Judge renders latest pro-life law comatose
By Allen Palmeri
Staff Writer
September 20, 2005
JEFFERSON CITY– Kerry Messer, lobbyist, Missouri Baptist Convention Christian Life Commission, is all too familiar with the routine. He likens what took place Sept. 15-16 in Missouri to a team of medical professionals—activists who favor abortion—inducing a coma on a newborn baby.
Sometime before 2:02 p.m. Sept. 15, which was when his spokesman released the news electronically, Gov. Matt Blunt “delivered the baby” by signing into law a bill that limits physicians and permits lawsuits against those who choose to help minors get abortions without parental consent. “The baby” was healthy for the better part of a day as an abortion clinic in Springfield was forced to shut down. However, a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the new law was issued late Sept. 16
State and federal lawsuits filed under the jurisdictions of Circuit Court Judge Charles E. Atwell of Jackson County and U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey of the Western District, respectively, triggered a process that rendered the newborn comatose. In accordance with the wishes of Planned Parenthood and the Springfield Healthcare Center, Judge Laughrey ruled that “the baby,” while remaining alive, needed to have its status altered. When “medical professionals” settle on this “prognosis” for “the baby,” it then becomes “the patient”—breathing quite well, but definitely in a coma.
Messer noted that abortion proponents have “practiced medicine” this way on two other occasions in Missouri, successfully inducing “comas” on the 1999 partial-birth abortion law and the 2003 24-hour wait law. In both of those procedures, the head “medical professional” was U.S. District Judge Scott O. Wright, who was appointed to his position by President Carter. Both laws are reported to be still “alive.”
More than three-quarters of the voting lawmakers on Senate Bill 1 said yes to the centerpiece measure of the special session. It passed with votes of 26-6 Sept. 8 in the Senate and 115-35 Sept. 14 in the House of Representatives. In other words, it was approved by 77 percent of elected representatives and senators who are, in Blunt’s words, “honoring traditional Missouri values such as protecting our most vulnerable citizens.”
The governor, who was elected in 2004 as a pro-life Republican, was ecstatic that he was able to sign into law the three-pronged bill sponsored by Sen. John Loudon, R-Ballwin. The three provisions are designed to: allow parents to sue any adult who helps his or her minor daughter (under age 18) to get an abortion without getting the required parental consent, including if the girl is taken across state lines; limit “next friend,” or an adult who acts on behalf of a child in a parental consent court proceeding, to exclude anyone with a financial interest or potential gain in the girl’s decision to have an abortion; and require abortion doctors to have clinical privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where the abortion is performed or induced.
“I am grateful to the Missouri General Assembly for passing a good pro-life piece of legislation that will reduce the number of abortions in our state,” Blunt said in a statement. “This is a solid step in the right direction toward cultivating a culture that values human life and the rights of the unborn.”
In a May interview with The Pathway, the governor was asked hypothetically about the legal scenario that materialized Sept. 15-16. He said judges should attempt to craft decisions that reflect the values of the taxpayers they work for.
“I would not look favorably on any judge who kept Missourians from advancing legislation that was important to their values,” the governor said. “It would be an example of an out-of-control federal judge who is not elected or accountable to taxpayers in our state seeking to impose a different set of values on Missourians than the values that most Missourians hold dear.”
When The Pathway reached Loudon on his cell phone Sept. 15, he was joyfully reflecting on the fact that the bill had become law. The senator said he believes the governor signed it around noon.
“It easily counts as the most satisfying thing I’ve ever been able to do as a legislator,” Loudon said.
He noted that the new law had caused the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Ill., to react on its website. Those trying to make an appointment online at www.hopeclinic.com were greeted with this sentence in bold type: “If you are a Missouri minor, please contact the clinic before scheduling online.”
The Sept. 15-16 legal moves fit a recent pattern of judicial intervention in America that has been “very protective of abortion rights, much more so than the rights of the unborn fetus,” according to John Holstein, retired chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court and a member of Second Baptist Church, Springfield.
Holstein has told The Pathway that a debate is definitely alive within the judiciary as to whether an “original intent” or “living, breathing” view of the U.S. Constitution ought to rule our land. Another former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, Ronnie White, has refused to tip his hand concerning ideology, telling the Southeast Missourian that he doesn’t believe activist judges exist and that it is simply a label that people pull out when they disagree with a ruling.
Rodney Albert, chairman, Christian Life Commission of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC), said that in light of the facts surrounding the court cases that are tying up pro-life legislation in Missouri, White’s statement needs to be challenged. Actions like the three separate interventions in Missouri to stop so-called “vague” pro-life laws from going into effect are evidence that one side is fighting through the judiciary for its set of ideals, often defying precedent that was established before 1973. The other side, Albert said, needs to rise up out of its pews in response.
“It’s a ludicrous statement to say there is no culture war in this country or in this state,” Albert said. “There’s a huge culture war. It’s been going on since the garden of Eden, and it will continue until Christ comes back to usher in His kingdom and put all enemies under His footstool.
“There are two worldviews. One seeks to glorify God and follow His will and direction. The other is about glorifying man and following his whims and desires. In Missouri, we have a huge cultural war, and we have a stacked deck. The liberals in this state are outmaneuvered because the citizenry of this state is overwhelmingly pro-life. They can’t live with that, so they’ve got to find an activist judge who follows invented laws in his daydreams to supplement the laws and the direction that they want the state to go.”
Abortion proponents in Missouri are fixated on bringing back Missouri’s family-planning program as the right way to reduce the number of abortions in the state. Anything to the contrary, even if it is the desire of more than three-fourths of the state’s elected officials and a governor who ran for office on a pro-life platform, is viewed as “getting it wrong” by these advocates of sex education and birth control, Albert said.
Deferring to the current Legislature is never an option in the world they seek to create, Albert said. That is why they feel they must keep on “getting it right” through a willing judge who does not share the pro-life values of most Missourians.
“This country was founded with a single premise that the people were in charge, and we continue to see rampant judicial activism that continues to thwart the will of the people,” Albert said. “This is good legislation. It is not unconstitutional. It is very clear that to murder a developing child is extremely unconstitutional. We now have a Missouri Legislature backed by a pro-life governor who is willing to attack the immorality and unconstitutionality of murdering innocent children, and it is extremely rhetorical and hypocritical to say that we need to throw this legislation out.”
The liberal methodology of labeling every pro-life bill that comes through the Missouri General Assembly as “unconstitutional” before exiling those bills to the jurisdiction of an unelected judge is destined to lose under the sovereign dominion of King Jesus, Albert said.
“These are very encouraging days, because so many see the truth,” Albert said. “Common Missourians, as well as our elected officials, are coming to see the horror of abortion. That is a truth that we have known from the Word of God that is finally capturing the hearts of our fellow citizens. So we’ve got to stay faithful to the truth and stay this course—keep encouraging legislation that is going to glorify the way that our Lord wants us to live.”
Rather than getting depressed about the latest round of judicial shenanigans, which may result in believers forgetting all about the new law that was birthed Sept. 15, Messer said Missouri Baptists ought to take even more ground in the culture war by passionately ministering to post-abortive women.
“Let forgiveness reign,” he said.