By Sarah Terzo
Pro-life activists often compare Roe v. Wade, which dictated that a preborn baby is not a person under the Constitution, with the Supreme Court Case Dred Scott v. Sanford which mandated that an African-American be considered no more than property.
Chief Justice Taney in Dred Scott v. Sanford [Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 US 393, 481 – 482]:
“That in the establishment of the several communities now the States of this Union, and in the formation of the Federal Government, the African was not deemed politically a person. He was regarded and owned in every State in the Union as property merely, and as such was not and could not be a party or an actor, much less a peer in any compact or form of government established by the States or the United States.”
Quoted in William M Connolly’s One Life: How the US Supreme Court Deliberately Distorted the History, Science and Law of Abortion(Xlibris, 2002)p. 175.
Editor’s note. This appeared at Clinic Quotes and is reposted with permission.