The Right to Life Act of 2005

righttolifeact.org ^ | October 12, 2005

[cpforlife.org]

Congressman Duncan Hunter (CA)
THE RIGHT TO LIFE ACT

Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA, http://www.house.gov/hunter/) and other members of Congress have introduced the Right to Life Act of 2005. The bill recognizes unborn children as persons under the Constitution of the United States. This legislation is important because the basis of Roe v Wade rests on the assumption that unborn babies are not persons. As part of the Roe v Wade decision the Court stated, "If the suggestion of personhood is established, the appellants' case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment." The "Amendment" the Court refers to is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which holds that no State shall, "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ..." If passed by the House and Senate it would end the abortion industry as we know it in the United States. http://rfcnet.org/news/default.asp?action=detail&article=302

In His Own Words...
"Today I am introducing legislation that, if passed, will once and for all protect our unborn children from harm. Over 1.3 million abortions are performed in the United States each year and over 38 million have been performed since abortion was legalized in 1973. This is a national tragedy. It is the duty of all Americans to protect our children -- born and unborn. This bill, the Right to Life Act, would provide blanket protection to all unborn children from the moment of conception.

"In 1973, the United States Supreme Court, in the landmark case of Roe v. Wade, refused to determine when human life begins and therefore found nothing to indicate that the unborn are persons protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. In the decision, however, the Court did concede that, "If the suggestion of personhood is established, the appellants' case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment." Considering Congress has the constitutional authority to uphold the Fourteenth Amendment, coupled by the fact that the Court admitted that if personhood were to be established, the unborn would be protected, it can be concluded that we have the authority to determine when life begins.

"The Right to Life Act does what the Supreme Court refused to do in Roe v. Wade and recognizes the personhood of the unborn for the purpose of enforcing four important provisions in the Constitution:
1. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibiting states from depriving any person of life;
2. Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment providing Congress the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provision of this amendment;
3. The due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, which concurrently prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of life; and
4. Article I, Section 8, giving Congress the power to make laws necessary and proper to enforce all powers in the Constitution.

"This legislation will protect millions of future children by prohibiting any state or federal law that denies the personhood of the unborn, thereby effectively overturning Roe v. Wade. I firmly believe that life begins at conception and that the preborn child deserves all the rights and protections afforded an American citizen. This measure will recognize the unborn child as a human being and protect the fetus from harm. The Right to Life Act will finally put our unborn children on the same legal footing as all other persons. I hope my colleagues will join me in support of this important effort."

Duncan Hunter
Member of Congress
http://www.house.gov/hunter/righttolife03.html

---

And, also...
"Every year, over a million innocent babies are intentionally killed by an abortion. This represents nearly 3,000 times a day that an unborn child is taken from its mother's womb prematurely and denied the opportunity to live. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution clearly states that no State shall "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." I wholeheartedly believe that these constitutional rights should include our country's unborn children.

"As you know, in the landmark case of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court refused to determine when human life begins and therefore found nothing to indicate that the unborn are persons protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. In the decision, however, the Court did concede that, "If the suggestion of personhood is established, the appellants' case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment." Considering Congress has the constitutional authority to uphold the Fourteenth Amendment, coupled with the fact that the Court admitted that if personhood were to be established, the unborn would be protected, it can be determined that we have the authority to determine when life begins.

"It is for this reason that I am introducing the Right to Life Act of 2005. This legislation does what the Supreme Court refused to do and recognizes the personhood of the unborn for the purpose of enforcing four important provisions in the Constitution:
1. The due process clause (Section 1) of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from depriving any person of life;
2. Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which gives Congress the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this amendment;
3. The due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, which concurrently prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of life; and
4. Article 1, Section 8, which gives Congress the power to make laws necessary and proper to enforce all powers in the Constitution.

"The Right to Life Act of 2005 will protect millions of unborn children by prohibiting any state or federal law that denies the personhood of the unborn, thereby effectively overturning Roe v. Wade."

Duncan Hunter
Member of Congress
MS-WORD: http://johnshadegg.house.gov/rsc/word/Hunter--life.doc

Text of the Right to Life Act
A BILL:
To implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the 'Right to Life Act.'

SECTION 2. RIGHT TO LIFE.
To implement equal protection for the right to life of each born and preborn human person, and pursuant to the duty and authority of the Congress, including Congress' power under article I, section 8, to make necessary and proper laws, and Congress' power under section 5 of the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Congress hereby declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being.

SECTION 3. DEFINITIONS.
For purposes of this Act:

(1) HUMAN PERSON; HUMAN BEING - The terms 'human person' and 'human being' include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including, but not limited to, the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.

(2) STATE - The term 'State' used in the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States and other applicable provisions of the Constitution includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and each other territory or possession of the United States.

http://www.marchtogether.com/hr552RightToLifeBill.htm
PDF: http://johnshadegg.house.gov/rsc/word/Hunter--lifetext.pdf

Frequently Asked Questions...

Why Should Pro-Lifers support the Right to Life Act of 2005?
The Right to Life Act is the only legislation that will stop abortion dead in its tracks. By stating in unequivocal terms that a baby is a person from the moment of fertilization, Congress would be taking back its authority to pass laws that are necessary and proper for maintaining a society rooted in ordered liberty. Legislating from the bench will only come to an end when legislators are willing to discharge their duties and enact legislation that reflects a proper understanding of science and our fundamental moral beliefs. Until legislators take action on these fundamental issues, the Supreme Court will fill the space left by Congress and impose the views of a few elite and unelected judges upon every citizen. The Right to Life Act is the only game plan that aims for a victory -- one that will not sacrifice any of our young.

What about the life of the mother?
Most laws prohibiting or restricting abortion make allowances for pregnancies that endanger the life of the mother. However, thanks to modern medicine, abortion is never necessary to protect women's lives. We base this statement on testimony of many physicians over the years. Conditions do exists, however, where life-saving treatment of a mother unfortunately results in the death of a preborn child. These treatments, though, are legally and morally not considered abortion. One may ask at this point: if there are no cases where a woman's life is threatened by pregnancy, what harm could come from a ‘life of the mother' exception? The harm comes in the creative interpretation abortionists give to such an exception, which then opens the door for such abortions to be performed despite the fact that they are unnecessary.

What are chances of this bill becoming law?
The 109th Congress and the White House appear more receptive to pro-life legislation now. Furthermore, the makeup of the Supreme Court may become less pro-abortion when some judges retire and are replaced. Medical technology now shows us preborn babies sucking their thumbs and smiling on 4D ultrasounds. One has to ask: if we don't outlaw abortion now, then when? Even if you believe there is no chance of this bill becoming law, wouldn't it be great to lift the veil of silence on abortion and have Congress hold hearings on personhood, where a strong case could be made for those who can't speak for themselves?

Will the Right to Life Act outlaw contraception?
The Right to Life Act would protect preborns from being terminated for any reason. One of the most common reasons why preborns never get the chance to live a natural life is that they are aborted by contraceptives that are designed to cause early abortions. These contraceptives are better defined as abortifacients, since far from preventing conception, they allow the creation of a unique human person and then destroy them by preventing them from following their natural course of development. The Right to Life Act recognizes that a person exists from the moment of conception and therefore any willful ending of that life should be treated like any other instance where one person takes another's life.

Why do some pro-life organizations oppose this bill?
Some Pro-life groups believe that despite the dismal record of trying to overturn Roe v. Wade through gradualism, there is a chance now to change the heart and minds of more people. These groups believe in appeasing the evil of abortion through the introduction of legislation that acknowledges to right to take the life of a preborn child but tries to minimize the harm that abortion is causing. While trying to minimize evil is a laudable objective, it is high time that we look in the mirror and see that abortion advocates have not been moved an inch by gradual approaches to ending abortion.

Would this legislation actually overturn Roe v. Wade?
Yes, it would. Few people realize that Roe v. Wade shows us the way to its own downfall. The key passage, written by the author of the majority opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun, states in unequivocal terms: “If personhood is established, the case for legalized abortion collapses, for the fetus' right to life would be guaranteed by the 14th Amendment." (Roe v. Wade, Majority Decision, Section IX) The pro-life movement keeps trying to make believe that it can work within the framework of Roe v. Wade, gradually chipping away at abortion. At the same time, the number of victims of abortion keeps climbing and well-intentioned laws are struck down time after time by the monolith of Roe v. Wade. The Right to Life Act faces the reality that the wall of abortion is still intact. Roe v. Wade itself offers us the key to bring down abortion, that key is personhood, and the Congress has ample room under our Constitution to define it to include the unborn.

What can I do to help?
You can make all the difference. The most important thing you can do is to let as many people as possible know about this bill, and then have them call their Senators and Representatives. Unless the people speak up, leaders will take the path of least resistance instead of the road less traveled. If you are a Christian, you should pray to end abortion. Nothing is impossible with God.

http://www.righttolifeact.org/html/faq.html

[md2576]

Yes, he continues to. TY

[The Red Zone]

What are chances of this bill becoming law?

Slim and none, and Slim has been out of town a long time now.

There's no way something this big could ever get past even a 100% GOP congress in one lurch. They would do better to start with unborn babies that could be delivered alive, and keep the life of mother exception (have you EVER seen the life of mother exception -- and please stay on topic when answering -- prevail in a court where it was clearly frivolous?).

[md2576]

The reason a fetus is not a legal person now is because the English Common Law that is the basis of our legal system does not recognize a fetus as such. Indeed, in the first semester the Common Law does not recognize it as an entity separate from the mother for any legal purpose (in the second semester it has a provisional legal standing as chattel).

What about the fetal homicide laws?

[Sun]

I know that Ron Paul is very pro-life, which is why it makes me nervous that his name isn't there. Maybe he thinks this legislation won't work.

Also, do you know why not even one baby has been saved after the president signed the pba ban??

Here are some thoughts from this website, if you have time:

It IS an Alex Jones type website, and sometimes he is way out there, but some of this info makes sense.

http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1821.cfm

[mississippi red-neck]

Well for many , many years a lot of us have wondered if and when our Congress would ever quick ducking the hot moral issues of our country and letting the courts usurp their power because they didn't have the guts to do the job that they were elected to do, because of the fact it placed their careers at risk.

If this is a legitimate sincere effort and not some political posturing , my hat is off to these who are are willing to be real leaders and not doormats, no matter the outcome.

Who knows there might be the tiniest glimmer of hope for our country yet.

[Sun]

Interesting fyi, in case you had not heard:

The Pro-abortion advocates knew that the 5,000 to 10,000 deaths were a myth. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, admits his group lied about the number of women who died from illegal abortions.

When testifying before the Supreme Court in 1972, he said, “We spoke of 5,000-10,000 deaths a year. . . . I confess that I knew the figures were totally false. . . it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?”

excerpt http://www.nyfrf.org/myth.htm

[Sun]

Stats before Roe vs. Wade:

http://www.grtl.org/docs/roevwade.pdf

[mississippi red-neck]

If it had been this simple someone would have come up with the idea decades ago.

Uh, actually it is that simple. That is what the Legislative Branch does make law.

That is why why for so many years some of us have been livid with the Courts and our Congress. The Congress for ducking the close hot button moral issues and the Courts for taking advantage of their weakness to increase their power by taking it from the state legislators and turning their opinions and their Judicial Branch into something our founders never meant it to be.

That is a group of nine people appointed for life, unelected, directly unanswerable to the people, who could say what is the law and what is not the law.

This they do for fifty states and two hundred million people based solely on what they think it is or ought to be.

This should have been left right where it was at, with each state and it's laws deciding.

[Salvation]

Catholic Discussion Ping!

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[NewCenturions]

BUMP!

[tortoise]

What about the fetal homicide laws?

In what context? In the second semester the fetus is a provisional 'person', being the chattel of the woman as though it was one of her children. But in the case of a second semester fetus, it is only a crime against the woman and not society at large, and a woman cannot commit a crime against herself, whereas if you killed a born child it would be a crime against society as well.

No matter what position one has on this issue, the dividing line is somewhat arbitrary and ambiguous -- even "personhood at conception" has this feature. Therefore, any legal tradition on this issue will be a compromise of some type. It is important not to ignore that the Common Law has been refined in application for thousands of years, trying a lot of hard cases and edge cases, and the guidelines that were developed approximate the best guidelines for the largest number of legal cases. As always, there are many unintended consequences were one to change such guidelines, and setting radically "new" ones (every guideline you can think of has probably been tested in this system, at one time or another) by fiat is very likely to end up with a legal situation that is worse than what we have. Heavy-handed messing with the Common Law is likely to have the same consequences as when liberals do heavy-handed messing with the economy.

[Sun]

fyi

Stats before Roe vs. Wade:

http://www.grtl.org/docs/roevwade.pdf - States that abortions went down 450,000 in 1973. So there is doubt about statistics re: the number of abortions before Roe vs. Wade, because why would there be 450,000 LESS abortions in that year when abortion became legal?

[Mogollon]

I'd love to see this bill passed. Realistically, I think it will be DOA (aborted?) in the Senate.

Yep. The RINO's will join up with the rats and it will fail unfortunately.

[MHGinTN]

Since you offered the following so assuredly, you must also know that this is not the case in all states and in fact a few recognize the unborn all the way back to conception. But you made a nice broad stroke for defense of the dehumanization ... "In the second semester the fetus is a provisional 'person', being the chattel of the woman as though it was one of her children. But in the case of a second semester fetus, it is only a crime against the woman and not society at large." [Was that the case in the Scott Peterson trial? ... very deceptive of you, turtle.]

[tortoise]

[Was that the case in the Scott Peterson trial? ... very deceptive of you, turtle.]

Actually, it was the case in the Peterson trial. It has been traditionally used for "double murder" when someone killed a women in the second semester. Because the woman is also dead, the state is essentially asserting the right to the child's life on her behalf since she obviously cannot testify. In cases where a second semester fetus was killed but the mother lived, the killer was only liable if the mother brought charges -- the state had no legal interest.

Again, I'm not taking a position here, I am pointing out the English Common Law that defines how our laws are interpreted. I fully agree that the legal reasoning in Roe vs. Wade was specious and incorrect, but we need to understand that even without that specious reasoning the Supreme Court would have a very hard time banning abortion outright due to the extremely deep precedent in the Common Law that asserts the state has no interest. In this sense, the best and correct ruling would be to defer this decision to the individual States, a number of which operate under other Common Law systems (notably Spanish and French) in addition to English Common Law, with different interpretations of the legal precedent. The Federal government had no legal interest in precedent, so they invented a legal interest to keep control. The States have far more flexibility in this matter than the Federal government. We have to be careful of what we ask for, or we may find ourselves in a much less tenable position than we are now -- unintended consequences due to operating from a naive legal perspective.

I would also point out that "conception" is as legally ambiguous as "birth". These terms do not have strict definitions and are therefore fuzzy at the edges -- see "partial birth abortion" for an example of people exploiting the boundary area. This will always be a contentious and fuzzy issue no matter where you draw the line for legal protection. As I stated, the common law gives three levels of protection from conception to birth: no legal status in the first semester, legal chattel of the women in the second semester, and full independent legal protection at birth.

[franky]

###"The thing that bothers me about reversing R/W is the number of dead bodies that will follow. Most people don't remember the number of "Back Alley Abortions" that occurred back then, but I do. This is the down side because it invites the unqualified medical hack to open a chop shop."###

It is apparent you know little about the intrinsic evil that abortion is. Here are some stats:

· 1996 1,365,700
· 1995 1,363,700
· 1994 1,431,000
· 1993 1,500,000
· 1992 1,528,900
· 1991 1,556,500
· 1990 1,608,600
· 1988 1,590,800
· 1985 1,588,600
· 1980 1,553,900
· 1973 774,600
· 40 MILLION ABORTIONS SINCE 1973 and the average per year is still over 1.3 million. You show me the stats for "back alley" abortions. Never is your life would they match todays abortions.

Also, who do you think are doing todays abortions? Yale or Harvard Gyns? I suggest you visit a Planned Parenthood office and take a look at their ultrasound. Ha! I laugh because you will not find one.

National Statistics show the majority of abortions are for selfish reasons.


Finance- 21%

Not ready- 21%

Woman’s Life would change - 16%

Relationship Problems - 12%

Too young - 11%


Fetus health- 3%

Woman’s Health - 3%

Rape/Incest - 1%

I remember living 4 blocks from Margaret Sanger's first operation in 1939 and it was good they were closed. Of course she moved to Harlem to continue her human destruction. Study the subject and maybe you will see the light.

[Joe Republc]

I'm sure there where fatalities from illegal abortions, but Dr. Nathanson - former key member of NARAL - says that the numbers were greatly exaggerated by pro-abortion proponents, and then spread by the press. He should know, because he helped to make them up.

-- Joe

[Tammy8]

I would like to point out, that from what I hear- many die from legal abortions. If a woman gets in distress at an abortion clinic or at home following abortion she is whisked to the local hospital so the statistics are not shown as being abortion clinic caused. I have seen news articles about this in the past and just last year I think it was there was a teen who died from a legal abortion and her parents did not know she had even had one.

[oneday]

You bought the lie.

Bernard Nathanson, who helped spear-head the drive for legalized abortion -- and is now pro-life -- said he made up the infamous back-alley abortion death stats.

All bogus, he said.

[Thomas for life]

Thank you for this post.
We're keeping praying stronger than ever.
God bless you.