Free Republic

The aftermath of legalized abortionChuck Norris On Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided (via Roe v. Wade) existing laws against abortion (at both federal and state levels) violated a constitutional right to privacy and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result all national laws prohibiting or limiting abortion were reverted. The primacy of a woman's rights prevailed and the rights of the unborn were not only abandoned, but their nature legally reduced to nonhuman. A history of justificationsBoth Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist strongly dissented the 7-2 majority decision on that winter day 34 years...

Last month, by a vote of 237-4, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted a pastoral statement calling for an end to the death penalty. The 20-page document -- "A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death" -- makes a number of claims. Among them: that the execution of murderers "violates respect for human life and dignity," that it fuels a "cycle of violence [that] diminishes us all," and that "we have other ways to punish criminals and protect society." The bishops acknowledge in passing that Catholic teaching has never banned the death penalty outright or declared it "intrinsically...