Posted on 05/29/2019 4:32:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
A mother and father in Indianapolis have only one child, a little girl who is 2 years old. The mother becomes pregnant with another.
She and her husband have decided they want only two children -- and they want the second to be a boy.
Eighteen weeks into pregnancy, the mother undergoes a screening that determines her unborn child is a girl. With the full support of her husband, she decides to abort this little girl so they can have another try at conceiving a boy.
Whose side will the Supreme Court take on the question of whether the mother has a constitutional right to kill this unborn child because she is a girl? The mother's side, or the little girl's?
Which side will Planned Parenthood take?
The mother gets pregnant again. This time, when she undergoes a screening, they discover the unborn child is a boy.
But then they discover this unborn boy has Down syndrome.
Once again, the mother -- supported by the father -- decides to abort this unborn child.
Whose side will the court and Planned Parenthood take?
The married couple cited here is hypothetical. But the mother's decision to abort one baby because she is a girl and another because he has Down syndrome goes to the core of a real question the Supreme Court refused to answer this week. It let stand a decision handed down by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said it is unconstitutional for Indiana to ban abortions that a mother seeks solely because she is displeased with certain attributes of her unborn child, including the child's sex, race or disability.
At the same time, the court summarily reversed the appeals court's decision that had overturned another part of this same Indiana law that had required abortion providers to bury or cremate the remains of aborted babies.
Then-Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana signed this law in 2016. In its opinion declaring the law unconstitutional, the appeals court summarized the law's "Sex Selective and Disability Abortion Ban," stating that it prohibited abortions where "'the pregnant woman is seeking' an abortion 'solely because of the sex of the fetus' ... 'solely because the fetus has been diagnosed with Down syndrome or has a potential diagnoses of Down syndrome,' or has been diagnosed with or has a potential diagnosis of 'any other disability' ... or 'solely because of the race, color, national origin, or ancestry of the fetus.'"
Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky sued Indiana to stop this law. In 2017, a U.S. district court declared the law unconstitutional. The appeals court upheld that decision -- citing the Supreme Court's decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
"The non-discrimination provisions clearly violate this well-established Supreme Court precedent holding that a woman may terminate her pregnancy prior to viability, and that the State may not prohibit a woman from exercising that right for any reason," the appeals court concluded.
Tellingly, while addressing the law's requirement that aborted babies be buried or cremated, the appeals court felt compelled to critique Indiana's scientific conclusion that an unborn human child is a "human being."
"According to the State," the court said, "the provisions further the State's legitimate interest in 'the humane and dignified disposal of human remains.' Such a position inherently requires a recognition that aborted fetuses are human beings, distinct from other surgical byproducts, such as tissue or organs."
"Indeed, in its brief," the court continued, "Indiana maintained that it 'validly exercised its police power by making a moral and scientific judgment that a fetus is a human being who should be given a dignified and respectful burial and cremation."
"However," said the appeals court, "the Supreme Court has concluded that 'the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.'"
"Simply put," the appeals court concludes, "the law does not recognize that an aborted fetus is a person. 'This conclusion follows inevitably from the decision to grant women a right to abort. If even a (non-viable) fetus is a person, surely the state would be allowed to protect (the fetus) from being killed.'"
Should it not also be allowed to protect an unborn human being from being killed?
Not in the view of this appeals court, which ruled that a state may not even stop an abortionist from killing an unborn child because the mother has decided she does not want a girl.
The Supreme Court did not see this as a pressing question.
"Our opinion likewise expresses no view on the merits of the second question presented, i.e., whether Indiana may prohibit the knowing provision of sex-, race-, and disability-selective abortions by abortion providers," said the court in its unsigned per curiam decision.
"Only the Seventh Circuit has thus far addressed this kind of law," the court said. "We follow our ordinary practice of denying petitions insofar as they raise legal issues that have not been considered by additional Courts of Appeals."
So Americans will need to wait -- and abortionists will continue to kill unborn babies -- as the Supreme Court seeks what it deems a timelier moment to decide whether all humans have a right to life.
I think you're absolutely right about this.
I hope I don't come across as being critical of the Indiana legislature over this. It's a great law to pass -- but mainly for political reasons, not legitimate moral/ethical reasons that would stand up under close legal scrutiny.
From the womb of G-d to the mother’s womb, the child sleeps until it is time to emerge and find the dream G-d laid before it.
But the true effect of laws is much less important to Social Justice Warriors than is signalling your virtue. Whoever came up with this law is clever, because they're trying to place the SJW's in a public moral dilemna. Either they stand in favor or abortion on demand, or they oppose abortions that target female babies. They can't do both.
If ever there is scientific “proof” of a gay/trans genetic disposition, you can bet that abortion will be outlawed in cases where it’s determined.
Since Congress is not empowered to legislate abortion why is the Supreme Court involved in State abortion law?
10th Amendment to the United States Constitution
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
‘People would agree with aborting a child because it is not the sex they wanted’
Leftists do not care. Leftists are all about the adults who want autonomy over their bodies. Try pointing out that a child in the womb is fully formed at 12 weeks gestation.....they just grow from then on. Leftists DON’T CARE. IT IS ALL, ALWAYS and FOREVER ABOUT ME!!!
“And what my friend’s father had said made perfectly good sense to me.”
It always made sense until “feminism” came along. Now women say they are discriminated against if they are not ALLOWED to become fighter pilots or combat Marines etc. yet they are not required to register for the draft even though men still are. If women want “equality” they must accept that some of that equality is not going to be very desirable and it must apply to ALL women, there is no world in which some women are equal but some are not and some will be wishing to have their INequality back. We either need to stop requiring men to register and proclaim that no one will ever be drafted again or we need to require both sexes to register.
Talk about twisting logic! What makes the “fetus” unrecognizable as a person? The abortion? If a pregnant woman is murdered, there is an additional charge for killing the “fetus”. Under that logic, then the answer is yes. Following that thinking, then the mother is the sole determinant of a the fetus’ status? What if the woman was murdered on her way to the abortion clinic? What if she had talked to a friend about the possibility of aborting the “fetus”? This is ridiculous. They can’t have it both ways but they’re trying to because we all know the real answer is that “fetus” is a baby.....a unborn person.
What is needed is for a couple to present their “23&Me” DNA results, showing that both parents have a high incidence of African genetic material that is passed to their child.
They should publicly state that they are considering abortion because the fetus cold be considered “black”.
If women want “equality” they must accept that some of that equality is not going to be very desirable and it must apply to ALL women.
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I agree and that’s why I think that, if they’re going to insist on murdering unborn babies, that the OTHER parent (i.e., father) has EQUAL say.
“the law does not recognize that an aborted fetus is a person.”
Well, it’s dead after you abort it...
How about before?
Years ago in a college class on ethics, the professor posed the question:
Suppose a woman got pregnant 7 times, and experienced 7 miscarriages.
She gets pregnant an 8th time— should she have an abortion?
The class answered unanimously: Yes!
Professor: Congratulations. You just aborted Ludwig Van Beethoven.
Sex-selective abortion is common in China.
In fact, under Mao’s population control dictate, abortion was mandatory. Couples were only allowed to have 1 child.
Since boys were preferred, it’s long been common to abort girls.
This preference for male offspring was a throwback to the time when girl babies were often left in the wilderness to die.
I believe the mandatory abortion rules have been relaxed in the last few years.
The Supreme Court said nothing of the sort. They simply declined to accept the case because the issue wasn’t “ripe”. They do this all the time for various reasons. The misleading headline does nothing to advance the cause of life.
And the class said “who”? /s
If females are disproportionately aborted, would that be enough to get females to start rejecting the idea?
“We either need to stop requiring men to register and proclaim that no one will ever be drafted again or we need to require both sexes to register”
That’ one solution. Mine would still be what it was:
Men fight wars and women have babies.
Simple, sane, and natural.
I would totally agree with you, my comment was meant to say what we need to do if women still keep moaning about “equality” when they, in fact, have the upper hand already.
The prayer was for Christians in general. If the CHURCH had stood for life instead of cowering, unlimited abortions would have never happened.
Do you think the fetus would also die before you got around to murdering the husband or after?
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