It’s official. Whether Democrats like it or not, nobody has a guaranteed federal level right to an abortion. Everyone knew it was coming, because a draft of this opinion was controversially and illegally leaked back in February. That was done simply so liberals could pressure six United States Supreme Court Justices into changing their minds. They didn’t. While our country is divided on all the moral and ethical issues of baby murder, our Constitution is clear. Uncle Sam had no authority to meddle in the affairs of individual states. Each and every state is now free to craft any legislation they want, to address these thorny issues as they see fit.
No right to abortion
Fox News brought out their resident legal eagle, Shannon Bream, to navigate through the twists and turns of Friday’s official Supreme Court abortion ruling.
Legal precedent protecting infant murder has been around for a long time but it’s gone now. There is no constitutional right to murder your own baby. That doesn’t mean individual states can’t allow it if they want to. They can also decide to “limit or ban the practice altogether.” Whatever works for them.
In front of the Justices this time around was Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That fight was over a law in Mississippi “that banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.”
A lower court blocked it so the “Republican-led” state asked the Supreme Court for guidance. They got it. As Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority, “we end this opinion where we began.”
Murdering defenseless babies, the court recognizes, “presents a profound moral question.” They started from scratch and put the whole concept under a microscope. “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion.” That’s crystal clear.
A pair of decisions, specifically the Roe and Casey matters “abrogated that authority.” SCOTUS decided to toss them out a nearby window and make everyone go back to the drawing board. “We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”
It never made any sense
One of the key provisions of Roe v. Wade is an arbitrary “viability line” allowing abortion before but not after 23 weeks. Roe admitted that states have “a legitimate interest” in protecting “potential life.” However, they found then, “this interest was not strong enough to prohibit abortions before the time of fetal viability, understood to be at about 23 weeks into pregnancy.” Chief Justice John Roberts didn’t agree with everything Alito wrote for the majority but did acknowledge the viability line “never made any sense.”
Roberts would have gone a little slower. He “would have continued to recognize a right to get an abortion,” He thinks the right should “extend far enough to ensure a reasonable opportunity to choose, but need not extend any further.” Alito says he hears that, but sooner or later they would be back to where they are now if they tried it.
According to the majority, they have no choice. Roe v. Wade and the subsequent case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, they write “must be overruled.” Roberts’ approach “would only put off the day when we would be forced to confront the question we now decide.”
Abortion is not a federal right. Regulating it is a States right. “Overruling a precedent is a serious matter,” Alito typed. “It is not a step that should be taken lightly.” Still, he continues, “if the Supreme Court never overturned precedent, American constitutional law as we know it would be unrecognizable, and this would be a different country.”
Roe never even tried to explain “here the right to abortion came from.” Likewise, the Casey decision “did not defend this unfocused analysis.” Casey sidestepped the issue by “grounding the right in the ‘liberty‘ protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” That won’t fly either.
To qualify under that clause, the disagreement has to be over something “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” Murdering your unborn baby “does not fall within this category,” as “such a right was entirely unknown in American law” until the late 20th century.
