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.
I repeat: viability is a function of technology, not a criterion of personhood. You wouldn't be viable in most Earth environments without a constructed sub-environment (clothing, shelter, food supply) and would not be viable ANYWHERE in 99.999% of this Universe.
As for Jewish Law or Shari'a Law or the Analects of Confucius governing life or death decisions: no. It's going beyond the limits of Constitutional Law that got us into this mess in 1973 with its fictitious trimesters and its fictitious emanations from imaginary penumbras.
If you're going to interpret the Constitution "in the light of" something else, there's the Declaration of Independence. That would settle this.
That’s just nuts.
Probably too late to affect anything.
Don’t forget in FL, you already have almost 700,000 absentee ballots requested, and probably half or more of those are already in the mail. Ditto for many other states.
The witch-hatted womyn hit peak nuttery in the run-up to Kavanaugh. I don't think it's possible for them to get further inflamed without turning themselves into smoking briquets.
Wonderful. Thank you.
Well I dunno, I think doing everything we can to WIN at this time would help us achieve this ultimate goal. Strategically stupid.
The first breath of what, amniotic fluid or air or biochemicals or life? The Jewish Bible says specifically air?
The only question is, is it alive?
There is no grey area. It is a simple question and a simple answer.
Your 59 and 61 are wonderful. God bless you.
Parker is running against a Trump-hating democrat for Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. The democrat is named Bob Vance. His wife is a regular on MSNBC badmouthing Trump. Democrats are pouring money into Alabama trying to defeat Parker. Vance is pro abortion and pro queer marriage. If elected he would be the only democrat on the court. I can’t see him winning but after the Moore debacle there’s no telling.
http://www.alreporter.com/2018/07/06/poll-shows-parker-leading-vance-by-sizable-margin/
I couldn’t agree more. The RvW issue is what started all that noise about Kavanaugh in the first place. We don’t need this kind of distraction 2.5 weeks out from Election Day.
Just like you keep military tactics secret, or your hand in a card game, you do not jump the shark on important issues until you secure certain other things that are equally important and indeed important to accomplishing that goal.
That is our point.
another domino that needs to fall and is ripe..
pyler v doe
requiring states to educate illegal aliens..1982 in the decision it states what could change their decision in 1986 congress passed IRCA and this should have been challenged back then as it was exactly what the court said could change it no guts..rmho
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plyler_v._Doe
HUZZAH!
Thus, it begins!
It’s always a good time to speak the truth.
No its not. Mobilizing the other side is just plain stupid.
THIS is the ultimate reason why DJT has been put in the WH by the Almighty, and why he and the country will be preserved, protected, and prosper. Because 1 day, a conservative Supreme Court, dominated by Trump appointees, will not only overturn Roe, but declare abortion itself unconstitutional, thus making it illegal anywhere in the U.S. What President would have the backbone to enforce the law, even against rebellious states? Donald J. Trump.
Now that truth has been spoken, will you deny it is truth?
“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.”
I just disagree with it. I think the abortion lobby will not be effectively "more triggered" because of this. They are already ratcheted to the max.
If the Alabama Supreme Court had said not a word, Roe vs Wade would still be a 2018 issue. The DNC and the DSA and PP and everybody else will make it so regardless. There's no way to escape it. Roll on and win.
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