Posted on 06/10/2021 7:14:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
The right-to-life movement’s sole aim is to ensure that the rights of all humans, unborn and born, are legally protected. Let’s start acting like it.
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to reconsider Roe v. Wade this fall, Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel for Americans United for Life and perhaps the most well-known pro-life attorney, proclaimed:
The court desperately needs to decentralize the [abortion] issue and send it back to the states … pro-life leaders need to think long and hard about overturning federalism and taking the issue away from the states.
Forsythe’s view is consistent with his recent Wall Street Journal article, which advanced the view that “the high court could put questions about gestational limits [for abortion access] back into voters’s hands — where they belong.”
Since America is a constitutional republic and not a direct democracy, Americans don’t vote to decide who deserves the protections guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. Imagine a state with anti-immigrant leaders convincing its citizens to amend state homicide laws so they only apply to victims who are citizens. Unthinkable.
Unfortunately, however, this is a matter of debate in the pro-life movement. While some advocate for the use of a states’ rights approach to overturning Roe, others support pushing for protecting the unborn’s right to life.
Members of the first camp argue the Supreme Court should merely allow states to craft whichever abortion laws their citizens prefer. The second camp believes the Supreme Court should recognize unborn humans as persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, an interpretation amounting to a constitutional mandate requiring states to protect unborn humans with the same homicide laws that protect born humans outside of the womb.
Law professor Mary Ziegler describes Forsythe as “a brilliant strategist” and the states’ rights approach as a “savvy argument.” She recently boosted years of speculation that the only difference between the two camps is merely a matter of strategy. This theory suggests people such as Forsythe do not truly believe the legality of abortion should be democratically decided; they solely support the states’s rights approach as a moderate, incremental step on the path to rights for the unborn.
But is the divide genuinely borne out of differences of opinion on timing and strategy? Or, might there be sincere, fundamental differences between those who oppose Roe due to its federalization of America’s abortion laws, and human rights advocates, who oppose abortion because they believe all humans equally deserve constitutional rights?
Consider the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a proud pro-life Catholic and hero to many in the pro-life movement. In the 1992 case that upheld Roe, he endorsed the states’ rights approach by claiming the Supreme Court “should get out of this area [of abortion law], where we have no right to be, and where we do neither ourselves nor the country any good by remaining.”
Years later, during an interview on “60 Minutes,” he rejected the rights of the unborn argument:
They say that the Equal Protection Clause requires that you treat a helpless human being that’s still in the womb the way you treat other human beings. I think that’s wrong. I think when the Constitution says that persons are entitled to equal protection of the laws, I think it clearly means walking-around persons.
They say that the Equal Protection Clause requires that you treat a helpless human being that’s still in the womb the way you treat other human beings. I think that’s wrong. I think when the Constitution says that persons are entitled to equal protection of the laws, I think it clearly means walking-around persons.
The federal government is going to keep needing geeks near me in Huntsville for DOD R&D on planes and missiles and missile defense. Same with building boats in Mobile, AL. Same with all the cargo coming into the deeply drudged beaches of Mobile so it can be carried up into the heartland. Same with all the car manufacturers spread out across Alabama with low cost-of-living labor in Alabama and our right-to-work ease of employment. Same with people buying our cotton, peaches, peanuts, chicken, pork, and tons of other agriculture. The same with all the tech companies growing in Huntsville, AL and Birmingham, AL because they need computer geeks more focused on data structures and algorithms instead of MIT or Google "scientists" stuck on trying to figure out differences between men and women.
Basically, the liberals need us more than we need them and some of us red-staters know it and aren't bending over backwards trying to claim God's rainbow quit meaning God keeps His word and now means the best sex is the kind that tears up your butthole.
That's how a lot of this crap started. The taking of a LIFE is murder . . . and in this case, it's first degree murder. NO . . . LIFE LIBERTY AND PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
I’m Pro Life.
Hate to use and politicize such a topic but…..
What if they did kick it to the states, where I think it belongs? What would happen to those states? Would the wave of liberals that are destroying Red States, who bring their political ideologies with them, start leaving? Will the liberals that are slowly taking over Texas start to feel uncomfortable with something like Constitutional Carry or the elimination of abortion feel uncomfortable enough, being surrounded by the “radical right wing(/sarc)” that they decide they do t want to live around those folks anymore?
The alert has made it part of their playbook that Uncle Sugar should provide everything, since the Left controls Uncle Sugar.
It’s be nice if the states could just do for themselves and control their own destinies.
For someone with a law degree from a top 14 law school, the author doesn’t seem to have a very good concept of the role of the judiciary.
I agree with your “if”, but I agree with Scalia that finding that “if” would be no less an invention than was finding the “right” to abortion. Either one may fit a modern desire of some but was not likely put there in the writing of the Constitution and it’s amendments. It is to me not a question of what “ought to be”, but instead what is really faithful to the Constitution in it’s “original intent”.
Let those big tech co panties pull out..no pun intended..better to save your soul than have a iPhone or whatever.
I typed companies and it came out painties.
It’s life and has the DNA to prove it.
When I tell her "I want a ..." and she gets mad I sometimes reply with "I meant to say 'duck' because I'm hungry". LOL
Zero chance of any of this happening.
The Supreme Court cannot ban abortion all together. Under the 10th Amendment the Court can return juristinction to the states and should. Read below;
10th AMENDMENT
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.
There is no mention of abortion in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, therefore it belongs with the States.
That is how the Court can return juristinction to the States. After that, pro-life people have to take their argument to the State Legislatures.
We are NEVER going to be a GOOD country again if we don’t stop aborting BABIES......and we also MUST bring back GOD into our country!!
“While some advocate for the use of a states’ rights approach to overturning Roe, others support pushing for protecting the unborn’s right to life.”
Actually, most advocate for more of a “both” than an “either/or” approach. Pursue every approach that might reduce the number of abortions, and if one approach fails for the moment, perhaps the other will not. Making incremental progress towards the goal doesn’t mean you don’t intend to reach that goal in the long run.
I read that Viability was a consideration in allowing Abortion at the time Roe v Wade was decided.
If true, why is that never mentioned?
It is also interesting that most if not all of the European Nations, the quasi Socialists that the Left loves have much more restrictive Abortion Laws than we do.
“unless that want to treat abortion as murder”
Any rational person would want just that
Premeditated Murder is...”the planned killing of an innocent human being”.
So by definition, abortion is murder.
And it should be treated like other murders.
So what you wrote was nonsense. Well, unless you’re a liberal. As this matter shows, they believe that some persons are not entitled to the protection of the law against murder. They say its somewhere in the Constitution..
That is the crux of the matter. Would the founders have considered the pre-born to be human and, therefore, granted rights (particularly the right to life)? I would not consider this would be an "invention" of a new right and outside the scope of a SCOTUS ruling. I would consider it a clarification of an existing right.
“That is the crux of the matter. Would the founders have considered the pre-born to be human and, therefore, granted rights (particularly the right to life)? I would not consider this would be an “invention” of a new right and outside the scope of a SCOTUS ruling. I would consider it a clarification of an existing right.”
What can reviewing the writings of the founders tell us about that question.
You have some support here:
https://www.fpiw.org/blog/2017/07/05/is-abortion-constitutional-lets-ask-the-founders/
But maybe not from here:
https://americancreation.blogspot.com/2012/04/founding-fathers-and-abortion-in.html
similar entries, to both viewpoints, come up in a search.
They suggest the founders were not of one mind on the subject.
For the Left, Roe vs Wade is their line in the sand just like 2nd amendment is for the right. That’s why we won’t see anything change.
Joe Biden will immediately pack the court. Susan Collins and Murkowski vote yes to add four new Supreme Court Justices despite Joe Manchin voting no. So that's 51-49 in favor of packing the court and then they will vote to reaffirm Roe vs Wade as the law of the land. John Roberts is probably warning Kavanuagh, Gorsuch and ACB to leave Roe vs Wade alone. So my suspicion is that it is what they are doing. Even though they probably think that it should return to the states but due to political considerations, it is simply not possible at this moment. Maybe not the next 50 years. Or 100 years.
The court has no power to ban abortion, just as it had no power to create the “right.”
It was always within the power of the states to criminalize or regulate abortions. The federal constitution reserved to the states and the people any and all powers and right not specifically delegated to the federal government.
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