Forty-Nine Long Years Since Roe
This past Saturday marked the 49th anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which struck down dozens of state laws prohibiting abortion and effectively allowed for legal abortion up to the point of birth. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the Court held that a set of Texas statutes criminalizing abortion in most instances violated a woman’s Constitutional right of privacy, which it found to be implicit in the liberty guarantee of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Since this egregious lapse in moral and legal judgment, more than 63 million innocent Americans have lost their lives to abortion, and thousands of mothers, families, and communities have suffered as a result. The Roe ruling has been an insult to America’s Founders, an attack on our Constitution, and an assault on the dignity of every American. However, for the first time in almost half a century, there is a real possibility this historic injustice could be rectified, allowing states to restore protections for preborn life.
Last month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the first case before the Court since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992 that has the potential to reverse Roe v. Wade. The case is centered around a Mississippi law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks except to save the life and preserve the physical health of the mother or in cases of severe fetal abnormality. In short, the state of Mississippi has taken aim at the 24-week viability standard established under Casey by arguing that it is antiquated, arbitrary, and immoral, and has asked the Supreme Court to uphold its law, arguing that each state should be allowed to determine its own limits on abortion.
We’ve come a long way since the 1973 Roe ruling, and even since the 1992 Casey ruling, spectacular advances in medicine and technology have provided us with a greater insight into how humans develop in the womb. Specifically, researchers at the Charlotte Lozier Institute have introduced three medical breakthroughs that provide clear and convincing evidence that preborn babies deserve the same rights guaranteed under our Constitution as every other human being. First, scientific breakthroughs demonstrate that young babies 15 weeks of gestation do indeed feel pain. Second, unborn babies are treated as patients by fetal surgeons. Perinatal medicine now treats preborn babies as young as 18 weeks for dozens of conditions, and pain medication for preborn patients is routinely administered as standard medical practice. Third, babies are surviving and thriving at younger pre-term ages than ever before when they are provided with appropriate care and treatment. In fact, 60 percent of infants born at 22 weeks who receive active hospital treatment will survive. When viewed from a scientific standpoint, there isn’t a shadow of doubt that life begins at conception and abortion brutally ends that life.
Knowing this, how can anyone with a semblance of compassion support abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy? According to a national poll of likely voters conducted in June 2021 by OnMessage Inc., a majority of voters support limitations on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
We are at a pivotal moment in the prolife movement, and a favorable ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could save countless numbers of preborn children by allowing for more extensive protections for the preborn at the state level without having to deal with interference by the federal courts.
There’s no way to predict exactly what the Supreme Court will decide. However, there is one thing I can say for certain – every single human being has value and is entitled to protection by our laws from the moment of conception. America is known as the land of opportunity, but if we, as Americans, fail to see the inherent worth and dignity of all people, born and preborn, then we are no longer, as Ronald Reagan said, “the last best hope of man on earth.”
