Commentary: A Great Victory - But!

#1659c
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 25-Jun-22; 9 minutes

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I did want to take some time, just a few minutes, to give you my view on what happened yesterday with the the Dobbs case that basically over turned the Roe v. Wade decision from 1973. The Supreme Court overturning that ended the recognition of there being a constitutional right to abortion. What it did is it turned that over to the states.

Just as a little bit of background, the ruling came in an opinion called Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The reason for it was a Mississippi law that banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Republican-led state of Mississippi asked the Supreme Court to strike down a lower court ruling that stopped the 15 week abortion ban from going into effect. And so, Justice Samuel Alito was elected or chosen to write the opinion after it was clear that the Supreme Court would go ahead and overturn Roe v. Wade. Of course, we've been hearing about that for months since that opinion was leaked and caused a lot of controversy, even rioting, a lot of marching. A lot of people saying bad things to one another out on the streets, a lot of private arguments, I'm sure.

But I want to read a few of the actual quotations from Justice Alito's ruling. These were collected by Adam Shaw of Fox News. I will not read all of them; he lists 10 of them. I've got four or five of them here and they are they are fairly short. But I want you to see how he approached this decision. What I want to emphasize here is that the ruling of the Supreme Court had little or nothing to do with morality. It's all based on constitutional law. That is, that the Constitution is silent on the issue, and so the 10^th Amendment at that point comes into play, and the decision on abortion then goes back to the states and to the people. So, this was not a moral ruling; this was a legal ruling, a constitutional ruling.

Here is one of these quotes from the actual opinion:

Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey [another suit that they ruled on a few years back] have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.

This is a short one. Alito says,

Our opinion is not based on any view about if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth.

So they refused to rule on that as well. They refused to say when there was when life begins. On to the next one:

Roe was on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided, Casey perpetuated its errors, and those errors do not concern some arcane corner of the law of little importance to the American people. Rather, wielding nothing but "raw judicial power," [in Roe] the Court usurped the power to address a question of profound moral and social importance that the Constitution unequivocally leaves for the people.

Here's another one. Justice Alito writes,

We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision. We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, and decide this case accordingly. We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.

And then he finishes his opinion this way:

Abortion presents a profound moral question. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.

So, what do I have to say about this? What happened yesterday is wonderful. I think it's one of the best decisions that the Supreme Court has ever made. There are a lot more that they should make, but they haven't. This is a very good thing for our nation. We could call it a step back from the brink, if you will. It's a kind of legal repentance on the part of our government, or at least the judicial branch.

But—there is always a "but," isn't there? I keep telling you that this was a legal decision. The morality of the nation has been left untouched. The ones whose immorality pushed abortion yesterday still push it today—and perhaps because of this decision, even harder, more vociferously, maybe even more violently. We face—from their own words, that is, those on what we call the political left—a promised "summer of rage." Who knows how bad it will get? Their rioting, their protesting in many major cities. There was one here in Charlotte last night.

So, as I see it, God's judgment still hangs over this nation because even though the federal ruling has changed, the hearts of at least half of the people of this nation have not. So pray, if you will, for the hearts of the people to be changed. Law is one thing. That's great that the law has changed, but it really hasn't changed much. It's gone back to the States. About a third of the states are for abortion, about another third of the states are against abortion, and another third of the states have no ruling as of yet. So that's where we stand.

But half of our fellow citizens still think it's OK to kill babies in the womb. So please enjoy the victory. It's a great thing that had happened. But also please stay grounded because the war goes on.

RTR/aws/dcg