The rights of the pre-born are in our thoughts today, now more than ever. I want to advance our “war for life” in ever more resounding and determined ways. The days of letting the politicians do as they like, promising and failing to perform, and us sitting on the sidelines are over. This is a democratic Republic; We the People have the power, governing authority, and the right to out-source that to representatives that really stand for our interests. The Christians, the church, the religious right: the text of the Declaration of Independence,
“. . . governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ….”
Declaration of Independence
means that the government authority resides with the “consent of the governed” and is given to representatives for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness. This means religious people are not under a Nero, a Roman Emperor, or any other autocratic or aristocratic government: when Jesus the Christ says, “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” this requires massive recontextualization of the government context from that of which Jesus was under to that of a “consent of the governed constitutional republic.” No excuses for the religious people not to be full in on the abortion “war for life.” There is no excuse that you have to just submit to government and do as you are told; this would imply that the constitution is not born out of ‘We The People’ and that the Declaration of Independence did not put the authority to govern in the hands of the people. The impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling this week was as much about decodifying a so-called ‘right to murder’ as it was about telling the government that it cannot play God. If you read Justice’s Alito’s Majority Opining, it comes to a decided conclusion:
“. . . the Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. . . . We now . . . return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”
US 597 DOBBS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION 2022, Justice Alito, Majority Opinion, pg. 79.
Kavanaugh says something similar shortly thereafter: “The Constitution neither outlaws abortion nor legalizes abortion.”
That the government cannot play God is implied in at least three ways from this conclusive closing comments by these justices.
- Intrinsic authority that is then outsourced to local representatives to decide local and State (like Florida, or Tennessee or Pennsylvania) laws is retuned to the voter. The Supreme Court’s de facto legalization of abortion, without going through legislatures, has been corrected; the three branches of government have regained equilibrium on this matter of abortion. Each man and woman must decide how his or her relationship with God will go. It is thus fitting that individuals in States will have determining say in the legality or illegality of abortion.
- The term ‘viability’ — which means that a fetus can be considered not a human up to 24 weeks — has been vacated of its national importance. This term more than anything else in this Roe v. Wade drama was used to play God. What the Supreme Court decided does not remove ‘viability’ as a functional and legally important term for this war on abortion. What is implied in the term though is that the government, and not God, gets to determine when human life starts. Some blue States will undoubtedly still use the concept of viability; other States, however, will make the concept irrelevant as many States — already 13 States at the time of this writing — will just make abortion entirely illegal.
- This decision likewise reemphasizes the right to privacy a woman has entails responsibility to keep her body private. Arguably, aside from horrid situations of rape, a pregnancy is evidence that the woman has decided to make her body available to someone, and hence void her right to privacy on her own, willingly. It is now no longer a centralizing authority (the US government through the Supreme Court) stating that a woman’s right to privacy (together with the notion of viability), guaranteed by the Constitution, ensures her the right to abort a baby. Likewise, that a woman’s pregnancy should be understood as a private matter is returned to the States and the people of those States to decide. I’ve argued elsewhere that the fetus, no matter how early, is partly the man’s body and not merely the woman’s body. As such, the fetus itself is the actualization of a non-private enterprise and the fetus is not “owned” by the woman. It is as much the man’s body as the woman’s body with the exception that the woman carries the baby in her body. The matter of how privacy should be understood, then, is up for discussion. In some sense, this ruling of the Supreme Court makes the entire discussion about privacy a bit less important since it was, arguably, the right to privacy that the Constitution provided which somehow made abortion a constitutional right. The return of responsibility and marginalizing this “privacy” aspect of the abortion debate recenters the discussion on woman’s right to choose as it relates to (a) herself, her conscience, (b) the man, who has vested biological interest in the fetus, and (c) the woman responsibility before and/or with God. Most movements toward individual sovereignty in terms of self-determination are equally theocentric, or God centered. I can’t argue this here; I would get too far afield, but the significant freewill God provided humanity entails God’s intent that humanity have self-determination.
This is a Constitutional win, for sure. It is likewise a Declaration of Independence win too. As such, it is a God-centric win as well. Determinative authority residing in individuals, as responsible persons and as part of the “consent of the governed” crowd will always bring with it, so long as the form of the Declaration of Independence persists, the Creator who endowed that authority and dignity. The totalitarian shift is often marked by the government making determinations, often on the most profound of issues, for the people and alleviating them of responsibilities. The Supreme Court has this week said that profound moral questions (per Justice Alito, pg. 79 – 80) are best decided by the people through the States. The task at hand this is to advance this war on abortion, to go State by State, arguing for the only truly viable point of a human’s beginning: at conception. If you think otherwise, understand that history is not on your side. Before the mid-1900s, abortion was virtually outlawed in all places in the United States. Do not be an “ageist” which is the bigotry of thinking your immediate time and place is somehow more excellent than all other ages. I will do a biblical piece on abortion today too.
Dr. Scalise