It feels like America is wobbling. We abandoned fellow Americans and our allies in the botched Afghanistan withdrawal/surrender. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff appears to have committed treason while undermining the Commander-In-Chief (the President). With Marxist ideas like Critical Theory and the “1619 Project,” our children are taught to hate America – and each other. The National Archives, which houses our founding documents, has placed “harmful content” labels on the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, noting that they could “reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes.” Cities burn and lawlessness is excused while government is drunk with power thanks to a pandemic it uses to enslave.
While it may feel to many that America is on the eve of destruction, alas, there is hope that our nation may soon repent of one of its greatest sins: abortion. What in the world has happened on the abortion issue amid such dreadful developments? Elections have consequences.
Two of the last three presidents (prior to Joe Biden) appointed “originalists” or “constitutionalists” to federal judgeships. They interpret what the Founders meant and do not engage in rewriting. These types of judges often believe that the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, Roe v. Wade, was wrong. Why? It does not take a Harvard Law degree to see that abortion is not in the U.S. Constitution. We have lived a lie. Perhaps the scales are falling from our eyes.
Here are four recent developments that have brought us to this potentially historic moment:
1) The U.S. Supreme Court allowed a Texas law that bans abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, which is usually around six weeks into a pregnancy. This was a thunder-clap decision that rocked abortion advocates.
2) The high court also has agreed to consider allowing the enforcement of a Mississippi law that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Many legal observers believe the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court may use this case to overturn Roe v. Wade, sending the issue back to the states.
3) In January, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge’s ruling blocking a similar law passed in Arkansas.
Then came the first of two uncommon occurrences.
In the Arkansas case, the ruling was 3-0, but in an extraordinary development, two of the judges “felt bound by prior decisions that have misinterpreted the Supreme Court’s precedent,” according to Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. Much of the legal arguments in these cases have centered on unborn babies with Down syndrome and other disabilities who are targeted for abortions. A CBS News report said 67 percent of unborn babies with Down syndrome were aborted in the United States between 1995 and 2011.
“Two of the three judges agreed with Arkansas that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to discriminatory, selective abortions,” Rutledge said. “These two judges asked the Supreme Court to correct its precedent.”
What precedent? Roe v. Wade.
4) In 2019, the Missouri General Assembly passed – and Gov. Mike Parson signed – a law banning abortions at or around the eighth week of pregnancy. It also prohibits abortions based on a Down syndrome diagnosis. In June, a three-judge panel at the Eighth Circuit upheld an injunction from a lower court blocking Missouri from enforcing the measure.
That triggered the second uncommon occurrence.
The entire, or en banc, Eighth Circuit chose to hear Missouri’s appeal, stunning liberals, especially the abortionists and enabling media. Why the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth? All but one of the 14 judges at the Eighth Circuit were nominated by pro-life, Republican presidents – five by President Trump. Republican judges tend to be “originalists,” while many Democrat-appointed judges believe in what some call a “living, breathing Constitution” that affords them the option of rewriting what the Founders wrote to “fit the times.”
This shift to “originalist” judicial philosophy has the abortion industry more nervous than long-tailed-cats-in-a-room-of-rocking-chairs. Yamelsie Rodríguez, president, Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood, St. Louis, called the Eighth Circuit’s decision to hear Missouri’s appeal “another troubling signal in a long line of threats to our reproductive freedom.” Interestingly, the nomination of Eighth Circuit Chief Judge Lavinski Smith was opposed by Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the National Abortion Federation. They are terrified Smith will lead a majority in ruling the Missouri law legal. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, the father of a special needs child, is defending the law. The case was argued Sept. 20 by Solicitor General John Sauer, a respected conservative from Clayton.
Schmitt and Rutledge have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their cases. The prospects of that happening have improved because of the conflicting rulings among appellate courts. Meanwhile, we wait for the rulings – and pray, after 50 years, the killing ends.