science may have some influence has to who we come to our a priori conclusions and how to weight the competing considerations, but it has no real relevance to the law, particularly constitutional law. To go there, is to fall into the abyss, as we have seen. The effect on the public square is akin to a toxic waste dump.

[Jaysun]

However, she warns that because laws have become entrenched, no 'live controversy" will arise that would allow the Supreme Court to re-criminalize abortion.

I see. If something is wrong for long enough, it becomes a permanent wrong. It's a good thing that the courts hadn't "advanced" to the thinking held by these cloven-footed reprobates during the time of slavery.

It's phenomenal that these criminals haven't been dragged from the whorehouses they call courtrooms by mobs of angry citizens.

[cliff630]

When one does the arithmetic, every day in the US, mothers to be are aborting more babies, than died on 9/11.

Every day, 365 days a year, 2800 souls.

[LiteKeeper]

MUST read later

[cpforlife.org]

"If something is wrong for long enough, it becomes a permanent wrong."

In this case that is sadly correct.

IIRC, that was the essence of Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.

[cpforlife.org]

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Kevin

[Bittersweetmd]

"Abortionists clearly act with malice aforethought"

Think about this, the first man,Cain, born of a woman committed the first murder of his own brother,Abel. The man Jesus, also known as the second Adam, born of a virgin and conceived by the Holy Ghost was born into this world perfect and without blame and he was gruesomely murdered by a false court trial of his own brethren. The first man said to the Lord "am I my brother's keeper?" The second Adam, Jesus Christ said "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." The only remedy for such evil in society is for true believers to repent from their own sins and drawing upon the grace of God, walk with the Lord moment by moment. Than in the Name of Jesus God the Father will hear our prayers and move heaven and earth to reach the lost and dying. I believe God the Father would heal our land if his children would take his Word seriously and live soberly and honestly. Jesus said the prayer of faith would move mountains. May God in his mercy grant faith and knowledge in Jesus Christ to the church.

[cpforlife.org]

RE your 24: ONLY if it is a corrupt tyrannical court, or any body of government (or people) for that matter. Roe was the worst in the extreme.

Some reference regarding "facts" "truth" and "science"

When does life begin?
We have ABSOLUTE Irrefutable truth, Scientific proof
http://www.roevwade.org/upl39.html

* In 1981, a US Senate committee held hearings on when human life begins. Speaking on behalf of the scientific community was a group of internationally known geneticists and biologists who had the same story to tell, namely, that human life begins at conception - and they told their story with a profound absence of opposing testimony.

Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard medical School, gave confirming testimony, supported by references from over 20 embryology and other medical textbooks that human life begins at conception.

* "The Father of Modern Genetics" Dr. Jerome Lejeune told the lawmakers: "To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence. Human life begins at conception "

* Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, added: "By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception."

Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."

* Dr. Landrum Shettles, sometimes called the "Father of In Vitro Fertilization" notes, "Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind." And on the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, "To deny a truth [about when life begins] should not be made a basis for legalizing abortion."

* Professor Eugene Diamond on the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade: "...either the justices were fed a backwoods biology or they were pretending ignorance about a scientific certainty."

14 weeks

15 weeks, Hey look, this non-viable disposable blob of tissue is sucking it’s thumb

16 weeks

18 weeks

Let’s review the milestones of a person’s life before they are born:
· By the seventh day of life, the new person is planted in the uterus, home for the next nine months.
· By day 17, the blood cells and the heart are formed.
· By day 24, there is a heartbeat.
· By six weeks, the child’s nervous system is controlling their body. He or she now looks distinctly human. Throughout pregnancy the child is mostly in control--even to what day they will be born.
· By day 45, the baby has his own brain waves, which he will keep for life.
· By seven weeks, he has all the internal organs of an adult (though he weighs only one-thirtieth of an ounce and is less than one inch long.)
· By eight weeks, all external organs are formed, by nine to ten weeks, he can drink and breath amniotic fluid.
· From this age on is just a matter of time for growth. Before he is born, he can suck his thumb, cry (if he had air), and recognize his mother's voice and heartbeat.
· By the fourth month the child weighs about 5 ounces and is between 6 and 7 inches long. He has developing fingernails and eyelashes, and already has unique fingerprints that will remain the same for the rest of his life.
· At 32 weeks of gestation - two months before a baby is considered fully prepared for the world, or "at term" - a fetus is behaving almost exactly as a newborn. And it continues to do so for the next 12 weeks.
· By nine weeks, a developing fetus can hiccup and react to loud noises. By the end of the 2nd trimester it can hear.
· Just as adults do, the fetus experiences the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep of dreams.
· The fetus savors its mother's meals, first picking up the food tastes of a culture in the womb.
· Among other mental feats, the fetus can distinguish between the voice of Mom and that of a stranger, and respond to a familiar story read to it.
· Before the first trimester is over, it yawns, sucks, and swallows, as well as feels and smells. By the end of the second trimester, he or she can hear; toward the end of pregnancy, can see.

Pro-Choice Advocates Agree that Abortion Kills Humans.
http://www.leaderu.com/humanities/casey/ch3.html#S4

Many abortion advocates have agreed that abortion kills human life: A 1963 Planned Parenthood brochure says that life begins at conception: This is a direct quote "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun."

Similarly, Dr. Mary Calderone, former director of Planned Parenthood has stated that "abortion is the taking of a human life"

Dr. Magda Denes who performed two years of research in an abortion facility and compiled her results told a Chicago newspaper "There wasn’t an (abortion) doctor who at one time or another in the questioning did not say ‘this is murder.’"

This so called “Women’s Right to Choose…to abort her baby” has as its foundation, three main points:
1. It must ignore universally acknowledged biological facts,
2. It denies federal and state laws that clearly identify the unborn as a person with rights.
3. It promotes a blatant lie that “It’s” a woman’s body” When clearly “IT” is her baby within her body.

[Marie]

It never is, because the alternative to partial-birth abortion is not continued pregnancy, it is live birth.

To the best of my knowledge, there is only ONE scenario when PBA is the best solution. (I can't remember what it's called right now, but I *think* it's hydrocephalus.) The baby's head can be HUGE (think basketball) and impossible to deliver. The baby hasn't developed a brain and the head is over-filled with fluid. The PBA is safer for the mother than a C-section and preserves her fertility for a later try.

In these very RARE situations, when a baby has failed to develop a brain AND has hydrocephalus, I believe that PBA is the best way to resolve the situation. (Actually, I believe that this was what it was developed for in the first place.)

That said, as long as PBA is legal, it will NEVER be confined to these rare, horrible tragedies. It will be abused as such thing always are. Any PBA ban must include only this situation and then lock the door tight.

[rotundusmaximus]

tHANK YOU!

Cecilia

[Theodore R.]

She implied that had the facts been known at the time, the decision might have been different.

No, Blackmun et al were not interested in "just the facts." They were revolutionaries who had bought into the "zero population growth" mentality of the 1970s.

In most courts today, the "facts" are determined at the first trial level and cannot be changed (unless liberals want them changed). Appeals courts look at "principles of law," not the "evidence" itself.

Edith Jones is considered a very conservative judge by TX standards. In her own way, she is part of the judicial tyranny engulfing the USA. And the people say? NOTHING!

[Theodore R.]

All of what you have written is gospel: and that's why it's rejected by the leadership and the people of the USA. Leadership calls this "pushing your religion down our throats." I wonder if the leaders or the people will ever, in the famous liberal words, "get it."

[Theodore R.]

Well, really liberal courts do correct "wrong" if it involves the liberal philosophy or liberal people whose ox is being gored. The problem is the people, who do not understand judicial tyranny.

[MeekOneGOP]

bump!

[dufekin]

Both the 5th and 14th amendments address the issue of "deprivation of life," allowing it only with "due process of law." These amendments allow feticide--the killing of the fetus--only if the fetus is convicted of a crime, and even then he/she enjoys the protection of the eighth amendment against "cruel and unusual punishment."

Rather than pro-choice, why not call so-called abortion advocates what they really are? What choice do they wish us to make? They are pro-death. I'd like to see that in the New York Times. "The pro-death National Abortion Rights Action League today denounced Barbara Bush for not killing her son, President George W. Bush, when he was not yet born."

[Prov3456]

Is Justice Blackmun burning in hell? Only God knows....

[Mach9]

No--it wasn't even based on science; science, especially in this matter, weighs in on the life-side. Worse still, the majority decision (a true masterpiece of twisted logic and utter ignorance or avoidance of the Constitution) claimed the Court had no particular expertise in ANY of the fields that might inform a decision. That decision was the price for Congress's failure to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, period. NOW & Planned Parenthood found it much easier to lobby the addled brains on the Court than the elected "brains" of the Legislative branch. And, of course, overturning the existing law of every single state in the union, usurping a Constitutionally granted right of each of those states, as White said, was nothing less than raw judicial power. The chaos BEGAN with the Supreme Court, not the state courts.