The First 100 Ways Ending "Legal" Abortion

Vision Forum Ministries ^ | January 21, 2003 | Herbert W. Titus, J.D.

[Ed Current]

Herbert W. Titus is an attorney with the law firm of Troy A. Titus, P.C. in Virginia Beach, Virginia and is of counsel to the law firm of William J. Olson, P.C. in McLean, Virginia. Prior to his association with these two firms, Mr. Titus taught constitutional law, common law, and other subjects for nearly thirty years at five different American Bar Association-approved law schools. From 1986 to 1993, he served as the founding Dean of the College of Law and Government in Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Prior to his academic career, he served as a Trial Attorney and a Special United States Attorney with the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. and Kansas City, Missouri. Today he is engaged in a general practice with a concentration in constitutional strategy, litigation, and appeals.

Mr. Titus holds the J.D. degree (cum laude) from Harvard and the B.S. degree in Political Science from the University of Oregon from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He is an active member of the bar of Virginia and an inactive member of the bar of Oregon. He is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the United States Court of Claims, and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Sixth, Tenth, District of Columbia and Federal Circuits. His constitutional practice has taken him into federal district courts in Alabama, Arizona, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, and the District of Columbia and the state courts of Texas and North Dakota.

He serves as general counsel to the American Health Legal Foundation and the Michael New Defense Fund, as well as Senior Legal Advisor to the The Liberty Committee. He also does research and legal writing for the Free Speech Coalition and other similar organizations dedicated to the restoration of constitutional law and liberty in the nation.

Mr. Titus has appeared as a guest on radio and television shows and, for two years, hosted his own daily radio program, That's The Law, on the VCY America network. He has testified on constitutional issues before the United States Congress. He has also testified on state and federal constitutional issues before the state legislatures of Nevada, South Carolina, and Washington. His views on constitutional law have received wide circulation among members of Congress, state legislatures and public policy advocates and organizations.

Mr. Titus has written numerous articles, book chapters and constitutional studies and analyses. He is the author of God, Man & Law: The Biblical Principle, a widely-acclaimed text on American common law. He has also produced Family to Family Forum, a seminar series featuring audio and video tapes, as well as printed materials, teaching the practical application of common law principles to current public policy issues.

[cgk]

Pro-life/pro-baby ping... (still without my ping list).

[Ed Current]

Let us not forget.... a "woman's" right to "choose" maynot be the woman's. More often than not, it is a man, parent, friend, that is making the "choice"!

• Let us not forget….owning slaves may have not been the plantation owner's choice. More often than not, it was the crop, the shortage of labor, economic conditions, that is making the "choice"!

• Let us not forget….the Jewish Holocaust may have not been Hitler's doing. More often than not, it was the good German Volk, the excess gas supplies, Nazi Party, that was making the "choice"!

 

 

[tpaine]

Titus argues:

" --- This is the very essence of the rule of law. No human institution has the final and supreme power to determine what the law is. Otherwise, the rule of law would be reduced to the rule of those who possess such final and supreme power."

He then goes on at length to establish, in effect, that fertilized human eggs are not seen as 'persons' under our rule of law, -- and concludes:

" -- Obviously, this problem could be resolved if Congress acted by declaring that human life begins at conception -- "

Thus, his conclusion contradicts his own previous argument: "-- No human institution [Congress] has the final and supreme power to determine what the law is. --"

Congress has never been granted the power to declare that human life begins at conception.

[blackeagle]

ping

[tpaine]

DUMBBLEACHEDBLONDE:

Let us not forget.... a "woman's" right to "choose" maynot be the woman's. More often than not, it is a man, parent, friend, that is making the "choice"!

______________________________________


Let us not forget….owning slaves may have not been the plantation owner's choice. More often than not, it was the crop, the shortage of labor, economic conditions, that is making the "choice"!

Let us not forget….the Jewish Holocaust may have not been Hitler's doing. More often than not, it was the good German Volk, the excess gas supplies, Nazi Party, that was making the "choice"!

-Ed-

______________________________________ 
 
Let us not forget.... a States right to prohibit assault weapons may not be a choice.
More often than not, it is evil men, using the instruments of evil, that dictate the "choice"!

[Mr. Silverback]

ProLife Ping!

If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

[TwoWolves]

evil men, using the instruments of evil

Yet another brain-dead reference to guns as something inheirently evil.

Grow up. People are wholly responsible for the evil that they do. Inanimate objects do not have volition, and therefore cannot be either evil or good. A gun is no more an "instrument of evil" than a hammer, a rope, or a knife. Or a toilet, for that matter, should the perp decide to drown his victim.

I grow weary of gun-control advocates who think that we are stupid enough to be swayed by these propoganda tactics.

[cpforlife.org]

Pro-Life PING

Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[cgk]

Pro-life/pro-baby ping...

[tpaine]

Tell it to Ed.. I'm not the "States rights" gun control advocate around here. I argue with them every day at FR.
The place has become lousy with them.

[TwoWolves]

My apologies. Must have misread your post.

[tpaine]

Thanks.

Here's the problem with FR's 'States rights' prohibition crowd, imo. -- They agree with our author Titus, who says:

" --- the Constitution is not what the Supreme Court says it is. Rather, the Constitution is what the Constitution says it is.

Accordingly, when Article VI of the Constitution states that all federal, state, and local officials executive, legislative, and judicial, "shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution," it means that those officials are duty bound to support the Constitution as it is written, not as it has been construed by the United States Supreme Court.

This does not mean that a civil government official may defy a court order rendered by the United States Supreme Court in a case in which that official was a party. It does mean, however, that a state or local official who is not a party has the duty and the power to act according to the constitutional text, even when the action taken is inconsistent with a court opinion interpreting that text.

In addition, under the doctrine of separation of powers, the Supreme Court cannot impose its view of the Constitution on Congress or upon the President.
Both Congress and the President have co-equal power with the Court to apply the Constitution, and an independent duty to act according to the Constitution as they understand it, not as the Court has determined it to be.
This is the very essence of the rule of law.

No human institution has the final and supreme power to determine what the law is. Otherwise, the rule of law would be reduced to the rule of those who possess such final and supreme power. -- "


So our FR 'rightists' pay lip service to the rule of Constitutional law, but then want the States to have the power to ignore the Constitution in writing laws prohibiting what they see as 'evil' behaviors.

Go figure.

[Tribune7]

bump

[Coleus]

It's a human life NOT an exception and women DO suffer from abortions.

So, what do we do now, urge our congress to use Article III section 2 of the US Constitution to limit the scope of the SCOTUS or have them introduce a human life amendment?

[MHGinTN]

More often than not, it is a man, parent, friend, that is making the "choice"! Horse manure! Nice try at a copout, dumb bleached blonde. More often than not?... As in statistically the greater category? Goose poo!

[Ed Current]

The Courts are the problem and not the Constitution.

Jurisdiction removal solves the problem with federal courts.

Each state decides just as they did prior to Roe v Wade. Justice Scalia has repeatedly stated that the Supreme Court has no business in this issue and it is a STATE matter.

Amendment ^{Article 5} = 2/3 House Majority + 2/3 Senate Majority + 3/4 States. Federal courts that routinely violate most of the Bill of Rights will not respect a Pro-Life amendment.

Jurisdiction removal passage requirements are identical to ordinary legislation. NO SUPERMAJORITIES, NO STATES.

Removal of federal court jurisdiction ^{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.

See Federalist No. 81 for commentary

Life-Protecting Judicial Limitation Act of 2003 To provide that the inferior courts of the United States do not have jurisdiction to hear abortion-related cases.

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. ^{http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20031006-085845-5892r.htm}

[Ed Current]

Rehnquist, "Roe V. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)," "To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.

There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. The only conclusion possible from this history is that the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter." ^{http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=410&invol=113}

In FT January 2003: Constitutional Persons Robert H. Bork made the following comments about Roe v. Wade:

"Blackmun invented a right to abortion....Roe had nothing whatever to do with constitutional interpretation. The utter emptiness of the opinion has been demonstrated time and again, but that, too, is irrelevant. The decision and its later reaffirmations simply enforce the cultural prejudices of a particular class in American society, nothing more and nothing less. For that reason, ROE is impervious to logical or historical argument; it is what some people, including a majority of the justices, want, and that is that....Science and rational demonstration prove that a human exists from the moment of conception....Scalia is quite right that the Constitution has nothing to say about abortion."

For the history and thorough refutation of the Incorporation Doctrine, see the following: The Ten Commandments and the Ten Amendments: A Case Study in Religious Freedom in Alabama, 49 Ala. L. Rev.434-754 (1998)., Jaffree v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County (1983), Rehnquist's Dissent in Wallace v Jaffree (1985) ,Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Second Edition, Raoul Berger, Forrest McDonald , Liberty Fund, Inc.; 2nd edition (June 1997), The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights; The Incorporation Theory, Charles Fairman, Stanley Morrison, Leonard Williams Levy, Da Capo Press , January 1970

[Ed Current]

No human institution [Congress] has the final and supreme power to determine what the law is. --"

Congress has never been granted the power to declare that human life begins at conception.

The Avalon Project : Federalist No 78 It proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power 1 The celebrated Montesquieu, speaking of them, says: "Of the three powers above mentioned, the judiciary is next to nothing.'' "Montesquieu: The Spirit of Laws.'' vol. i., page 186.

The Avalon Project : Federalist No 51 But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates

"After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into existence. This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception." Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris. He discovered the Down syndrome chromosome.

"From the moment a baby is conceived, it bears the indelible stamp of a separate distinct personality, an individual different from all other individuals." Ultrasound pioneer, Sir William Liley, M.D. 1967.

"It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." Professor M. Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School.

"By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic.

"The question as to when a human being begins is strictly a scientific question, and should be answered by human embryologists — not by philosophers, bioethicists, theologians, politicians, x-ray technicians, movie stars, or obstetricians and gynecologists." ^{http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html}

"The fusion of the sperm (with 23 chromosomes) and the oocyte (with 23 chromosomes) at fertilization results in a live human being, a single-cell human zygote, with 46 chromosomes — the number of chromosomes characteristic of an individual member of the human species." ^{http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html}

"Scientifically, the international consensus of embryologists is that human beings begin at fertilization (or cloning)--i.e., when their genetic code is complete and operative; even before implantation they are far more than a "bunch of cells" or merely " potential human beings."" ^{http://www.stemcellresearch.org/statement/}

"The question as to when a human person begins is a philosophical question — not a scientific question. I will not go into great detail here, but ""personhood"" begins when the human being begins — at fertilization." ^{http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html} This objective argument refutes all metaphysical speculations stating otherwise.

"Life begins like everything else, at the beginning. At the moment of fertilization, a new human life begins. The human embryo is a being; and being human, she is a human being. She is person and not property because no property has the property of building itself. Everything necessary to make the new human being-the entire blueprint necessary to build a human being capable of going to the moon and putting a foot on the moon-is there in the very beginning. Nothing is added after the moment of fertilization. It is all locked in. Not only the color of our hair and eyes but even how long we will live, accident or sickness not intervening, is there in the very beginning. The complete information necessary to build the new human being is written in the smallest subscript of the universe. We are fearfully and wonderfully made!" ^{http://www.cbhd.org/resources/reproductive/palmer_1999-10-15.htm}

 

Adopted unanimously June 12, 1776 Virginia Convention of Delegates drafted by Mr. George Mason:

I That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. ^{The Avalon Project : Virginia Declaration of Rights}

Robert C. Cannada, Senior Counsel, Butler, Snow, O'Mara, Stevens & Cannada, PLLC, Jackson, Missippi, "America's Choice: A Limited Government Or A Totalitarian Government," The National Lawyers Association Review, Winter 1996. "The National Lawyers Association takes the position that the practical effect of the legal connection or relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution is that the Constitution is to be interpreted in the light of the principles set forth in the Declaration.[...] The Preamble introduces and explains the purpose of The U.S. Constitution, and links it to The Declaration of Independence." ^{NLA Review Winter 1996 - AMERICA'S CHOICE}

"....all Men are created equal...endowed by their Creator with...unalienable Rights, that among these are Life....to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted...." ^{The Avalon Project : Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776}

Preamble to the U.S. Constitution," We the People of the United States, in Order to....secure the Blessings of Liberty to...our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution...." ^{Founders' Constitution}