James Dobson: Pro-Life Cause May Have to Settle for Overturning Roe, Abortion

Life News ^ | 10/1/10 | Steven Ertelt

[wagglebee]

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Ask most pro-life Americans and they will tell the you the ultimate goal for the pro-life movement is a constitutional amendment recognizing the legal status of unborn children from conception. But former Focus on the Family president and founder James Dobson says that may not be attainable.

Before a constitutional amendment, either federally or in any state, can be recognized, the Supreme Court must be changed to remove its current pro-abortion majority -- pegged by most pro-life legal scholars as 5-4 at best.

Once that happens, the Supreme Court can reverse the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that allowed for virtually unlimited abortions throughout pregnancy for any reason and has resulted in more than 52 million abortions since 1973.

When the high court overturns Roe, states may be able to pass their own laws prohibiting abortions, and Dobson says that may have to be good enough for the pro-life movement because getting three-fourths of the states and Congress to ratify a constitutional amendment is an extraordinarily difficult process.

"I would be willing to settle for each state making a decision, and we'll fight that out in the state legislatures in 50 states. I just don't see the Supreme Court saying this is flat-out illegal," he lamented. "I wish they would, but I don't think that will happen."

Dobson's comments also refer to the theory among some pro-life legal observers that the Supreme Court could find the necessary votes to overturn Roe -- throwing the abortion battle back to the states -- but not having enough votes to uphold a constitutional amendment.

The election of President Barack Obama set back the pro-life cause because it allowed him to replace retiring pro-abortion jurists, John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor, with abortion advocates who will almost assuredly vote to keep Roe and unlimited abortions in place for decades to come.

The pro-life movement won't have the opportunity to replace a pro-abortion Supreme Court judge with the potential fifth vote to overturn Roe until at least 2013, assuming Obama is defeated by a pro-life presidential candidate in the next election.

Dobson, who made the comments, according to a OneNewsNow report, on the Today's Issues program on American Family Radio, also said he applauded pro-life groups and advancements such as better-quality ultrasounds for changing the face of public opinion.

"You can't deny it's a baby," Dobson says. "You see it sucking its thumb, moving and turning cartwheels in its mother's womb."

Recent polls have consistently shown a majority of Americans are both pro-life and strongly support limits such as no tax funding for abortions or parental involvement for teens.

[BenKenobi]

We went through this with the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The fundamental right to life cannot be abrogated by state lines. We had a transportation issue, of black slaves escaping to free states, we would have the inverse with respect to abortion, of mothers taking their children across state lines to have an abortion.

The unborn children are persons, and the federal government must recognise the truth.

[BenKenobi]

I suppose Lincoln should have grown up and accepted that slavery could not have been abolished!

“I hold that Illinois had a right to abolish and prohibit slavery as she did, and I hold that Kentucky has the same right to continue and protect slavery that Illinois had to abolish it. I hold that New York had as much right to abolish slavery as Virginia has to continue it, and that each and every State of this Union is a sovereign power, with the right to do as it pleases upon this question of slavery, and upon all its domestic institutions”

Self government cannot be used as a justification to deny fundamental rights and freedoms to others. It didn’t work for the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and it won’t work now. If the unborn are not persons, then no restrictions are necessary, if they are persons, than no appeal to popular sovereignty is sufficient.

[BenKenobi]

Anti-lynching laws are the best parallel. Yes, state governments could ignore murder charges against abortionists, but that isn’t justification to shy away from the outright federal ban.

You’d fight for the amendment and fight for enforcement at the state level, just as what happened with black people.

[Theophilus]

It won't be very long until abortion is compulsory

[BenKenobi]

Reading the Peoria speech of 1854:

“When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs another man, that is despotism.”

[markomalley]

Yes, state governments could ignore murder charges against abortionists, but that isn’t justification to shy away from the outright federal ban.

My point is that if you correct the definition of "person" for the purposes of the law, then existing homicide laws come into play.

As far as non-enforcement of those existing laws once the "definition" is incorporated into law, there are any number of ways to do so. They could even pull a trick that the Dhims regularly use: slip a mod to the civil rights act protecting the unborn into the middle of an appropriations bill that the Dhims really want to pass -- so if the Dhims vote against it, they get slammed for wanting to cut funding off for poor women and children.

[A Strict Constructionist]

“You sound like politician, Ken Buck running for US Senate in CO.
He claims he supports Personhood, he just doesn’t support
Personhood amendments, like the lame Eagle Forum.

Talk about Orwellian Doublespeak!”

I’m always worried about amending the Constitution it hasn’t worked out too well in the past.

[A Strict Constructionist]

“the doctor has two patients: the mother and the baby. He can act according to the rules of medical triage, and none of that has anything to do with abortion, no matter the outcome.”

Check out Catholic run hospitals in the past and the present. A Brazilian doctor chose to save the mothers life and was excommunicated along with the mother. So much for two patients.

[annalex]

It is possible to do the triage wrongly, for example, allowing personal judgment of the patients’ worth impact the outcome.

If he chose the life of the mother and intentionally killed the child, he should be excommunicated; or more generally if his decisions were guided by the notion that the life of the baby is worth less. The circumstances that go into this:

- was the mother in grave danger of death?
- was it possible to deliver the baby safely first?
- was it possible to choose a treatment for the mother that is safer for the child?
- did the doctor intend to kill the baby?

[wagglebee]

Pinged from Terri Dailies

[soxfan]

I can call Dr. Dobson a RINO because of the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

Even though he is obviously NOT a RINO, and I was using sarcasm to make a larger point: folks on this board are using terms like “clueless” and “surrender” to characterize one of the most consistently, conservative, pro-life advocates on the planet. I suppose when it comes to ideological purity, you just can’t be too pure.

No, the only credentials I have with respect to protecting the unborn is that I have regularly donated funds and voted consistently for GOP candidates. Even for RINOs and yes, even occasionally for pro-choice GOP candidates.

Because at its core, the GOP is fundamentally a pro-lfe party. When in majority status, it is more likely to protect the right to life that when the Democrats are in the majority. And it takes RINOs to be a majority party; “the big tent” is unfortunately a fact of life.

Barack Obama is POTUS because conservatives did not vote for John McCain. Bill Clinton was POTUS because conservatives did not vote for George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole.

[Guenevere]

I misunderstood the sarcasm....

...and apologize.

[A Strict Constructionist]

“- was the mother in grave danger of death?”

Yes plus she had other children, and you have proven my point, that many want to play God and not let God do the judging. You wonder why you have so much trouble convincing many that your path is the right way. They have no confidence in that if push comes to shove that they will have any say in the matter. She was also excommunicated.

[annalex]

That she was in grave danger of death and had other children does not in itself justify killing another human being. I listed four conditions when causing the death of a child could be justified as an unintended double effect, and you only listed this one, plus an irrelevant factor. May I presume that the other three militated against the decision the mother and the doctor took?

It appears that the mother is guilty of abortion and so is her “doctor”.

“To play God” usually refers to someone who makes his own moral constructions, allows them to supercede the Divine Law known to him, and makes a life-and-death decision made on the basis of that human judgment. Very often abortion is merely a result of unformed conscience or purposely mangled conscience, for example, as a consequence of half a century of NARAL style agitprop. However on occasion we would have an infomed person violate the moral code knowingly and argue for his right to do so. Such is the case of the Brazilian mother and her doctor, and many others who should know better.

Of course the Church has much trouble convincing people. Doing the right thing requires sacrifice; on occasion it requires an ultimate sacrifice. People tend to resist that.

[A Strict Constructionist]

- was the mother in grave danger of death?
- was it possible to deliver the baby safely first?

The answer was yes in the first case and no in the second.

I read your about page. Would you really like to go back to a Feudal system?

[annalex]

How about the other two criteria, less aggressive option and intent?

To put is simply, did the doctor (1) abort the baby to get him out of the way and then treated the mother, did he (2) treat the mother and neglected to care for the baby, or did he (3) treat the mother because she could respond to treatment, the baby could not respond to any treatment (for example was too small to be delivered through C-section), and the baby died because of the procedure done to the mother?

Of course I do not want to go back to the feudal system exactly as it was 700+ years ago, nor is it possible. But I believe that two characteristics of the feudal system will probably emerge in the foreseeable future and they are good things. One is voluntary and contractual nature of security arrangement. Right now we have an implied territorial social contract: one who is born in the US has the US government protecting him; one who is born in France — the French government, etc. That does not need to be. People can contract with security systems that compete for their dollar. This is similar to how the malls and big establishments hire private security. Justice then can be arbitrated between security providers. I think that we will come to a state of spontaneous order and this system, essentially feudal albeit techologically modern, will emerge.

Secondly, there is nothing wrong with religious cohesion, where co-religionists live together in communities that have moral self-government. This, too, is a good thing, is typical for the feudal society, and is essential for the freedom of religion as well as political freedom.

Thanks for asking. I should, by the way, clean up my profile page, it is awfully cluttered.

[rbmillerjr]

“1. The abandonment of the core principle of our republic, that our rights come from God, not from any man, and that they are therefore unalienable.”

This is, of course, is the key. People, who profess to be Constitutionalists do not understand the Constitution. Our rights are derived from God, not men.

Once the amoral and immoral take that foundation away, the Constitution isn’t worth the paper it was written on.

[EternalVigilance]

Thank you. I’m so happy that some folks do get it.

At the same time I’m so sad that so many refuse to get it, including, and maybe especially, those who are put up on a pedestal as “leaders,” when they are nothing of the sort.

[A Strict Constructionist]

One is voluntary and contractual nature of security arrangement. Right now we have an implied territorial social contract: one who is born in the US has the US government protecting him; one who is born in France — the French government, etc. That does not need to be. People can contract with security systems that compete for their dollar. This is similar to how the malls and big “establishments hire private security. Justice then can be arbitrated between security providers. I think that we will come to a state of spontaneous order and this system, essentially feudal albeit techologically modern, will emerge.

Secondly, there is nothing wrong with religious cohesion, where co-religionists live together in communities that have moral self-government. This, too, is a good thing, is typical for the feudal society, and is essential for the freedom of religion as well as political freedom.”

I take it from this you are for private armies and you are in favor of Sharia.

[annalex]

What does it have to do with sharia, other than I don’t much care, and certainly don’t intend to fix, what system of jurisprudence the Muslim have in their own lands?