By Dave Andrusko
I am sure that you are still probably processing the historic Supreme Court decision that rightly consigned Roe v. Wade to that special place saved for the most egregiously ugly and wrongheaded decisions. We—you and National Right to Life—took a few days off to celebrate the culmination of a nearly 50 year battle waged against a heartless and unconstitutional decision and then began preparations for this November’s elections.
We cannot allow the Democrats—the party of abortion—to hold either the House or the Senate (let alone both). Given their insatiable thirst for death, if they pick up just a couple of Senate seats, they will ram through such legislation as the ‘‘Women’s Health Protection Act” (H.R. 8296). It is genuinely frightening.
This bill would enshrine into law abortion-on-demand and would overturn existing pro-life laws and prevent new protective laws from being enacted at the state and federal levels. This bill seeks to strip away from elected lawmakers the ability to provide even the most minimal protections for unborn children, at any stage of their pre-natal development.
We have written a lot about Dobbs which uprooted Roe, aptly described as “an epitome of lawless judicial decision-making”. I’d like to quote from the syllabus that summarized Dobb v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It was outstanding. For example
Guided by the history and tradition that map the essential components of the Nation’s concept of ordered liberty, the Court finds the Fourteenth Amendment clearly does not protect the right to an abortion. Until the latter part of the 20th century, there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. No state constitutional provision had recognized such a right. Until a few years before Roe, no federal or state court had recognized such a right. Nor had any scholarly treatise. Indeed, abortion had long been a crime in every single State. At common law, abortion was criminal in at least some stages of pregnancy and was regarded as unlawful and could have very serious consequences at all stages. American law followed the common law until a wave of statutory restrictions in the 1800s expanded criminal liability for abortions. By the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, three-quarters of the States had made abortion a crime at any stage of pregnancy. This consensus endured until the day Roe was decided. Roe either ignored or misstated this history, and Casey declined to reconsider Roe’s faulty historical analysis.
However, what we may easily overlook is the world-wide impact of the end of Roe and Casey. There are nations, such as Britain and Canada, which started down the path leading to abortion on demand even early that did the United States. Prior to Dobbs, pro-abortionists bragged that ever-more “liberal” abortion laws were inevitable.
Dobbs proved that was not true.
Niamh Uí Bhriain is the spokeswoman for The Life Institute of Ireland. She wrote a telling explanation of why Roe fell and what that means to pro-lifers around the world:
Roe v Wade is overturned not just because of the Supreme Court but because of the power of perseverance, the power of keeping the path lit and the flame alive - because of the unshakeable certainty that abortion has no place in a civilized society, in a society that claims compassion or mercy, and because, as surely as the arc of history bends towards justice, we will make abortion history.
That “arc of history” which “bends toward justice” is not limited to the United States or Britain or Canada or any one country. It is a universal acknowledgement that every human being —born and unborn—is endowed by our Creator with the unalienable right to life.
Niamh Uí Bhriain spoke of a recent Rally for Life which had signs reading “Bye, By Roe, Hello Pro-Life Future.”
As I drew on that tremendous energy at the Rally, I knew in my heart, though it may take decades, that Ireland that will turn once more to the values that sustained us once as a people - the values that told us to cherish every child equally, to love every mother and every child.