Abortion

Roe v. Wade Overturn: A Victory for Women and Children

June 26, 2022By

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the tragic 1973 ruling known as Roe v. Wade represents a victory for women and children throughout the country.

“Roe v. Wade is a deeply flawed decision which rightly has now been tossed into the ash bin of history,” said Maria Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, the Keystone State affiliate of National Right to Life.

“More than 63 million preborn children have lost their lives to this abominable decision. In addition, countless mothers have been left to grieve babies lost to abortion. With today’s landmark ruling, the issue of abortion policy rightfully returns to the states, where the public, through their duly elected representatives, can pursue policies that protect preborn children and their mothers from harm,” Gallagher added.

“We commend the High Court for recognizing the truth that a so-called ‘right’ to abortion appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution,” Gallagher said. “This is a day of victory for the most vulnerable among us.”

Statistics from the PA Department of Health show that more than 32,000 abortions occurred in the Commonwealth in 2020, the latest year for which statistics are available. “Imagine how many kindergarten classes of children have been lost to abortion in PA. It’s mind-boggling,” Gallagher said.

In Pennsylvania, abortion totals would be much higher were it not for the many pregnancy resource centers which provide free counseling and material assistance for pregnant women facing challenging circumstances. Pennsylvania’s state-assisted Pregnancy and Parenting Support Program offers true alternatives and options to women in their time of need.

“No pregnant woman in Pennsylvania should feel as if she is alone. Pregnancy help centers stand ready to offer no-cost assistance and the emotional support every pregnant woman deserves,” Gallagher added.

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Abortion

Welcome to Post-Roe America

June 26, 2022By

As I joined with people from around the country in a spirited rendition of God Bless America, a feeling of intense gratitude swept over me.

This was the first time I had sung the beloved hymn in the post-Roe era. The song took on a new meaning, as I reflected on the fact that the worst decision in the history of American jurisprudence had been swept away on a tide of sound judicial reason. This is the moment I had been awaiting for decades—when our nation finally would be free of the tyranny of Roe.

I had prayed each day for years for this victory—boldly claiming that it would happen in my lifetime. The thought that any grandchildren I might have in the future would be post-Roe babies sent my spirit soaring.

I realize that much work remains to be done to protect precious preborn babies and their mothers from harm throughout the country—including the Commonwealth in which I live, Pennsylvania. But the fact that the decision on abortion policy now rests with the people, through their duly-elected representatives in the states, fills me with awe. God bless America indeed.

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Abortion

Time to Correct the Error of Roe

January 10, 2022By

Even decades after slavery was abolished, there was a time in our country when it was legally acceptable to separate people by race. In fact, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation in the 1896 case Plessy vs. Ferguson, protecting the doctrine of Separate but Equal. It would be upheld by the Court seven times.

It took 58 years for the Court to see the error of its ways. It’s impossible to quantify the tremendous damage that Plessy did in stalling equal rights for all Americans. Finally, the Court’s landmark decision in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case determined racial segregation of school children to be unconstitutional, and it became a cornerstone of the civil rights movement that led to de-segregation of other institutions.

Today, it’s hard for us toimagine how the Court in 1896 could have possibly thought that such a practicewas constitutionally protected.  Thedoctrine of Separate but Equal with regard to race was long overdue for the ashheap of history.

In similar fashion, another Supreme Court precedent, should join it.  Where Plessey marginalized people based on race, Roe marginalizes people based on age and location. In a day of 4-D ultrasounds, fetal surgery, and ever-changing viability, it’s hard to imagine how the Court in 1973 could have possibly thought abortion to be a constitutionally protected right.

In every pregnancy, two separate and equal humans exist. From the moment of conception, a genetically unique human is formed, one who is inside the mother, yet NOT the mother.  Perhaps a different gender, eye color, or hand dominance. A person who has never before existed and never will again. A person whose future is impossible to predict and whose impact on the world can only be imagined.

Clearly human, created of human parents. Clearly living, as demonstrated by rapid growth. It is intellectually dishonest to say this is not a living human being.

In challenging this, the abortion supporter will frequently invoke personhood, saying that we are not really people with inherent dignity and rights until we possess sentience, abilities to feel, dream, plan, etc. Yet, one must ask, does a newborn infant possess these qualities? Or those with limited cognitive capacity? Or those tortured by addiction?  Are they, or others in likewise vulnerable situations, not persons?

Personhood cannot bequalified by arbitrary social constructs. Defining personhood should be based on objective truth, and scientificallyspeaking, the indisputable truth is that human life begins at conception, justas it was indisputably true that our human dignity is not a function of race.

Justice Blackmun, in his Roe majority opinion, acknowledged thatif the personhood of the fetus is someday established, Roe is doomed to collapse, as the 14th Amendment clearlyprotects the fetus’ right to life.

That day has come. Forty-nine years later, at the tragic cost of 63 million American innocent lives, wounded mothers, forsaken fathers, and a fractured society, it’s time to correct the error of Roe.

While Separate but Equal based on race has no place in our society, equal rights based on biology certainly should be guaranteed. Situational circumstances do not change an objective truth of who we are and how we came to be. We all have inherent worth from the moment of our conception. Every person, once in existence, should have the right to live.

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Abortion

Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation to U.S. Supreme Court: Overturn Roe v. Wade

July 30, 2021By

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation has sent a direct message to the U.S. Supreme Court: Overturn Roe v. Wade.

            The Federation has filed an amicus brief in the case of Dobbs v. JacksonWomen’s Health Organization. The case involves Mississippi’s protective law banning abortion at 15 weeks.

            In this well-reasoned brief, the Federation “seeks an overturn of Roe v. Wade, so that States may once again provide protection for vulnerable unborn human life.”

            The brief further states, “Roe was a radical decision that overrode the legislative judgments of all 50 states. It was based on a flawed understanding of the humanity of the unborn child and views of obstetrical practice that are outdated because they fail to treat unborn children as second patients in pregnancy.”

            Roe v. Wade is the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which legalized abortion throughout the country. It is estimated that more than 62million Americans have died from legal abortion since the decision went into effect. Countless numbers of women have also been forced to grieve children lost to abortion.

            You can read the Federation’s ground-breaking brief here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/docketpdf/19/19-1392/185227/20210729111948208_19-1392%20amicus%20brief%20of%20the%20pennsylvania%20pro-life%20federation.pdf.

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Abortion

Roe’s Feeble Foundation Threatened by the Tide of Truth

May 26, 2021By

With the President, mainstream media, and Hollywood elites all in their corner, it would seem that the abortion lobby is living their misguided dream.

But recent news that the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban has sent them into a tailspin. They’re panicked that not only will the ban be upheld by a more conservative Court, but that Roe itself may be reversed. If there is strong legal precedent and overwhelming public support for abortion, as activists often claim, what are they afraid of?

The truth. Many in the abortion industry know what many pro-lifers know: Roe v. Wade was a decision built on proverbial sand, a feeble foundation that has been steadily eroded by science, experience, and reason over the last 50 years.

Legal scholars on both sides of theissue acknowledge the shaky ground on which Justice Harry Blackmun’s majorityopinion was based. His own pro-abortion clerk, Edward Lazarus, admitted yearslater, “As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicialmethod, Roe borders on the indefensible…Andin the years since Roe’sannouncement, no one has produced aconvincing defense of Roe on its ownterms.”

Whileabortion supporters often refer to the Constitutional right to abortion, the truthis there is no such thing, and there never was. Simply stated, there is no explicit right to abortion in theU.S. Constitution. So on what basis did the Court legalize abortion in 1973?

Roe said that a woman’s “right” to abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment. Yet, the amendment itself makes no mention of right to privacy.

“Nor shall any State deprive any person of life,liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person withinits jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The RoeCourt referred to a right to privacy that was invented in a 1965 caseabout contraception, Griswold vs.Connecticut. In that majority opinion, Justice William O. Douglas wrote of penumbras (shadows) formed by emanations (rays) of the Bill of Rights,and surmised that from these shadows andrays arose a “zone of privacy,” later referred by the court as the “right ofprivacy.”

In essence, Justice Douglas proposed that the Bill of Rights emanates other rights, and in the shadows of those other rights are additional rights, none of which are specifically declared in the Constitution.  It was on this precarious, ever-shifting bed of sand (and shadows) that the right to abortion as part of a right to privacy was founded. A fabricated, weak argument.

What is undeniably explicit in the 14th amendment are guaranteed fundamental rights: no State shall make a law depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny equal protection of law. The 14th amendment, first and foremost, upholds the right to life.  And yet this amendment is used to imply a right to privacy that is prioritized over an explicit right to life.

But what about the word person, another frequent protest of abortion supporters? Are fetuses persons?  Even Justice Blackmun himself conceded in his opinion that the right to abortion would not exist if the humanity of the fetus could be proved.  “If this suggestion of personhood is established, [Roe’s] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment,” he wrote.

What would a 2021 Blackmun say about this? Hidden in the womb, invisible to the human eye, the fetus was somewhat easier to de-humanize in 1973. But with the revelations of ultrasound, the evolving sciences of embryology and genetics, and the advancements of in utero-fetal surgery, it’s disingenuous to do so today.  Fetuses are as human as infants, toddlers, and senior citizens. Clearly, both science and technology have shown us the irrefutable proof that Blackmun sought. Those unwilling to admit to this obvious truth deliberately turn a blind eye to the evidence and begin playing language games in an effort to justify abortion.

The decision to legalize abortion was rooted in not just poor legal interpretation, but also deception. Roe was based onhttps://www.lifenews.com/2022/07/29/planned-parenthood-vp-caught-selling-aborted-baby-parts-named-ceo-of-new-abortion-biz/ the lie that Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) was raped.  Roe was supported by then-abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s grossly inflated, yet unquestioned numbers that thousands of women died in back alley abortions each year.  Roe’s majority opinion cited Larry Lader’s non-scientific book Abortion seven times, essentially using a piece of propaganda to justify a legal decision.

Roe is not immune to being overturned. As Justice Amy Coney Barret explained in her nomination hearings, Roe is not a super-precedent like the de-segregation case Brown vs. the Board of Education because it still faces many legal challenges in courts around the country. This vulnerability is what has the abortion lobby so worried. A tide of truth is creeping ever closer to washing Roe away.

Overturning Roe will not suddenly make abortion illegal across this county. The abortion decision would go back to each state, and we all must be ready for such a pivotal moment in history, to rebuild a culture of life that is on solid legal ground.

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Abortion

A Film Too Important to Not See

March 12, 2021By

Where were you in 1973?

Perhaps you remember it well. Perhaps you weren’t evenborn.

I was five years old, blissfully unaware of thevolatile changes occurring in our culture.

It would be many years before I would know what Roe v. Wade was. By that time, an abortion narrative had been carefully crafted and a misleading lexicon taken hold, phrases like “pro-choice”, “reproductive rights”, and even “access to health care.”

Which is why the movie Roe v Wade is so fascinating and so very relevant. It offers a fast-paced, fact-checked depiction of events leading to the most controversial court case of our time, a historical moment that preceded many Americans alive today.

For those familiar with the history of abortion inthis country, this movie smoothly ties together main players and events, helpingthe viewer to see the big picture. For others, the film will expose how the truestory of Roe has been omitted from decadesof abortion propaganda.

Told through the lens of Dr. Bernard Nathanson (played by co-producer Nick Loeb), the movie captures his evolving relationship with abortion: from paying for a girlfriend’s abortion to co-founding the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) to becoming New York’s busiest abortionist. With over 70,000 deaths attributed to his practice, he became known as “The  King of Abortion” and “The Scraper.” But as the film depicts, Nathanson experiences a heart-wrenching epiphany that leads him to abandon his lucrative work and become an outspoken pro-life activist.

As Nathanson narrates his journey, we meet hissidekick Lader, who has authored a book called Abortion. He recruits friend and feminist Betty Friedan to theabortion cause. Reluctant to make abortion the focus of the women’s rightsmovement, Friedan does ultimately bring the National Organization for Women(NOW) into the fight, but observes, “You boys are only in favor of abortionbecause it’s cheaper than child support.”

For Larry Lader allies are not enough. He believesevery cause has to identify an enemy, and for the abortion movement, he shrewdlychooses the biggest defender of the unborn, the Catholic Church. A master mediamanipulator, Lader is able to vilify the Church while promoting his newly-coinedterm “pro-choice” and his “abortion-on-demand” agenda in major publications.

Today’s viewers may be shocked to see the dominant role that men, not women, actually played in legalizing abortion.  In addition, to Nathanson and Lader, the Supreme Court at that time was all male, none of whom could have ever felt the flutter of life in their belly or witnessed an ultrasound image of that life.  The movie reveals that two justices, Potter Stewart and Harry Blackmun, actually had family members who volunteered at Planned Parenthood while Roe was in the courts, yet they didn’t recuse themselves.

A little-known fact explained in the movie is thatarguments for Roe were heard twice,once in 1971 and then again in 1973. Justice Warren Burger (played by JohnVoight) insisted on the second hearing since two seats on the Court had been vacantthe first time around. With a case as controversial as Roe, he felt a decision shouldbe made by a full court. Tragically, in the time between oral arguments, Burgerand Blackmun would switch their votes to be in favor of Roe, likely a result ofmedia and family pressure.

An outstanding woman in the film is the poised and brilliant Dr. Mildred Jefferson, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School. Recognizing that abortion violates the Hippocratic Oath she took, she decides she cannot sit on the sidelines.  “Life begins at conception. As a physician, I know this.” She goes on to become President of the newly formed National Right to Life Committee, now the oldest and largest pro-life organization in our country.

Although dense with people, events, and information, the movie flows easily, thanks to Nathanson’s retrospective voice framing the story. The extensive, detailed research that underscores the film is impressive, making this an excellent educational tool not only for today but for generations to come.

Many scenes will give the viewer pause: the arrest of clergy involved in a secret abortion-referral network, Planned Parenthood fundraising at the Playboy Mansion, Nathanson’s overseas training in “assembly-line” abortion methods, the emotional recitation of the diary of the unborn, and the stirring closing argument offered by Robert Flowers.

Many of the lines are thought-provoking. Throughout the film, Constitutional law professor Robert M. Byrn offers bits of wisdom, quotations from historical figures like Benjamin Franklin and John Marshall.

But perhaps it is his own words to his students that should resonate with us long after viewing the movie, impelling us to never stop advocating for the innocent, vulnerable child in the womb.

“Don’t you think someone’s hopelessness should motivate us to protect them, not destroy them?”

(For $12.99 plus tax, you can stream Roe v Wade to any device by clicking here.)

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