Last week was one of both celebration and sadness for who those
who hold innocent life dear. Many tears have been shed for the 32
lives cruelly ended by evil incarnate in Virginia, yet the souls of
the millions of unborn children — who have been sacrificed at the
altar of inconvenience — cry out across three decades for
sympathy, yet up to now have received little.
Some of that changed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s upholding of
the Congressional Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (PBA), also known
as HR 760. A victory, to be sure, toward ending some of the carnage
but in many ways only a first step on what will be an arduous
journey toward restoring respect for the dignity of life in this
country. On the way, both sides in the conflict have been, and will
continue to be, ready to adapt their strategies.
Conservatives have long held in contempt prior SCOTUS rulings on
abortion and those which paved the way for Roe v. Wade;
especially Griswold v. Connecticut, which abrogated states
rights in discovering a national right to privacy in the
“penumbras” emanating from the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to
the Constitution. Yet in what some consider a disturbing
development, when crafting HR 760, Congress resorted to invoking
its right to regulate abortion under the commerce clause of the
Constitution (Article I, Section 8).
Congress also changed the wording of its previously invalidated
PBA ban efforts, to specify that the grisly act may be performed
only if it can be proved that the life of the mother is at
risk due to physical complications. This was important, as
previous commissions of this heinous procedure were done if the
mother’s health was at risk due to any reason, such as
perceived psychological disorders or whatever the abortionists
deemed necessary for the death of the child.
Many on the left fear that the right to privacy defense that
their cause previously rested upon may no longer be viable, so to
speak, and so they have used part of Justice Ruth Ginsburg’s
dissenting opinion — that challenges to
abortion laws “center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s
course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature” — to proclaim
that abortion transcends privacy and is now an issue of gender
discrimination. Liberal law professor Cass Sunstein, realizing the
absurdity of this thinking, nevertheless propounds:
True, men cannot become pregnant, and it is tempting to
think that, for that reason, abortion restrictions cannot possibly
create a problem of discrimination. But perhaps this argument has
things backward. In our society, isn’t there an equality problem if
laws target only women’s bodies and leave men’s bodies
alone?
Here’s an idea, Professor Sunstein: If men and women who are
unwilling to raise children would leave each others bodies alone
more often — an oft-ignored “choice” in all of this — perhaps
discrimination against the true victims of this horrific process
would end. Of course his twisted logic also ignores the fact that
today’s men have absolutely no rights in the area of childbearing,
only responsibilities.
Still, it is interesting that the abortion lobby is prepared to
abandon the privacy issue. Many have noted the brief concurring
opinion written by Clarence Thomas and joined by Antonin Scalia,
which says that “the Court’s abortion jurisprudence, including
Casey and Roe v. Wade has no basis in the
Constitution.” However, he continued with, “I also note that
whether the Act constitutes a permissible exercise of Congress’
power under the Commerce Clause is not before the Court. The
parties did not raise or brief that issue; it is outside the
question presented; and the lower courts did not address it.”
Sounds like an invitation to me.
Could it be that the pro-abortionists didn’t address the
commerce clause issues involved in the ban because they fear the
domino effect that might occur should the Court’s originalists
start overturning the many other anti-federalist decisions such as
Roe? Having to argue their position in 50 diverse states
rather than before a few federal courts would be a daunting task
for them indeed.
Supporters of the first right — that to life itself — still
have a long way to go. We are still burdened with phrases such as
“viability” and a “fetus that may become a child,” as if, not
murdered by its own parents, it could become anything else. We
still must abide the irrationality of judges like Ginsburg who
state that “the notion that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act
furthers any legitimate governmental interest is, quite simply,
irrational.”
Let us work hard and pray that those who continue to couch the
taking of innocent life in terms like “women’s health issues” might
someday realize that a normal pregnancy is not a disease and that
abortion is a voluntary act of infanticide, not a curative
treatment. And that the only morally acceptable termination of
pregnancy should result in a bouncing baby boy or girl.
