35th Anniversary Of Roe V. Wade

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision from the Supreme Court.  I hesitate to address this issue because it can cause such volatile reactions, but I think it's important enough that it must be done.  With much mental bracing, here we go.

In my opinion, Roe v. Wade should be overturned.

Wait...don't click away yet!  Just bear with me and keep reading...

If you think you know what Roe v. Wade did, take this test to find out.  My guess is that most people don't actually know what was included in that decision, and this is your chance to put yourself to the test.  You don't have to tell anyone how you did, but I strongly urge you to measure your level of knowledge on one of the most controversial and far-reaching legal decisions in American history, and a decision on which you most likely have pretty strong feelings.

If you scored well, good for you - my guess is that you don't support RvW (the history of polling shows that the more someone knows about RvW, the less likely they are to support it).  If you didn't score well, don't worry - most people don't.  It just means you need to be better informed on what was decided and what's at stake.

Moral
There are two parts to this decision.  First is the moral one.  The main arguments before the Supreme Court were the things we typically think of: pro-abortionists said a pregnancy consisted of a 'lifeless blob' or 'nonviable mass of' tissue that could be destroyed without legal or moral consequences.  Pro-lifers argued that life begins at conception, and therefore should be protected from that moment on.  By siding with the pro-abortionists and saying it couldn't know when life began, the Supreme Court opened the door to a massive genocide against our own unborn children: since 1973, almost 50 million abortions have been performed.  Since then, however, Concerned Women for America president Wendy Wright says that progress has proved the pro-life view: "Technology and testimonies have splintered support for abortion, paving the way for more protection for women and unborn children.  Advances in technology, particularly 3D and 4D ultrasound, provide a window into the womb, a picture that this is indeed a human being, not -- as many abortion clinics tell unsuspecting women -- a 'blob of tissue.' Whereas Roe claimed we do not know when life begins, ultrasounds show that it is clearly before birth."  There is no answer from the pro-abortion movement for these undeniable facts, and that really calls into question the moral legitimacy of that side of the argument.

OneNewsNow.com holds RvW up as the bookend of disgrace to the Dred Scott decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that African-Americans were not fully persons and could therefore not be citizens.  These two decisions have eroded the most sacred value placed on life, and OneNewsNow predicts that the Supreme Court will eventually reverse itself on RvW as it did on the Dred Scott case.  Until then, the effect has been to begin a twisted moral and ethical slide that we still haven't come out of yet.  As Kyle-Anne Shiver writes at American Thinker:

What can be said of a society that has reached such a ludicrous level of moral confusion that it cannot even make the simplest value judgment, cannot even distinguish between the value of a tree and the value of a newly conceived, perfectly innocent, unique human being formed in God's own image?

A society adept at saving the trees and killing the children.

Can we rightly call this "enlightened"?

Dare one call it "progressive"?

Well, yes, actually.  Believers in this absurd value system call it those things all the time, as though anyone with a single grain of common sense could fall for such diabolical rubbish.

Yet a great many among us have fallen for this absurdity, are indeed still falling for it, everyday and in almost every place one looks.

She goes on to describe her own experiences before the fateful decision, and we all know what things are like now - how teens are having sex earlier and more often than ever before, disease is rampant, out-of-wedlock pregnancy is common, etc.  This decision isn't the only cause of these results, of course, but anyone who thinks it wasn't a major contributor is fooling themselves.

It is true that if abortion was outlawed, some children would be born into disastrously awful circumstances simply due to the idiot decisions of that child's parents.  But does that make it right to kill that child and never give him/her a chance?

It is a morally controversial question, but most -- if not all -- of the questions originally raised by the pro-abortion movement have been answered over time, and they are not answers that support abortion.

Legal
Now, let's look at the other part of this decision - the legal side.  Regardless of what you think of the moral controversy involved, the legal implications are absolutely clear.  I think most people believe this decision simply made it legal for women to have an abortion if they wanted it.  In reality, RvW went even further, establishing a new constitutional 'right' that doesn't exist - the right to an abortion at any time during any pregnancy.  This is one of the most liberal legal standards in the world for abortions, and is one of the main things the international community holds up as hypocritical in America's international fight for human rights.

The legal precedent set here was immense.  Remember a while back when I talked about the difference between state and federal government?  The same concept applies here.  The Constitution dictates the specific things the federal government is allowed to do; everything else should be determined by the states.  If you don't like the laws in your state, you can pick up and move, voting with your feet and your money.  The states that successfully reflect their citizens' views will prosper, and those that do not, won't.  By pulling the abortion question into the federal space, the Supreme Court removed that critical piece of the checks and balances that allow Americans the freedom to live under the laws with which they agree.  They essentially made it a federal mandate that abortions would be allowed, even if certain state governments (and their citizens) didn't want it.  This was a gross overstep of their legal boundaries.

Regardless of the moral implications of abortion, Roe v. Wade should be overturned simply because of the legal improprieties of the Supreme Court .  This is a state issue, not a federal one.  Even knowing that some states would inevitably choose to allow abortion, I would fight for the ability for states to make that decision individually over any federal decree!

Conclusion
So, where does that leave us now?  OneNewsNow's prediction of an overturn doesn't seem too far away now, and the key is knowledge.  As knowledge of what abortion really is and the knowledge of pregnancy becomes more widely spread, the misrepresentations and deceptions of pro-abortionists are losing their effectiveness.  Indeed, the number of annual abortions is already getting lower every year.  And, with the current make-up of originalist judges, the reversal seems just around the corner, if the right case comes along.

But, here's something to keep in mind...even if RvW gets overturned, it does not make abortion illegal!  It simply means that each individual state will decide for itself whether or not to allow abortions.  But, I'll bet you any amount of money that when the case comes up again, you'll see the pro-abortionist movement sound the alarm that an overturn will make abortion illegal.  Watch carefully - if that happens, you'll know that they are more interested in using scare tactics to achieve their agenda than in truthfully representing the issue.  That's how they've been operating since 1973, and that's how they'll continue to operate.

That, as much as anything, says volumes about their character, and should make you think very, very hard about everything they say.

For those of you who say you oppose abortion on moral grounds, I challenge you to put your money where your mouth is - find a way to support single moms or organizations who help young women in similar difficult circumstances.  For those of you who say you oppose abortion on legal grounds, check out the records of the presidential candidates and what kind of judges they are likely to appoint, and vote accordingly.

We do have a choice on abortion, actually several of them.  We can choose whether or not to have abortions or support them.  We can choose to act rather than just talk.  We can choose elected leaders who mirror our views.  In particular, we can choose a President who will appoint Supreme Court justices who will correctly interpret the law rather than re-write it, as they did in 1973.

The choices are yours.

There's my two cents.