“Its ironic that conservative Republican’s like yourselves believe that the federal government must leave abortion up to state governments.”
That is not quite accurate. The dispute is with EV’s incorrect claim that the 14th Amendment *already requires* it. He goes even beyond your points. This is the kind of judicial activist reading of the 14th that gave us Roe v Wade in the first place. It’s wrong, a bad reading of the Constitution that no Federal Judge, including Scalia, would go along with.
The GOP platform advocates for a Human Life Amendment to address this issue. Why would the GOP Platform have that if the 14th amendment could fix it automatically? Reality is 14th cant and it wont be fixed/addressed without additional enabling definition of human life. HLA does that.
Note that the analogy with slavery fits - Just as addressing slavery finally did require constitutional amendment to have a national solution written in Constitutional Law, this Constitutional Amendment is a possible solution to abortion as well. Pretending that the 14th can be twisted into a pretzel to serve the pro-life cause rather than the pro-abort cause is — well, that’s smoking some mighty strong crack.
I support a Human Life Amendment but I can do the math too - it will never happen because the Democrats are as pro-abort as possible and wont ever vote in numbers to make the 2/3rds bar get met.
So, IMHO, the realistic next step is to take the issue out of the courts (who wrongly decided Roe v Wade) and put it back to the people to decide. Its easier to get 2 more votes on the Supreme Court than to get an amendment passed.
To suggest that you cant be prolife and hold this position (repeal Roe v Wade and return abortion to the states) is absurd.
Just tell me how many unborn children have been saved by EV’s position on the 14th (answer: Zero, because what he advocates never will happen), and you’ll have your answer as to whether this is really the effective pro-life position.
EV’s the kind of guy who will call people who merely advocate for parental consent ‘RINOs’, and yet abortion rates declined significantly in states that implemented the (widely popular) parential notification and parental consent laws.
The good is the enemy of the best, and extremism is the enemy of effective political activism.
Are you Robert Bork?
That is not quite accurate. The dispute is with EV’s incorrect claim that the 14th Amendment *already requires* it.
Unlike most lawyers these days, I can read plain English, with comprehension.
To wit: "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."
He goes even beyond your points. This is the kind of judicial activist reading of the 14th that gave us Roe v Wade in the first place. It’s wrong, a bad reading of the Constitution that no Federal Judge, including Scalia, would go along with.
Earlier in the thread, I posted the views of the top judge on the Ninth Circuit, a Reagan appointee, who agreed with me explicitly. Even the author of Roe himself, Judge Harry Blackmun, in the text of Roe, agreed that if the child in the womb were a person, they would be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
The GOP platform advocates for a Human Life Amendment to address this issue. Why would the GOP Platform have that if the 14th amendment could fix it automatically? Reality is 14th cant and it wont be fixed/addressed without additional enabling definition of human life. HLA does that.
You're neglecting to mention that it also says that unborn children are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment already. Advocates of an amendment to the Constitution do so only because of the willful ignorance demonstrated on this matter by individuals like yourself.
The Reagan pro-life plank in the GOP platform:
"We must keep our pledge to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence. That is why we say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make it clear that the 14th Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions."
Note that the analogy with slavery fits - Just as addressing slavery finally did require constitutional amendment to have a national solution written in Constitutional Law, this Constitutional Amendment is a possible solution to abortion as well. Pretending that the 14th can be twisted into a pretzel to serve the pro-life cause rather than the pro-abort cause is — well, that’s smoking some mighty strong crack.
The original Constitution contained compromise language that allowed for slavery, unfortunately. However, that same Constitution has always had language, contained in the Preamble and in the Fifth Amendment, that offered protection for innocent human life. That language was predicated on the Declaration of Independence. So, the only reason we would even need an amendment is to overcome the unreasoning and illogical arguments of people like Blackmun and a good chunk of our current legal establishment. Of course, it would probably take them about five minutes to misinterpret that too.
I support a Human Life Amendment but I can do the math too - it will never happen because the Democrats are as pro-abort as possible and wont ever vote in numbers to make the 2/3rds bar get met.
Well, you're just full of solutions then, aren't you...
So, IMHO, the realistic next step is to take the issue out of the courts (who wrongly decided Roe v Wade) and put it back to the people to decide. Its easier to get 2 more votes on the Supreme Court than to get an amendment passed.
To advocate that is to surrender the very intellectual, moral and legal arguments that are required to even overturn Roe, much less outlaw it in the several states.
To suggest that you cant be prolife and hold this position (repeal Roe v Wade and return abortion to the states) is absurd.
Substitute the word "slavery" for the word "abortion" in all your arguments, and the foolishness of your position quickly becomes clear. And abortion is surely a much worse scourge on humanity than the awful horrors of slavery ever were. No state, no individual, has the right to deprive any person of their life, short of conviction on a capital offense, during the commission of justifiable homicide, or during the execution of just war.
Just tell me how many unborn children have been saved by EV’s position on the 14th (answer: Zero, because what he advocates never will happen), and you’ll have your answer as to whether this is really the effective pro-life position.
ALL children would be saved under my understanding, but none will be saved under yours. That's the simple fact.
EV’s the kind of guy who will call people who merely advocate for parental consent ‘RINOs’, and yet abortion rates declined significantly in states that implemented the (widely popular) parential notification and parental consent laws.
Politicians pay lip service to the pro-life cause every day. But they do little or nothing to bring this holocaust that continues to kill 3 to 5 thousand American children EVERY DAY to an end. I won't apologize for continuing to point that out. The good is the enemy of the best, and extremism is the enemy of effective political activism.
James Madison, in Federalist 51:
...It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.
Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure....Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority.
In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects...Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.
In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.
There is nothing more extreme than those that allow for, or through negligence or cowardice allow, the heinous murder of little children.
Opposing that is not extremism, it is simple human decency and love for the primary foundational principles of America, the God-given right to Life and Liberty.
I certainly respect your position. My criticism is for those people who don’t think that it is even good to fight for a Constitutional Amendment banning abortion in addition to overturning Roe v. Wade. However, I would disagree with your interpretation of the 14th Amendment. If unborn children are found to be persons for the purposes of the 14th Amendment. Then a state could not allow them to be killed without violating the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. People make the point that murder is not prohibited by the 14th Amendment. However, if a state chose to allow a class of people to be killed, I can guarentee that successfull claims would be brought under both the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.