Posted on 10/20/2018 3:35:44 AM PDT by cpforlife.org
MONTGOMERY, Alabama, October 19, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Today, the Alabama Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the case of Jessie Phillips v. State of Alabama that “the value of the life of an unborn child is no less than the value of the lives of other persons.” In a concurring opinion, Justice Parker boldly called on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“I urge the Supreme Court of the United States to reconsider the Roe exception and to overrule this constitutional aberration,” wrote the Alabama Supreme Court judge, and recommended that the Court “return the power to the states to fully protect the most vulnerable among us.”
The case came before the Alabama Supreme Court when Jessie Phillips, a man convicted of murdering his wife and their pre-born child, appealed his conviction arguing that he shouldn’t receive the death penalty because his 6-8 week pre-born child should not be considered a person under Alabama law.
The Alabama legislature expressly enacted the “Brody Act” 12 years ago to protect pre-born babies. Under the Brody Act, the definition of a “person” includes “an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability.” The Brody Act is consistent with numerous other sections of Alabama law which recognize the equal status of the child in the womb. In his powerful concurring opinion, Justice Parker noted that the old law was changed “with the expressed intent of addressing just the sort of double-murder of which Phillips was convicted.”
The national significance of this case cannot be understated, since the question of personhood has been the lynchpin to the so-called right to abortion, ever since Justice Blackmun erroneously wrote in Roe v. Wade that children in the womb are not persons and therefore not entitled to any of the fundamental constitutional protections.
Responding directly to Roe’s flawed ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “unborn children are persons entitled to the full and equal protection of the law.”
Justice Parker, one of the court’s most vocal pro-lifers, wrote a separate concurring opinion specifically to emphasize how broadly and consistently the law and judicial decisions in Alabama and around the Country protect the rights of unborn children, and to contrast that with “the continued legal anomaly and logical fallacy that is Roe v. Wade.”
In his pleadings, Mr. Phillips had argued that since his child was not viable when the murders were committed, he was guilty of only killing one person and therefore not eligible for the death penalty. Justice Parker categorically rejected this argument, stating that “Phillips's crimes were capital not because he killed a pregnant woman but because he killed two persons.” Justice Parker added that, to the extent Phillips was arguing that his unborn child was less of a person because the baby was young (6-8 weeks), Justice Parker dismissed that argument as “entirely unconvincing in light of the natural law, Alabama law, and this Court’s numerous recent decisions consistently recognizing that an unborn child is a human being from the earliest stage of development and thus possesses the same right to life as a born person.”
This is not the first time that the Alabama Supreme Court has recognized the personhood of the pre-born child.
In 2014, in the case of Ex Parte Hicks, Chief Justice Moore wrote that "Under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, states have an obligation to provide to unborn children at any stage of their development the same legal protection from injury and death they provide to persons already born.”
In the 2013 decision in Ankrom v. State of Alabama, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that pre-born children were persons under the chemical endangerment laws, explaining that “the decision of this Court today is in keeping with the widespread legal recognition that unborn children are persons with rights that should be protected by law” the court added, “the only major area in which unborn children are denied legal protection is abortion, and that denial is only because of the dictates of Roe.”
With the recent appointments to the United States Supreme Court made by President Trump, many pro-lifers are hoping that the time has finally arrived for the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn Roe v. Wade, allowing states like Alabama to protect the fundamental rights of pre-born children.
In today’s momentous ruling, Justice Parker echoes these sentiments and calls on the Supreme Court to act.
“It is my hope and prayer that the United States Supreme Court will take note of the crescendoing chorus of the laws of the states in which unborn children are given full legal protection and allow the states to recognize and defend the inalienable right to life possessed by every unborn child, even when that right must trump the ‘right’ of a woman to obtain an abortion,” he said.
Sign petition telling Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade here.
Gualberto Garcia Jones, Esq. is an attorney and the Policy Director of Personhood Alliance.
Au contrair, mon ami!
"We don’t need this sort of discussion..." There will be no "discussion". The Left will be an even more deranged version of their usual MOB of howling banshees, thereby reminding sane people of what is at stake in this election.
If this Alabama SC decision had not been publicised, the Left would still be a deranged MOB, with plenty of TV footage of their antics.
Would really appreciate your opinion on this development. Could it effect the elections?
That was fast. I figured there would be test cases nibbling away at the edges of Roe. This just goes for the whole enchilada.
It makes sense, but the Supremes will likely find some way to edit or punt.
Could it affect the elections?
Yes right before the election is best most voters have very short memories.
Issues like this bring out the wako’s and show how really crazy the democrats are.
Trump could replace Ginsburg with me or a first year law student at an unknown law school and it’d be an improvement. As a matter of fact maybe one justice opening should be reserved for a common-sense non lawyer from another field like business or a blue collar worker.
Fully agree. Two and a half weeks from a great political comeback possibility and this schmuck judge decides to insinuate themselves into the debate. TONE DEAF. We’ve waited a long time to look at this, we could have waited three lousy more weeks. Thanks a lot Judge Schmuck. How many times has our side bitched about October Surprises hurting our cause electorally? And now we shoot ourselves in the foot and some Freepers here are too blind to see it.
Roe should be overruled and the issue of abortion returned to the moral sense and the democratic choice of the American people. Abortions are killings by private persons. Science and rational demonstration prove that a human exists from the moment of conception. Scalia is quite right that the Constitution has nothing to say about abortion.
--Robert H. Bork
Constitutional Persons: An Exchange on Abortion
Robert H. Bork is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
I doubt the Supreme Court will hear this case. There's nothing to appeal. This is not going to be the case that overturns RvW.
yes. wrong timing. the liberals will jump on it:
Optics-wise, I don't reckon this Alabama decision will further inflame the Fem-Witch faction, since they are already running around with their hair on fire.
What is this A Democrat Judge?
Someone from the legal jurisprudent background needs to inform us ALL. That ending Roe Vs. Wade would essentially put the screaming battle back into the nads of State Capitols, and Governors, and allow each state to figure out when, how, or who gets an abortion. AM I CORRECT?
‘Our side’ seems to be innately blessed with a propensity to blow off various body parts with unwisely-aimed firearms...
Right, this case doesn’t seem to force the issue legally. It’s just the justice using the decision to make a rhetorical point about Roe. I wonder if you see this kind of criticism of Roe from time to time in decisions like these, or if this is an unprecedented instance of a judge “going there”.
Yes. Before Roe and Doe the individual States decided.
This is not a positive. We don’t need this sort of discussion right before the election, not when it is more likely to motivate those who like killing babies than it is to motivate normal people.
Sorry, because I believe it’s murder, I don’t care if we keep or lose any house of congress if this could over turn R v W. Rather stop some babies from going to the gallows.
“Sorry, because I believe it’s murder, I don’t care if we keep or lose any house of congress if this could over turn R v W. Rather stop some babies from going to the gallows.”
It’s a nice thought, but if the music stops now, the chance of ending RvW is slim to none, considering the ratio of R:D. Better to wait it out until the R side is stronger and the chance of winning is better. To push it through now, and then lose, would put the issue on hold for a couple more decades.
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