Posted on 12/03/2016 6:16:13 PM PST by ReformationFan
President-elect Trump’s reconfirmation recently on 60 Minutes that he will nominate “pro-life judges” has sparked some unprecedented media focus on what will happen when Roe v. Wade is overturned. This focus is long overdue. The notion of Supreme Court justices acting as public-health officials ranking the priority of abortion as health care, deciding what standards should apply to the practice in clinics from coast to coast, and deciding what credentials are suitable for abortionists would have astounded the great justices of the past. That’s why it has to be dressed up as some solemn “constitutional right” that obscures the Court’s actual role as the de facto National Abortion Control Board. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recognized what the justices were doing back in 1983, warning of “our continued functioning as the nation’s ‘ex officio medical board with powers to approve or disapprove medical and operative practices and standards throughout the United States.’”
But no one should jump the gun. There are three huge political hurdles to the Supreme Court’s doing the right thing and returning the abortion issue to the democratic process in the States. First, it will take at least the replacement of Justice Scalia (with a like-minded Justice), plus the replacement of one or two of the Justices — Breyer, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan — who threw out health and safety standards for Texas abortion clinics last June, claiming the need for evidence of a public-health crisis in abortion clinics.
Second, the U.S. Senate, with a 52–48 (possibly shifting) Republican–Democratic split, will be a high hurdle when it comes time for a vote during the confirmation process. Third, Planned Parenthood and 30 allied organizations, and their billionaire population-control funders, like George Soros and Warren Buffett, backed by numerous billion-dollar foundations, will all be working 24/7 to pressure the Senate and prop up Roe v. Wade, backed by a media bullhorn featuring all kinds of horrible myths about the implications. They will work to hide the reality that in the U.S. today, abortion is legal through all nine months of pregnancy, for any reason whatsoever, and sometimes with taxpayers’ subsidies, putting our nation in the company of North Korea, China, and Canada as the only nations that allow abortion for any reason after fetal viability.
But once those hurdles are overcome and Roe is overturned, there are three essential conditions that will maintain the status quo for at least the short term and ease the transition back to the states.
First, overturning Roe does not mean that the Court makes abortion illegal. Overturning Roe will return the issue to the states, where legislators can act in accordance with the views of their citizens. And no federal law exists that would make abortion illegal. (Congress might try to legislate a national law, but Congress’s constitutional authority to do so, in the absence of Roe, is doubted by legal scholars and judges.)
Second, if Roe were overturned today, abortion would be legal in 40 to 45 states tomorrow, up to 20 weeks and possibly to fetal viability, for the simple reason that there are no enforceable prohibitions on the books in those states before that time. The state legislatures and governors would have to act affirmatively. State regulations that are on the books on the day that Roe is reversed would likely be enforceable — parental-notice or consent laws, clinic regulations, etc. — subject to specific legal factors in each state that may prevent enforcement. Third, women won’t be penalized. The actual practice of the states for nearly a century before Roe (1973) was to target abortionists (the actual practitioners) and to treat the woman as the second victim of abortion. The states will undoubtedly follow that effective practice when Roe is overturned.
What would the states actually do? Based on the data in Americans United for Life’s annual publication, Defending Life, and AUL’s Life List, showing how the states have legislated (or not) on the life issue for the past 40 years, a fair prediction might be that — in the short term — a dozen states would maintain abortion on demand, a dozen states would try to enact and enforce broad prohibitions, and about 25 states in the middle might try different limits. That diversity is called federalism, a bedrock of the American constitutional system, which prevents Congress from dictating a single national law (in some areas) and leaves important issues to be decided at the local level, by local representatives accountable to the people at regular elections. It would be wise to leave the abortion issue to the states — where Americans can make their voices heard and where it was addressed since colonial days — unless 37 states act through constitutional amendment to enact a national rule.
In the meantime, the Court should delegate the broadest possible discretion to the states to address abortion, a serious public-health issue that state legislators and public-health administrators can handle better than unelected judges in Washington. A public-health crisis exists in America today as under-monitored, rarely supervised abortion centers operate as the red-light district of medicine. Abortion advocates increasingly claim that abortion is the supreme “right” that has to be publicly funded and guaranteed by voters and their tax dollars. But consider the Second Amendment, containing the “right to bear arms,” which is actually protected by the text of the Constitution: Taxpayers don’t have to subsidize the purchase of guns or ensure that people drive less than 30 minutes to have “access” to a gun dealer. The existence of that express right does not include federal or state responsibility to facilitate a sale.
But public opinion has long shown that the majority of Americans have rejected an extreme view of abortion and want limits on abortion. As the National Abortion Control Board, the Court has failed to protect women and their unborn children from the dangers of abortion and the sometimes deadly conditions inside rarely monitored, poorly supervised abortion clinics. This dangerous public-health vacuum could be filled by the states if the Justices would get out the way.
Clarke Forsythe, an attorney, is the acting president and senior counsel at Americans United for Life (AUL) and the author of Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade (Encounter Books 2013).
Well, this will be a victory in a spiritual dimension too, which will make it worth it to “shovel up the pennies.”
For v wade will be overturned In our lifetime or later. Killing babies in the mothers womb is the most barbaric practice and we have managed to negate it.
But it is against natural law so it will stop. Of course the second coming and the end of the world will come first but the pressure is on overturning r v w
Libs know it. It’s why they hate the right
I never understood how abortion could have been legalized when the “Greatest Generation” was running the show, or for that matter why they did not stop the cultural revolution of the 60’s dead in its tracks.
Coat hanger manufacturers’ stock will increase.
/s
Excellent passage, and this passage in fact is yet another one that presages the ministry of Christ.
We have an apparently paradoxical situation now, with all manner of evil in the law of America, and yet God has somehow deigned to send a copious blessing America’s way. But there is more that goes on beyond the scenes that we can not immediately see. God can look forward; God can infallibly anticipate future repentances before they have even happened.
“Natural law” is like a barely translucent window between God and us — at best.
Gospel is the thing that will bring the light (and salt) right here, in great brilliance.
War weariness, perhaps? Fighting wars can entail a lot of moral compromises.
Changing the current “easy sex” culture that generates abortions will be difficult and will take some time.
I saw an ad for a jewelry store the other day. Most jewelry stores run ads that are conservative, and celebrate engagements and weddings and anniversaries (between men and women). This ad featured a young man and a young woman disappearing into a room together and closing the door. The item being promoted was a “Best Friend” ring. The ad seemed to hint that the couple was having non-marital sex. I found it shocking.
I bet it happens, if it happens at all, in Russia before the US. If it happens in Russia, that would be a good sign for the US for sure. I mean has there been a state that got rid of it after it officially accepted it? Russia hopefully has growing religious reasons as well as cold hard secular demographic reasons. They have a HUGE demographic hole in their population due to the abortion rates they used to have.
Freegards
Many people follow trends shallowly and amorally.
When “the soul feels its worth” before a fresh revelation of Christ to those that God already knows will be willing — then the meaning of marital relationships will follow. One does not easily take what one now deems precious, and do a cheap thing with it.
“What Will Happen When Roe v. Wade Is Overturned?”
Not much. Some states would outlaw abortion, so woman would have to go to a state where it was permitted.
The emphasis then would become trying to get all sates, individually, as states, to ban late term abortions.
You are never going to get NY, Mass, or Californicate to ban all abortions, but a prohibition against late term abortions might stand a chance there.
I really don’t want to debate but I will try to make my point Natural law drives everyone even non believers. No-conscience evil people are not the norm even if they do occasionally try to take over the world. The gospel is for Christians I happen to follow it myself
I never say never even in the situation of earthly hard cases, when a heavenly power has tangibly appeared on the scene.
Gospel believers learn to transcend even the approximations of natural law. Their life is now governed by special supervision of Christ.
The attempt to blur the two is one made by many churches.
I never understood how there wasn’t one state that stood up over it. There was really never any real resistance on any sort of scale. Folks around here wondered why there wasn’t one state to really fight ‘gay marriage’ but if not one resisted over abortion, how likely was it that they would over that?
FReegards
Wait until 2018 when the GOP has a super majority and control of the Scotus.
I.e. to just tell a society to “rest on natural law” is to actually cheat it of the possibility of gospel progress.
People may have a dim apprehension of God that we CALL “natural law” but that doesn’t make it the ultimate rule.
I always trusted in the Almighty, but still wrote good briefs.....
I once had a “slip of the tongue” and referred to opposing counsel, from the firm of Shapiro, Saatan and Shapiro. as being from the firm of Satan and Satan. Opposing counsel screamed, I apologized, judge cautioned me and told jury to ignore... and at least 4 jury members gave me cute little sly smiles.
Shame on me.
And I know you said you “don’t want to debate” but to try to come to the most exact understanding of the situation possible is incumbent upon all of us. Inexact understandings will mislead us.
We can appeal to the kind of dim consciousness of God that is called “natural law” but even that varies in intensity and spectrum in different peoples. The moment it is set up as some kind of rule in its own self... as though it could self exist the way gospel does... is the moment we attempt to embrace a nebula. All manner of argument can and will be made about its specifics, for that reason. Nothing can substitute for genuine gospel witness.
So let us of course persuade a society through whatever light we can shed upon it that abortion is wrong, and then thank the Lord when it is thus persuaded. However we must not rest. This is only a witness in itself to something greater.
Just because a particular denomination has reified a nebulous concept doesn’t mean that it can stand alone.
They are absolutely right “We need sensible restrictions, nobody needs an AR-15 to kill a deer”, I have always prefered a 105mm Howitzer at point blank range firing canister rounds, works real good on Transi/Lib/Prog/Democrats also.
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