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Shoulder To Shoulder #1262 -- 10/25/21 ---- "The Folly of Forgetting God -- Demise of a People: Part 5 -- Sacrificing To Molech (Part C)

#1 · October 26, 2021, 9:26 pm

Quote from Forum Archives on October 26, 2021, 9:26 pm
Posted by: lifeunlimited <lifeunlimited@...>

"Standing Together, Shoulder To Shoulder, As We Fight the Good Fight of Faith"

SHOULDER TO SHOULDER is a weekly letter of encouragement Bob has written since 1997, covering many topics
selected to motivate people to be strong students of the Word and courageous witnesses of Jesus Christ.
It is a personal letter of encouragement to you, written solely to help "lift up hands that hang down".

    "The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil,
    but by those who watch them without doing anything." -- Albert Einstein

    “There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day,
    which many have, and think they have -- a cheap Christianity
    which offends nobody, and requires no sacrifice, which
    costs nothing, -- and is worth nothing.” – J. C. Ryle

    "Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica,
    for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the
    Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." -- Dr. Luke (Acts 17:11)

Shoulder To Shoulder #1262 -- 10/25/21

Title: "The Folly of Forgetting God -- Demise of a People: Part 5 -- Sacrificing To Molech (Part C)

My Dear Friend and Co-Laborer With Christ:

Here it is the last week of October already! It is almost impossible to think that Jo Ann and I have already been official Yuma residents for four months and have actually been in town a month!    But, here we are, less than two weeks away from when services resume at Chapel de Oro. Canada is opening its borders in one week, and there are at least a dozen Canadian couples already packing and poised to cross that border just as soon as possible on their way back to what has become known as "Canada's southernmost city". We are anxiously waiting for their arrival.

In the meantime, Jo Ann and I continue preparing our "new" house ready for occupancy, dealing with little things like wall decorations, books on the shelves, etc., while waiting impatiently for our remodeling contractor to finish the flooring in the master bathroom, reroute the ice maker water line, replace the kitchen faucet, and a few other odds and ends. We will continue to live in the Park Model during the Chapel season, and I will probably keep my office there for the most part. As a matter of fact, I am writing most of today's letter from that "new office", atop a 20"x36" desk with a lone pencil drawer. There is just enough room between the desk and the end of the twin bed to fit my office chair, and room under the desk to stretch my legs -- so I'm a happy man.

Our ministry (Life Unlimited Ministries) will probably keep the Park Model as long as we continue pastoring Chapel de Oro because we feel there is a great need for the Chapel's pastor to live in the park itself during Chapel season. We are the first pastoral team to do that in over 10 years, and both Park management and Chapel members love the idea. That notwithstanding, we've already had several people, including some Chapel members, who have asked about our selling it. Some, I think, would love to buy it because it is situated on a corner lot with the end facing directly toward the Gila Mountains to the east. It has a spacious "Arizona" room that measures 13'X18', a screened in porch in the front, and a large patio area in the back. Most Arizona rooms are only around 8' to 10' wide and 10' to 14 feet long.

As I write today, the park is beginning to slowly fill up as winter creeps deeper into the Midwest and the northern tier of states. With the Canadian border opening up in just one week, this season will be a far cry from last season both in the park and in Chapel de Oro. However, we are still under certain limitations in place, such as 50% maximum capacity of the room. That won't affect us too much because that will still allow us to have 125 to 150 people in attendance. The local Park managers have also given permission for our members who live outside the park to attend. Both of these allowances really help our Chapel which, during peak season, will near 200 in attendance.

But, when I remember that Christians in the First Century who had to endure far worse, we have it so much easier, and shouldn't complain. Yesterday morning I received an e-mail from a dear Ukrainian friend who reads these letters. He indicated that currently Ukraine is still only 15% vaccinated, and he and his wife are still living in a smaller town that in Kyiv and maintaining great caution even though they have both been vaccinated.

Now to the topic at hand:

Today I am continuing our look at how America has forsaken God by embracing the killing of babies through abortion. I know there are many Christians who approve abortion (frankly, I cannot understand how they can in light of biblical teachings) and also suspect some may take issue with my reference to "Molech". But if you study the history of child sacrifice, you realize that the only difference between then and abortion today is the era and the method. Yet, there is little difference between killing a baby on the outstretched arms the god "Molech" or killing it in the womb. Whether being burned by "Molech's" white-hot iron hands or by saline solution in the womb, the suffering is beyond description. The motive is generally the same in both cases as well -- appeasement or resolution for the purpose of convenience, personal aspiration, or other reasons of self-interest.

So, as gruesome as it may sound, I believe the comparison is appropriate. Abortion is a gruesome process, and fatal to the baby.

In my last letter we examined abortion essentially from a scientific and medical viewpoint, pointing out five fundamental reasons why I believe abortion is wrong, listed fifteen specific medical facts about when life begins and how the fetus develops, and then finished by showing how the Psalmist (unbeknownst to him, obviously) used now-proven medical terms to describe how God Himself shaped him while in his mother's womb.

Today I want to make a turn and look at abortion in America from a more legal perspective, dealing specifically with that moment in 1973 when the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that the vast majority of people legalized the practice (it did NOT), and then consider some social implications of the practice. In fact, I had intended to concentrate on two or three points, but as I have studied the factors of and surrounding Roe v. Wade, I've concluded that we need to examine only that ruling and leave the rest for next letter. We will do that right after you consider . . .

THIS 'N' THAT:

+ First "Door of Hope" House Opened: Ninety years ago the first "Door of Hope" rescue home for girls opened on October 25, 1931. Read the story of how a very wealthy woman, Emma Whitmore, a NYC "elite" had her heart broken for the "wayward girls" of New York City, and ended up opening 97 "Door of Hope" facilities in seven countries. Go to https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/emma-whittemore-opened-door-of-hope-11630626.html?utm_source=This%20Week%20in%20Christian%20History%20&utm_campaign=This%20Week%20in%20Church%20History%20-%20Christianity.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=5512692&recip=521085018 .

QUOTES FOR THE WEEK:

    > “In Illinois a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for 'delivering a controlled substance to a minor.' This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights of her own. But that same woman who is prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is perfectly free to abort her child. In America today, it is illegal to harm your preborn child, but it is perfectly legal to kill him.” -- Randy Alcorn

    > "I long for the day that 'Roe v. Wade' is sent to the ash heap of history." -- Former V.P. Mike Pence

    > "I think it's safe to say that the entire abortion industry is based on a lie. . . . I am dedicated to spending the rest of my life undoing the law that bears my name." -- Norma McCorvey (The "Jane Doe" in Roe v. Wade)

    > "Even one abortion ought to prompt us to grief. Every life lost, every life harmed, rips at the image of God himself. Every life lost is a horror and an unspeakable tragedy. . . . it is still so terrifying in scope that we should weep. . . . Human life bears inherent dignity because human life reflects the life of God himself." -- Dr. Russell Moore

    > "Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness." --Dr. Alveda King

    >   "Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother. Abortion is profoundly anti-women." -- Mother Teresa

    > "It has its own DNA. It has its own genetic code. It has its own blood type. It has its own functioning brain, it's own functioning kidneys, its own functioning lungs, its own dreams. It's not the woman's body. It's in the woman's body. That's not the same." -- Matt Chandler

    > "The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb." -- Unknown

    > "America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men." -- Mother Teresa

    > "For thirty years, beginning with the invention of a privacy right in the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, the Left has been waging a systematic assault on the constitutional foundation of the nation." -- David Horowitz

    > "The greatest irony is that abortion has done what the Klan only dreamed of. . . . Roughly one-fourth of the black population is now missing." -- Dr. Alveda King

    > "Instead of helping women in Roe v. Wade, I brought destruction to me and millions of women." -- Norma McCorvey (The "Jane Doe" in Roe v. Wade)

    > "A nation that kills its children in the womb has lost its soul." -- Mother Teresa

    > "Abortion is a sin and is clearly murder in God’s eyes. The people who perform it have no conscience, so I’m not at all surprised that they would be selling organs, tissue, and body parts from babies. Planned Parenthood should be put out of business—they’ve done enough damage. Sin has an enormous price. Our nation will one day have to answer to God for the millions of innocent lives taken by abortion, and that applies to every politician who voted for and defended abortion." -- Franklin Graham

    > ". . . for all the great legal work that needs to be done to protect human life, the greatest work that needs to be done is to spread a passion - a satisfaction for the supremacy of God in all things." -- John Piper

IMPACT OF ABORTION:

Have you ever considered the fundamental root issue that makes abortion so acceptable to so many? Even the vast majority of Americans now believe that abortions should not be provided in the third trimester, and many feel it should not be allowed except in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's health. In spite of that, have you actually seriously considered what might be making people think that abortion was acceptable under certain conditions -- or believe it's a carte' blanche' to abort a preborn baby irregardless?

A few moments ago I got a news text on my iPhone announcing another shooting, and the first thought that went through my mind is that an increase in shootings and other violent crimes are encouraged for the same root reason abortion is so recklessly acceptable to some. The issue is really quite simple, actually.

It is simply a disregard for the sacredness -- the sanctity -- of life. Young men go on shooting rampages because they see no particular value to life, have no real sense of purpose for living, and have no awareness of what awaits those they kill -- or even what awaits them as the shooters. You see, when you view life as being merely "here and now" and nothing in the hereafter, it is easy to take the life of another person.

This same mindset influences euthanasia, suicide, -- and abortions. You can even attribute recent riots, murders, robberies, and property destruction to the same thing. When one does not respect life, he will not respect freedom (liberty), he will not respect property, and he will not respect the opportunity to pursue happiness and make something of himself. Neither will he respect those things in the lives of others he tries to destroy.

So, you see, life is the core issue for us all. Perhaps this is the reason that John the Apostle declared, "In Him was Life, and that Life was the Light of men." (Jn 1:4). This is why, in my opinion, abortion is such a wicked and evil act. It is a direct attack on the very nature and character of the God Who created life because He IS life. Personally, I believe abortion is a direct affront toward God Himself. It may well be that abortion could be seen as the most heinous sin a person can commit -- equal to the act of murder. But, what is the difference between killing a life living outside the womb and killing a life living inside the womb? Nothing but location.

I will address this later, but the sanctity of life is precisely what motivated the founding fathers to identify "Life" as the first of three inalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence. And, it was that understanding that became the foundational substructure of our very Constitution and the form of government our founders created. If there is no life to preserve, there is no need for either Constitution or government. To the degree that life is diminished or desecrated, it is to that degree that our national conscience is seared and our form of government is prostituted and skewed.

FACTS: -- THE REAL REASONS FOR ABORTION:

In a nutshell, the entire Roe v. Wade issue should have never come up -- for a couple of reasons. First, the lawsuit itself was filed NOT to strike down the Texas state law per se that was prohibiting abortion, but was instead filed under the "right to privacy" clause. Second, the "official" reasons given for wanting an abortion cannot be supported by the data. In my last letter I posted a chart that showed the breakdown on the various reasons given by women for having abortions. It is visually graphic enough that I include it again.

The argument by pro-abortionists is that a woman has the right to "choose" what to do with her body, so she alone should have the freedom to have or not have an abortion. (It would be helpful if the same argument could be made for masks and vaccinations these days.) However, the abortion industry has for decades falsely portrayed abortion as needed due to rape, incest, or endangerment to the health of the mother. Those, rather, are in fact the least given reasons for abortions, as so clearly illustrated in the chart above.

Carole Novielli of Live Action News wrote a piece in 2018 about this misrepresentation, stating the following:

    "Ever since the abortion debate began, the American public has been told that abortion is necessary in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother (or health of the baby) is at risk. But information gathered from states that require abortion reporting show that only a tiny fraction of the so-called 'hard cases' (out of a million abortions annually in the U.S.) are why women abort. According to the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s former special affiliate and research arm, just '16 states require providers to give some information about the woman’s reason for seeking the procedure.'

    "Every human life is worthy of protection, and Live Action News has featured numerous stories from courageous women who chose life for their babies conceived in rape, diagnosed with disabilities, or thought to be 'incompatible with life.' Tragically, while more and more of these women speak out and testify to the sanctity of each life, the profitable abortion lobby continues to pitch abortion as a solution to any problem a women encounters. And the numbers show it."

Those figures are very similar to what the National Institute of Health's National Library of Medicine reported in a 1996 feature in which they stated the results of a three-year study on the subject, saying, . . .

    "The national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. Among 34 cases of rape-related pregnancy, the majority occurred among adolescents and resulted from assault by a known, often related perpetrator. . . . A total 32.4% of these victims did not discover they were pregnant until they had already entered the second trimester; 32.2% opted to keep the infant whereas 50% underwent abortion and 5.9% placed the infant for adoption; an additional 11.8% had spontaneous abortion. . . .

    "As others are pointing out, the Guttmacher Institute estimates 1% of abortions are due to rape, and less than 0.5% are due to incest.

To summarize, of the thousands of horrendous cases of women being raped, the majority of them were raped by someone well known to the victim, and often by a relative. Of those raped under all circumstances, only 5% of them ended up causing a pregnancy, and over one-third of those pregnancies were not discovered until well into the second trimester. Of those pregnancies nearly one-third of the women chose to keep the baby while 50% chose abortion as their alternative, and fewer than 6% chose delivery and giving the baby up for adoption.

Circumstances of abortions because of rape, incest, or endangerment to the health of the mother or baby are classified as "hard cases". The Guttmacher Institute duplicated their survey in 2017 and also conducted the survey in foreign countries as well as the United States. The Institute found that less than 6% of abortions in those other countries were carried out for "hard case" reasons, and almost 95% were performed to "...please the mother's lifestyle or to please those close to her." Both in the 1997 survey and the 2017 survey carried by the Guttmacher Institute -- keep in mind that this is the research arm of Planned Parenthood itself-- the reported reason for an abortion remained the same. The overwhelming reason for abortion had nothing to do with rape, incest, or the mother's health. It was all a matter of personal convenience and preference. The vast majority are performed for social and/or economic reasons.

ROE VS WADE:

Frankly, I'm a bit surprised at how many people, especially Christians, do not have a clear understanding of the Roe v. Wade lawsuit, who the characters were, what the Court's opinion actually did, and what was the basis of the lawsuit. In a nutshell, it was a landmark legal decision issued on January 22, 1973, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute banning abortion. Contrary to popular opinion, the lawsuit was not filed in order to legalize abortion, but to challenge the issue of a woman's right to privacy, of all things.

Although the overwhelming number of our founders understood the sanctity of life and that abortion was at least undesirable, if not wrong altogether,by 1800 abortion wasn’t even mentioned in the laws of any jurisdiction. But one hundred years later, it was a criminal offense in every state.

That notwithstanding, the Supreme Court held that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Prior to Roe v. Wade, abortion had been illegal throughout much of the country since the late 19th century. The Supreme Court's opinion, to its shame, effectively legalized abortion across the United States

Up until the Supreme Court handed down its opinion, abortions were rare, and abortion laws were matters passed, regulated, and judged on state levels, not federal. So, when Roe v. Wade came to the Supreme Court, it not only supposedly legalized abortion, but it became a giant stepping stone to "abortion on demand", to a dramatic increase in promiscuity, and also ended up serving as an enormous open door for further federal overreach into states' rights to govern their own people.

Most people don't connect Roe v. Wade to federal overreach, but just look at the history of where the federal government has persistently expanded its influence and control over state issues since then. Do a little homework and check it out.

Sunday night Jo Ann and I watched an interview with Jonathan Turley, a constitutional scholar and professor at a major university. I have watched him interviewed scores of times over the years, and have been awed at his knowledge of the Constitution and its meaning. He is a liberal Democrat who has very different views from mine on many topics, but I have the greatest respect and admiration for him as a person and for what he says as a constitutional scholar, because he believes strongly in adhering to the Constitution as it was written. If you ever have a chance to hear him, please do so.

In the interview, Turley pointed to two things that he felt contributed to the dangerously extreme political and moral drift to the far left that we have seen so precipitously increase in the past year. He attributes this drift that has been going on for the past forty or fifty years to two things -- federal overreach into areas the Constitution delegates to the states, and the election of Senators on a public ballot rather than by state legislatures as originally designated in the Constitution. He sees Roe v. Wade as being one of those areas where the federal government absconded with the authority and right originally intended for states.

So, when on October 6th, 2020, just one month before the presidential election, former vice-president Joe Biden pledged to make the SCOTUS Roe vs. Wade decision "the law of the land" when he became president, that was a shot across the bow that should have been a warning to those who love life and oppose abortion. That may surprise many, not because of who Joe Biden is, -- for we've known for a long time that his earlier claim to be pro-life as opposed to pro-abortion was simply not true, -- but because they thought the Supreme Court majority opinion made Roe vs. Wade into law.

It did not, and it is not! IT NEVER HAS BEEN A LAW. It is an opinion by the 1973 Supreme Court handed down on a ingenious and deceptive law suit about the right to privacy, and not about abortion per se except, as I mentioned earlier, as it pertains to a woman's right to privacy. It was a professional legal slight-of-hand maneuver that has done more damage than any legal action probably since the Scopes Trial. It has not only led to the killing of 60+ million babies, but it has opened the floodgates of immorality and federal overreach.

Almost everyone has heard about "Roe vs. Wade" and that it is presumed to be a nationwide law legalizing abortion. However, it was NEVER made into a law. This, therefore, has been one of President Biden's goals. As I noted earlier, just a month before the 2020 election, he pledged to make it, "the law of the land". You see, Congress has NEVER passed an abortion law of any kind.

The History.com website has an excellent digest of Roe v. Wade that is worth reading. I would recommend it at https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/roe-v-wade. The article points out a little history of abortion in the United States. It states, . . .

   "Until the late 19th century, abortion was legal in the United States before 'quickening,' the point at which a woman could first feel movements of the fetus, typically around the fourth month of pregnancy.

"Some of the early regulations related to abortion were enacted in the 1820s and 1830s and dealt with the sale of dangerous drugs that women used to induce abortions. Despite these regulations and the fact that the drugs sometimes proved fatal to women, they continued to be advertised and sold.

   "In the late 1850s, the newly established American Medical Association began calling for the criminalization of abortion, partly in an effort to eliminate doctors’ competitors such as midwives and homeopaths.

"Additionally, some nativists, alarmed by the country’s growing population of immigrants, were anti-abortion because they feared declining birth rates among white, American-born, Protestant women.

"In 1869, the Catholic Church banned abortion at any stage of pregnancy, while in 1873, Congress passed the Comstock law, which made it illegal to distribute contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs through the U.S. mail. By the 1880s, abortion was outlawed across most of the country.

"During the 1960s, during the women’s rights movement, court cases involving contraceptives laid the groundwork for Roe v. Wade.

"In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law banning the distribution of birth control to married couples, ruling that the law violated their implied right to privacy under the U.S. Constitution. And in 1972, the Supreme Court struck down a law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried adults.

"Meanwhile, in 1970, Hawaii became the first state to legalize abortion, although the law only applied to the state’s residents. That same year, New York legalized abortion, with no residency requirement. By the time of Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion was also legally available in Alaska and Washington.

So, it seems that Roe v. Wade in some ways was another example of how liberal minds know how to bide their time, continue pressing the issue using the well-tried "drip-drip-drip-drip" patience approach until a liberal Court can be found to strike down an anti-abortion law in one state. They found it in the Warren Court.

And yet, after 48 years since Roe v. Wade, there is STILL no legislation that makes abortion actual law ---- only a Supreme Court case that struck down a Texas ban on abortions in 1973! In fact, this has been such a serious matter among pro-abortionists that they have repeatedly urged pro-abortionists in Congress to do that very thing. Even the ACLU has asked Congress more than once to make it "the law of the land".

Case in point ---- In 1999, on the 26th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling by the Supreme Court, the ACLU wrote a letter to Congress asking the House and Senate to pass a law that would make abortion "the law of the land". In fact, a letter written by Laura Murphy, the Director of ACLU's national office in Washington, urged Congress to take such action. An intense letter in spirit, some portions seem to plead with Congress, even "expecting" Congress to act. If you read it carefully, you can even sense a bit of intimidating threat in certain points.

The letter described Roe v. Wade as being, "...a giant leap forward in the fight for women's health and equality." It went on to state the ACLU's beliefs by saying, . . .

    "We'd like to take the opportunity presented by this historic day to focus again on the importance of the right to choose to women's health and liberty, to continue to distinguish fact from fiction, and to emphasize the the absolute necessity of protecting the rights secured twenty-six years ago."

Murphy repeatedly expressed the ACLU's expectation of that 1999 Congress with statements such as . . .

    "This Congress, we anticipate that a variety of measures restricting women's right to choose will once again be introduced."

Murphy also listed a number of actions they expected would probably come from states opposed to abortions, such actions that made it clear just how strongly many Americans still were toward legalized abortions.   Then, after "warning" Congress of those dangerous threats from state legislatures, she concluded by stating, . . .

    "This anniversary is a time to remember what it was like in our society before choice was a protected right and to increase our resolve to ensure that efforts to turn back the clock do not succeed. We thank you for your past support of, and for your future commitment to, protecting women's health and equality with the right to choose."

If you'd care to read this letter in its entirety, (it's too lengthy to include here), go to https://www.aclu.org/letter/letter-congress-26th-anniversary-roe-v-wade .

Up to now, some 48 years later, Congress has Still Not Passed legislation that makes Abortion "the law of the land". In fact, in my research I stumbled onto a very interesting article written way back in 2000 by the Central States Co-Chairman of the Constitution Party, Greg Moeller. Sadly, most Americans tend to discount "third party" influence as being insignificant. In fact, if you talk to people who are disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican Parties, they would rather see themselves as "Independents" rather than as members of the Libertarian, Constitution, or Communist Parties. There seems in their minds to be some kind of stigma to being identified with a specific party other than Democrat and Republican. And, as we know from the George Wallace campaign, serious third parties tend to guarantee a victory for one of the two major parties.

Nonetheless, having lived in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri, and paying relatively close attention to local, county, and state elections, I've come to appreciate the contribution such parties make to the debate. As I've gotten to know some of those folks, I find their opinions to be of significant value. Libertarians offer something I believe in very strongly -- individual liberties guaranteed as the Constitution proclaims. Those of the Constitution Party have as their bulwark the standard of the Constitution as written by our founders. I believe that as well.

When Jo Ann and I lived in southwestern Missouri, we attended a number of county-sponsored gatherings where candidates for national, state, and county offices from all parties were invited to present their respective cases. I was particularly impressed with candidates from the Constitution Party because they so strongly believe in the Constitution as written by the founders and not as a "living" progressive document that can be changed by whim, opinion, or preference. So, when I read Moeller's article, I was impressed with what he had to say in his "Roe v. Wade Is Not the Law of the Land: Exposing the myth of judicial supremacy". Among other things, he wrote, . . .

    "Widely accepted as the 'law of the land,' it is held in large part responsible for the execution of over a million pre-born children in the womb in the United States each year. Consequentially, it has been concluded by many that until Roe v. Wade is 'overturned' and no longer the 'law of the land' that there is nothing substantial that can be done about 'legal' abortion.

    "As tragic as these legal circumstances may seem, there is perhaps an even more tragic aspect to this entire issue, one that is born out of gross ignorance of the plain text of the Constitution on the part of not only the American public but even many pro-life legislators nationwide. What is it that has gone so wrong after all these years? It's simple. We have been lied to. Roe v. Wade is NOT a law at all, even less the 'law of the land'. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact, a fact that is easy to understand by simply picking up the Constitution and reading it."

The Constitution is crystal clear ---- it is the Legislature that passes, amends, and nullifies laws. The Judicial Branch passes judgment on whether or not a law adheres to the Constitution. Just because a court hands down a "judgment" or ruling on a matter does not make it a law, though it can deem it legal; nor does it discount an existing law from no longer being a law. Only the Legislature can do that. This is part of the genius of our form of government -- the separation of powers. Congress makes laws, the Judiciary determines its constitutionality, and the Executive Branch takes the final step by signing or vetoing what Congress passed through the laborious checks and balances system of the two divisions of Congress -- the House and the Senate. Then the Executive Branch is obligated to administer the law -- according to the Constitutional. Our founders were brilliant in creating this system.

But this is still President Biden's goal -- to make Roe v. Wade which the Supreme Court merely deemed a Dallas County anti-abortion law to be unconstitutional (with a real "stretch" of the "right to privacy" clause), into a law enacted by Congress. I doubt seriously that it will actually happen during his first term because it will require some pro-life Democrats to vote in favor of something they oppose. The changes after the 2022 mid-terms will likely be even less. But, stranger things have happened already, so it is always possible.

BACKGROUND TO ROE V. WADE:

Most people know a little about "Roe" -- or "Jane Doe" as she is identified, and not much else -- especially concerning the background and the legal ramifications. There are two particular things that most people don't know: --- 1) They don't know who "Wade" is and the background leading up to the SCOTUS ruling, and 2) They don't know that "Roe vs. Wade" did absolutely NOTHING to make it a federal law. The overwhelming number of American citizens think it is actually the law -- and it is not.

So, let's take some time to dig into the actual facts about "Roe vs. Wade".

+ The Motivation: -- In the "modern America" era of the early 20th Century some women who wanted abortions resorted to illegal, dangerous, “back-alley” abortion procedures, self-induced abortive drugs, or folklore practices. In the 1950s and 1960s, the estimated number of illegal abortions in the United States ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year, according to the Guttmacher Institute. This was, for them, of course a great argument for trying to legalize abortions.

+ Jane Roe: -- By now we know that "Jane Roe" in the lawsuit was actual Norma McCorvey, a Texas woman just 22 years old, divorced, homeless, and pregnant. She had dropped out of school at age 14, and had grown up in difficult impoverished circumstances. In court documents, McCorvey became known as “Jane Roe.” After having given birth to two babies previously, whom she had given up for adoption, this time she sought to terminate an unwanted pregnancy through an abortion. At the time of McCorvey’s pregnancy back then, abortion was legal in Texas, but only for the purpose of saving a woman’s life. All other abortions were illegal.

McCorvey was by no means one of those wealthy American women who could travel to other countries and obtain abortion an abortion where the procedure was both safe and legal, and she certainly didn't have the wherewithal to pay a large fee to a doctor in the U.S. who was willing to secretly perform an abortion. So, as the legal process dragged on for three years, McCovey gave birth and put the child up for adoption.

+ Coffee and Weddington: -- After trying unsuccessfully to get an illegal abortion, McCorvey was referred by an adoption agency to Texas attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, pro-abortion feminists who were looking for an opportunity to challenge anti-abortion laws. They needed a "willing subject", and McCorvey was a perfect fit. In 1970 attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington filed a lawsuit in McCorvey's behalf, but also for all other women, present and future, "who were or might become pregnant and want to consider all options." When Weddington argued before the Supreme Court, she was only 26 years old.

Joining in the lawsuit was a Texas doctor who had previously been arrested for having violated the Texas law that allowed abortion only if it would save the mother's life. He argued that the state's abortion laws were too vague for doctors to follow. It was a crime to get an abortion or to attempt one for any other reason.

Norma McCorvey only met with her two lawyers twice. When she met with them the first time. over beer and pizza, she didn't know what the word "abortion"meant. Her lawyers, Coffee and Weddington, told her that abortion just dealt with a piece of tissue, and that it was much like passing her period. She remembered a John Wayne movie had talked about "aborting the mission", so she thought it meant to "turn around and go back", as in going back to not being pregnant.

and the other time she met with them to sign an affidavit that she hadn't even read. She also was never called to appear in any court proceedings, whether state, district, or federal, and, to cap it all off, she never heard the results of court proceedings from the two lawyers, but instead found out about the infamous ruling from the newspapers.

+ Wade: -- Henry Wade was the District Attorney of Dallas County, Texas. He was already well known as a hard-nosed D.A. who had gained the national spotlight by prosecuting Jack Ruby who had killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy. During the trial, Wade presented three main arguments in his defense of the Texas anti-abortion law:

    + States have an interest in safeguarding health, maintaining medical standards, and protecting prenatal life

    + A fetus is a "person" protected by the 14th Amendment

    + Protecting prenatal life from the time of conception is a compelling state interest

All of those arguments were legitimate then, and still are today. However, when in June 1970, a Texas district court ruled that the state’s abortion ban was illegal because it violated a constitutional right to privacy, Wade declared he’d continue to prosecute doctors who performed abortions. It ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the earlier District Court ruling, and in that action, almost all state laws restricting abortions in any way were nullified and became moot.

At that point, abortions became legal in all states because the Supreme Court ruling was applied nationally, not just on Texas alone.

+ The Ruling: -- On Jan 22, 1973, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, struck down the Texas law banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure nationwide. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry Blackman, the court declared that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment.

The Court was skeptical over the idea that life begins at conception, the belief held by the State of Texas even at that time, and that both the State and the Constitution indicate constitutional protection beginning at conception. However, because the Constitution does not provide a definition of a "person," but does say that its protections cover those who are "born or naturalized", the Court concluded that 'the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.'

Also, in the Roe v. Wade decision the Court pointed out the differing views on when life begins. For example, many Jews believe that life begins at birth while Catholics believe that life begins at conception. While this 1973 view was that, though they vary in several ways, doctors' views then tended to lean toward the belief that life begins sometime before birth. Today, it is almost unanimous among the medical field that life actually does begin at conception, just as the Bible indicates.

When it came to the nine months of pregnancy, the Court divided pregnancy into three trimesters, and declared that the choice to end a pregnancy in the first trimester was solely up to the woman. In the second trimester, the government could regulate abortion, although not ban it, in order to protect the mother’s health.

In the third trimester, the state could prohibit abortion to protect a fetus that could survive on its own outside the womb, except when a woman’s health was in danger.

+ The Roe v. Wade Legacy: -- Following the Supreme Court's decision, Norma McCorvey maintained a low profile, but then in the 1980s became extremely active in the abortion rights movement as its spokesperson. However, after becoming friends with the head of an anti-abortion group and converting to Catholicism during the mid-1990s, she turned into a vocal opponent of the procedure.

Many people see Roe v. Wade as another example of "judicial activism". That term means that judges base their decisions on personal views rather than existing constitutional law. The "right to privacy" idea comes from the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Due Process Class does not explicitly say that Americans have a right to privacy, but the Supreme Court has n general accepted that idea as far back as 1891. In fact, in 1972, just a year before Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court held that, . . .

    "In a Constitution for a free people, there can be no doubt that the meaning of 'liberty' must be broad indeed."

In Roe v. Wade, the Court decided that the "right to privacy" included a woman's control over a pregnancy. Since then many states have imposed restrictions that have weaken abortion rights, and Americans remain divided over support for a woman’s right to choose an abortion.

+ Seven Little Known Facts about Roe v. Wade -- According to the website, catholic.com, there are some facts about the lawsuit that very few people know. Because McCorvey became a devout practicing Catholic, she was repeatedly interviewed about her conversion to Christianity and what led to her change of heart regarding abortion. I find these quite interesting, and was not aware of several of them. Perhaps you are the same. They are . . .

    1. "Jane Roe", Norma McCorvey never had an abortion. Instead, she carried the little girl up to full term, delivered her, and then gave her up for adoption, as she had done with the previous two. To her dying day, McCorvey resented the assumption that she had had an abortion, and was deeply saddened that her name was so connected to the practice.

    2. During Supreme Court arguments, Attorney Sarah Weddington laughed as she answered a question posed by Justice Potter Stewart. It's not so much that she laughed, but that she laughed in response to this specific question:

     Justice Potter Stewart: "Well, if it were established that an unborn fetus is a person within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, you would have almost an impossible case here, would you not?"

    Weddington: "I would have a very difficult case." [Then she laughed.]

    Justice Potter Stewart: "You certainly would because you’d have the same kind of thing you’d have to say that this would be the equivalent to after the child was born."

    Weddington: "That’s right."

    Justice Potter Stewart: "If the mother thought that it bothered her health having the child around, she could have it killed. Isn’t that correct?"

    Weddington: "That’s correct."

Justice Potter's point was that if it could be shown that the unborn is a person, and thus deserving of legal protection under the fourteenth amendment, then the entire case for legal abortion would fall apart. That, -- or worse, that it could be used to justify killing born children if the mother so wished. Weddington laughed as she admitted this.

    3. The majority decision in Roe v. Wade contained some very weak argumentation, so much so that the State of Texas argued that, because life begins at conception (a fact already having been medically proven even back then), the unborn are just as entitled to legal protection under the law as a born child. The Court sidestepped the issue with this response?

    "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."

The Catholic website went on to show just how irresponsible and irrational the Court's response really was, stating, . . .

    "This is an incoherent line of reasoning for two reasons. First, the State of Texas is right: life begins at conception. This simple biological reality is not a “difficult question” and was known even in 1973. Second, the Court concluded that, because one may not know when life begins, abortion should, in the name of privacy, be legal. Even if one is not convinced as to whether the unborn is a human person, that’s actually a good reason not to kill one. To borrow an analogy from Peter Kreeft, if a hunter sees something moving in the brush but isn’t sure if it is a deer or his fellow hunter, wouldn’t that be a good reason to not shoot into the brush?

    "The majority opinion’s line of reasoning fails both basic biology and logic. Even Edward Lazarus, who clerked for Justice Blackmun, remarked that 'As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible … Justice Blackmun’s opinion provides essentially no reasoning in support of its holding'.”

    4. The majority decision was countered by a severe commentary of dissent by the minority in the ruling. The majority decision, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, was based primarily on a so-called “right to privacy” under the fourteenth amendment.   Even though the Court acknowledged that the Constitution does not explicitly contain a “right to privacy”, Blackman stated that such a right is "implied" in the “penumbras” (shadows) of "certain sections" of the Constitution.

The dissenting opinions were strongly stated by Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist. In the dissenting opinion, White wrote,

    "I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court’s judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant women and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes."

In his portion of the dissenting opinion, Rehnquist wrote the following concerning the applicability of the fourteenth amendment to any so-called “right to privacy” that might extend to striking down state abortion laws:

    “To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.”

Rehnquist also pointed out what little the Court actually knew about the plaintiff. He said that the Court knew, . . .

    “...only that plaintiff Roe at the time of filing her complaint was a pregnant woman…she may have been in her last trimester of pregnancy as of the date the complaint was filed.”

In other words, the court’s decision may not have even applied to the plaintiff’s actual situation.

    5. Roe v. Wade was almost overturned in 1992 in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey lawsuit. Those who oppose overturning Roe v. Wade often contend that to do so would make abortion illegal throughout the United States. I'm far from being an authority of any kind when it comes to law issues, I do know this is not true.

As I understand it from legal minds who have explained it to me -- and I've also heard it from various attorneys in recent television programs -- IF (and that's a big "IF") Roe v. Wade were overturned tomorrow, the legal questions regarding abortion would then become the prerogative of the states, which is where it should be decided anyhow.

The demographics, values, and moral convictions are often very different from state to state, and as part of the rights of the federal government, abortion issues and decisions do not belong to the federal government, but rather belong to the states. So, once again, federal government overreach took place in the Roe v. Wade decision.

In February 2005, McCorvey actually petitioned the Supreme Court in McCorvey v. Hill to overturn the 1973 decision, arguing that she had standing to do so as one of the original litigants and that the case should be heard once again in light of what she claimed was evidence that the procedure harms women. Her petition was denied by the Court.

    6. Norma McCorvey repeatedly has stated that she was actually coerced into filing the lawsuit, and into making up lies about her situation. According to her own testimony, she claimed that she was instructed to state that she was pregnant because of rape in order to add favorable weight to the case and make it more sensational so as to gain sympathy in the courts and in public opinion.

Both Linda Coffee (of Women’s Equity Action League) and Sarah Weddington, were looking for pregnant women whose personal; situations could be used for challenging existing abortion laws. McCorvey later stated that she believed that she had been coerced and that the reason Coffee and Weddington used her was in order to bring a case before the Court that would strike down states’ laws and policies that restricted or prohibited abortion. McCorvey personally acknowledged that she had no interest in such matters.

    7. McCorvey came to faith in Christ as Phillip Benham, national director of Operation Rescue, shared the Gospel with her. She committed her life to Christ and later became a devout Catholic and pro-life advocate. When she began her involvement in the pro-abortion industry, she worked at an abortion clinic helping other women have abortions. However, there came a point in time while at work when all of that changed. In her own words, she wrote, . . .

    "I was sitting in O.R.’s offices when I noticed a fetal development poster. The progression was so obvious…something in that poster made me lose my breath…It’s as if blinders just fell off my eyes and I suddenly understood the truth—that’s a baby!

    "I felt crushed under the truth of this realization…All those years I was wrong. Signing that affidavit, I was wrong. Working in an abortion clinic, I was wrong. No more of this first trimester, second trimester, third trimester stuff. Abortion—at any point—was wrong. It was so clear."

Later McCorvey said,

    “I think it’s safe to say that the entire abortion industry is based on a lie…I am dedicated to spending the rest of my life undoing the law that bears my name.”

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ABOUT ROE V. WADE:

1. If you are one who would like to know more about the inner workings surround the Roe v. Wade ruling and how it has impacted American culture, there are numerous websites written from both pro-abortion and pro-life perspectives. Here are just a few of the many that I researched:
    + https://supreme.findlaw.com/supreme-court-insights/roe-v--wade-case-summary--what-you-need-to-know.html
    + https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/roe-v-wade
    + https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/seven-important-facts-to-know-about-roe-v-wade
    + https://www.lifenews.com/2015/01/20/five-facts-about-norma-mccorvey-of-roe-vs-wade-you-probably-didnt-know/
    + https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/roe_v_wade_%281973%29
    + https://famguardian.org/Subjects/LawAndGovt/Articles/RoeVWadeNotLaw.htm

2. Roe vs. Wade was built on a total lie.

3. Before her death, the "Jane Doe" used not only revealed her true identity, but also unequivocally condemned abortion.

4. Since Roe v. Wade, nearly 63 MILLION babies have been lost to abortion.

5. That means that Americans have killed an average of 1,313,000 innocent lives were destroyed and robbed of any chance at life. That is 4,603 babies' lives are terminated in the womb every day for the past 48 years. That tallies out to over 140 abortions per hour -- or over two per minuted.

6. If the stated reasons given in all the surveys from Planned Parenthood and other agencies to have an abortion are indeed accurate -- and all evidence indicates they are -- then that means that since January, 1973, over 59,800,000 abortions were committed simply for the sake of reputation, personal inconvenience, economic reasons, or or career liabilities. That is a sad and sick indictment on us as a nation.

FINALLY:

By now, you surely know how I feel about abortions. I have an incredible sensitivity to those who believe they found it necessary to have an abortion; we know several personally who made that difficult choice. And, I will not condemn or castigate any who have gone that route. I am deeply grieved that they evidently did not consider the alternatives or perhaps felt there were no reasonable alternatives.

But what grieves me more -- actually it angers me -- is that our nation, by neglect, ignorance, and compromise, has allowed itself to become one of the top three or four nations in the world that deliberately takes the lives of its unborn. Of all nations in the world, the United States -- a nation founded on the Judeo-Christian principles of the Bible -- has surrendered to the demonic lie that life is of little value, and "when it's over, it's over", whether it's in the grave at age 90 or on the streets at age 30, or in the womb at the age of 15 days.

Frankly, I am convinced that AIDS, SARS, natural disasters, and now COVID-19 are God's attempts to get our attention and cause us to repent over killing so many millions of His creations made in His image.

Next week I want to consider the issue of abortion from how it relates to our Constitution and the thinking of our founding fathers. Now, I need to decompress, get a bite of supper, and crash for the evening. So, until next week, I remain . .

In His Bond, By His Grace, and for His Kingdom,

Bob Tolliver -- Romans 1:11

Life Unlimited Ministries
LUMglobal
[email protected]

Copyright October, 2021

    "A fire kept burning on the hearthstone of my heart, and I took up the burden of the day with fresh courage and hope." -- Charles F. McKoy

     "If Jesus had preached the same message that many ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified." -- Leonard Ravenhill

    "The time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the Church will have clowns entertaining the goats." -- Charles H. Spurgeon


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"Standing Together, Shoulder To Shoulder, As We Fight the Good Fight of Faith"

SHOULDER TO SHOULDER is a weekly letter of encouragement Bob has written since 1997, covering many topics
selected to motivate people to be strong students of the Word and courageous witnesses of Jesus Christ.
It is a personal letter of encouragement to you, written solely to help "lift up hands that hang down".

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil,
but by those who watch them without doing anything." -- Albert Einstein

    “There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day,
    which many have, and think they have -- a cheap Christianity
    which offends nobody, and requires no sacrifice, which
    costs nothing, -- and is worth nothing.” – J. C. Ryle

    "Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica,
    for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the
    Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." -- Dr. Luke (Acts 17:11)

Shoulder To Shoulder #1262 -- 10/25/21

Title: "The Folly of Forgetting God -- Demise of a People: Part 5 -- Sacrificing To Molech (Part C)

My Dear Friend and Co-Laborer With Christ:

Here it is the last week of October already! It is almost impossible to think that Jo Ann and I have already been official Yuma residents for four months and have actually been in town a month! But, here we are, less than two weeks away from when services resume at Chapel de Oro. Canada is opening its borders in one week, and there are at least a dozen Canadian couples already packing and poised to cross that border just as soon as possible on their way back to what has become known as "Canada's southernmost city". We are anxiously waiting for their arrival.

In the meantime, Jo Ann and I continue preparing our "new" house ready for occupancy, dealing with little things like wall decorations, books on the shelves, etc., while waiting impatiently for our remodeling contractor to finish the flooring in the master bathroom, reroute the ice maker water line, replace the kitchen faucet, and a few other odds and ends. We will continue to live in the Park Model during the Chapel season, and I will probably keep my office there for the most part. As a matter of fact, I am writing most of today's letter from that "new office", atop a 20"x36" desk with a lone pencil drawer. There is just enough room between the desk and the end of the twin bed to fit my office chair, and room under the desk to stretch my legs -- so I'm a happy man.

Our ministry (Life Unlimited Ministries) will probably keep the Park Model as long as we continue pastoring Chapel de Oro because we feel there is a great need for the Chapel's pastor to live in the park itself during Chapel season. We are the first pastoral team to do that in over 10 years, and both Park management and Chapel members love the idea. That notwithstanding, we've already had several people, including some Chapel members, who have asked about our selling it. Some, I think, would love to buy it because it is situated on a corner lot with the end facing directly toward the Gila Mountains to the east. It has a spacious "Arizona" room that measures 13'X18', a screened in porch in the front, and a large patio area in the back. Most Arizona rooms are only around 8' to 10' wide and 10' to 14 feet long.

As I write today, the park is beginning to slowly fill up as winter creeps deeper into the Midwest and the northern tier of states. With the Canadian border opening up in just one week, this season will be a far cry from last season both in the park and in Chapel de Oro. However, we are still under certain limitations in place, such as 50% maximum capacity of the room. That won't affect us too much because that will still allow us to have 125 to 150 people in attendance. The local Park managers have also given permission for our members who live outside the park to attend. Both of these allowances really help our Chapel which, during peak season, will near 200 in attendance.

But, when I remember that Christians in the First Century who had to endure far worse, we have it so much easier, and shouldn't complain. Yesterday morning I received an e-mail from a dear Ukrainian friend who reads these letters. He indicated that currently Ukraine is still only 15% vaccinated, and he and his wife are still living in a smaller town that in Kyiv and maintaining great caution even though they have both been vaccinated.

Now to the topic at hand:

Today I am continuing our look at how America has forsaken God by embracing the killing of babies through abortion. I know there are many Christians who approve abortion (frankly, I cannot understand how they can in light of biblical teachings) and also suspect some may take issue with my reference to "Molech". But if you study the history of child sacrifice, you realize that the only difference between then and abortion today is the era and the method. Yet, there is little difference between killing a baby on the outstretched arms the god "Molech" or killing it in the womb. Whether being burned by "Molech's" white-hot iron hands or by saline solution in the womb, the suffering is beyond description. The motive is generally the same in both cases as well -- appeasement or resolution for the purpose of convenience, personal aspiration, or other reasons of self-interest.

So, as gruesome as it may sound, I believe the comparison is appropriate. Abortion is a gruesome process, and fatal to the baby.

In my last letter we examined abortion essentially from a scientific and medical viewpoint, pointing out five fundamental reasons why I believe abortion is wrong, listed fifteen specific medical facts about when life begins and how the fetus develops, and then finished by showing how the Psalmist (unbeknownst to him, obviously) used now-proven medical terms to describe how God Himself shaped him while in his mother's womb.

Today I want to make a turn and look at abortion in America from a more legal perspective, dealing specifically with that moment in 1973 when the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that the vast majority of people legalized the practice (it did NOT), and then consider some social implications of the practice. In fact, I had intended to concentrate on two or three points, but as I have studied the factors of and surrounding Roe v. Wade, I've concluded that we need to examine only that ruling and leave the rest for next letter. We will do that right after you consider . . .

THIS 'N' THAT:

+ First "Door of Hope" House Opened: Ninety years ago the first "Door of Hope" rescue home for girls opened on October 25, 1931. Read the story of how a very wealthy woman, Emma Whitmore, a NYC "elite" had her heart broken for the "wayward girls" of New York City, and ended up opening 97 "Door of Hope" facilities in seven countries. Go to https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/emma-whittemore-opened-door-of-hope-11630626.html?utm_source=This%20Week%20in%20Christian%20History%20&utm_campaign=This%20Week%20in%20Church%20History%20-%20Christianity.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=5512692&recip=521085018 .

QUOTES FOR THE WEEK:

> “In Illinois a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for 'delivering a controlled substance to a minor.' This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights of her own. But that same woman who is prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is perfectly free to abort her child. In America today, it is illegal to harm your preborn child, but it is perfectly legal to kill him.” -- Randy Alcorn

> "I long for the day that 'Roe v. Wade' is sent to the ash heap of history." -- Former V.P. Mike Pence

> "I think it's safe to say that the entire abortion industry is based on a lie. . . . I am dedicated to spending the rest of my life undoing the law that bears my name." -- Norma McCorvey (The "Jane Doe" in Roe v. Wade)

> "Even one abortion ought to prompt us to grief. Every life lost, every life harmed, rips at the image of God himself. Every life lost is a horror and an unspeakable tragedy. . . . it is still so terrifying in scope that we should weep. . . . Human life bears inherent dignity because human life reflects the life of God himself." -- Dr. Russell Moore

> "Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness." --Dr. Alveda King

> "Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother. Abortion is profoundly anti-women." -- Mother Teresa

> "It has its own DNA. It has its own genetic code. It has its own blood type. It has its own functioning brain, it's own functioning kidneys, its own functioning lungs, its own dreams. It's not the woman's body. It's in the woman's body. That's not the same." -- Matt Chandler

> "The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb." -- Unknown

> "America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men." -- Mother Teresa

> "For thirty years, beginning with the invention of a privacy right in the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, the Left has been waging a systematic assault on the constitutional foundation of the nation." -- David Horowitz

> "The greatest irony is that abortion has done what the Klan only dreamed of. . . . Roughly one-fourth of the black population is now missing." -- Dr. Alveda King

> "Instead of helping women in Roe v. Wade, I brought destruction to me and millions of women." -- Norma McCorvey (The "Jane Doe" in Roe v. Wade)

> "A nation that kills its children in the womb has lost its soul." -- Mother Teresa

> "Abortion is a sin and is clearly murder in God’s eyes. The people who perform it have no conscience, so I’m not at all surprised that they would be selling organs, tissue, and body parts from babies. Planned Parenthood should be put out of business—they’ve done enough damage. Sin has an enormous price. Our nation will one day have to answer to God for the millions of innocent lives taken by abortion, and that applies to every politician who voted for and defended abortion." -- Franklin Graham

> ". . . for all the great legal work that needs to be done to protect human life, the greatest work that needs to be done is to spread a passion - a satisfaction for the supremacy of God in all things." -- John Piper

IMPACT OF ABORTION:

Have you ever considered the fundamental root issue that makes abortion so acceptable to so many? Even the vast majority of Americans now believe that abortions should not be provided in the third trimester, and many feel it should not be allowed except in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's health. In spite of that, have you actually seriously considered what might be making people think that abortion was acceptable under certain conditions -- or believe it's a carte' blanche' to abort a preborn baby irregardless?

A few moments ago I got a news text on my iPhone announcing another shooting, and the first thought that went through my mind is that an increase in shootings and other violent crimes are encouraged for the same root reason abortion is so recklessly acceptable to some. The issue is really quite simple, actually.

It is simply a disregard for the sacredness -- the sanctity -- of life. Young men go on shooting rampages because they see no particular value to life, have no real sense of purpose for living, and have no awareness of what awaits those they kill -- or even what awaits them as the shooters. You see, when you view life as being merely "here and now" and nothing in the hereafter, it is easy to take the life of another person.

This same mindset influences euthanasia, suicide, -- and abortions. You can even attribute recent riots, murders, robberies, and property destruction to the same thing. When one does not respect life, he will not respect freedom (liberty), he will not respect property, and he will not respect the opportunity to pursue happiness and make something of himself. Neither will he respect those things in the lives of others he tries to destroy.

So, you see, life is the core issue for us all. Perhaps this is the reason that John the Apostle declared, "In Him was Life, and that Life was the Light of men." (Jn 1:4). This is why, in my opinion, abortion is such a wicked and evil act. It is a direct attack on the very nature and character of the God Who created life because He IS life. Personally, I believe abortion is a direct affront toward God Himself. It may well be that abortion could be seen as the most heinous sin a person can commit -- equal to the act of murder. But, what is the difference between killing a life living outside the womb and killing a life living inside the womb? Nothing but location.

I will address this later, but the sanctity of life is precisely what motivated the founding fathers to identify "Life" as the first of three inalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence. And, it was that understanding that became the foundational substructure of our very Constitution and the form of government our founders created. If there is no life to preserve, there is no need for either Constitution or government. To the degree that life is diminished or desecrated, it is to that degree that our national conscience is seared and our form of government is prostituted and skewed.

FACTS: -- THE REAL REASONS FOR ABORTION:

In a nutshell, the entire Roe v. Wade issue should have never come up -- for a couple of reasons. First, the lawsuit itself was filed NOT to strike down the Texas state law per se that was prohibiting abortion, but was instead filed under the "right to privacy" clause. Second, the "official" reasons given for wanting an abortion cannot be supported by the data. In my last letter I posted a chart that showed the breakdown on the various reasons given by women for having abortions. It is visually graphic enough that I include it again.

The argument by pro-abortionists is that a woman has the right to "choose" what to do with her body, so she alone should have the freedom to have or not have an abortion. (It would be helpful if the same argument could be made for masks and vaccinations these days.) However, the abortion industry has for decades falsely portrayed abortion as needed due to rape, incest, or endangerment to the health of the mother. Those, rather, are in fact the least given reasons for abortions, as so clearly illustrated in the chart above.

Carole Novielli of Live Action News wrote a piece in 2018 about this misrepresentation, stating the following:

"Ever since the abortion debate began, the American public has been told that abortion is necessary in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother (or health of the baby) is at risk. But information gathered from states that require abortion reporting show that only a tiny fraction of the so-called 'hard cases' (out of a million abortions annually in the U.S.) are why women abort. According to the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s former special affiliate and research arm, just '16 states require providers to give some information about the woman’s reason for seeking the procedure.'

"Every human life is worthy of protection, and Live Action News has featured numerous stories from courageous women who chose life for their babies conceived in rape, diagnosed with disabilities, or thought to be 'incompatible with life.' Tragically, while more and more of these women speak out and testify to the sanctity of each life, the profitable abortion lobby continues to pitch abortion as a solution to any problem a women encounters. And the numbers show it."

Those figures are very similar to what the National Institute of Health's National Library of Medicine reported in a 1996 feature in which they stated the results of a three-year study on the subject, saying, . . .

"The national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. Among 34 cases of rape-related pregnancy, the majority occurred among adolescents and resulted from assault by a known, often related perpetrator. . . . A total 32.4% of these victims did not discover they were pregnant until they had already entered the second trimester; 32.2% opted to keep the infant whereas 50% underwent abortion and 5.9% placed the infant for adoption; an additional 11.8% had spontaneous abortion. . . .

"As others are pointing out, the Guttmacher Institute estimates 1% of abortions are due to rape, and less than 0.5% are due to incest.

To summarize, of the thousands of horrendous cases of women being raped, the majority of them were raped by someone well known to the victim, and often by a relative. Of those raped under all circumstances, only 5% of them ended up causing a pregnancy, and over one-third of those pregnancies were not discovered until well into the second trimester. Of those pregnancies nearly one-third of the women chose to keep the baby while 50% chose abortion as their alternative, and fewer than 6% chose delivery and giving the baby up for adoption.

Circumstances of abortions because of rape, incest, or endangerment to the health of the mother or baby are classified as "hard cases". The Guttmacher Institute duplicated their survey in 2017 and also conducted the survey in foreign countries as well as the United States. The Institute found that less than 6% of abortions in those other countries were carried out for "hard case" reasons, and almost 95% were performed to "...please the mother's lifestyle or to please those close to her." Both in the 1997 survey and the 2017 survey carried by the Guttmacher Institute -- keep in mind that this is the research arm of Planned Parenthood itself-- the reported reason for an abortion remained the same. The overwhelming reason for abortion had nothing to do with rape, incest, or the mother's health. It was all a matter of personal convenience and preference. The vast majority are performed for social and/or economic reasons.

ROE VS WADE:

Frankly, I'm a bit surprised at how many people, especially Christians, do not have a clear understanding of the Roe v. Wade lawsuit, who the characters were, what the Court's opinion actually did, and what was the basis of the lawsuit. In a nutshell, it was a landmark legal decision issued on January 22, 1973, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute banning abortion. Contrary to popular opinion, the lawsuit was not filed in order to legalize abortion, but to challenge the issue of a woman's right to privacy, of all things.

Although the overwhelming number of our founders understood the sanctity of life and that abortion was at least undesirable, if not wrong altogether,by 1800 abortion wasn’t even mentioned in the laws of any jurisdiction. But one hundred years later, it was a criminal offense in every state.

That notwithstanding, the Supreme Court held that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Prior to Roe v. Wade, abortion had been illegal throughout much of the country since the late 19th century. The Supreme Court's opinion, to its shame, effectively legalized abortion across the United States

Up until the Supreme Court handed down its opinion, abortions were rare, and abortion laws were matters passed, regulated, and judged on state levels, not federal. So, when Roe v. Wade came to the Supreme Court, it not only supposedly legalized abortion, but it became a giant stepping stone to "abortion on demand", to a dramatic increase in promiscuity, and also ended up serving as an enormous open door for further federal overreach into states' rights to govern their own people.

Most people don't connect Roe v. Wade to federal overreach, but just look at the history of where the federal government has persistently expanded its influence and control over state issues since then. Do a little homework and check it out.

Sunday night Jo Ann and I watched an interview with Jonathan Turley, a constitutional scholar and professor at a major university. I have watched him interviewed scores of times over the years, and have been awed at his knowledge of the Constitution and its meaning. He is a liberal Democrat who has very different views from mine on many topics, but I have the greatest respect and admiration for him as a person and for what he says as a constitutional scholar, because he believes strongly in adhering to the Constitution as it was written. If you ever have a chance to hear him, please do so.

In the interview, Turley pointed to two things that he felt contributed to the dangerously extreme political and moral drift to the far left that we have seen so precipitously increase in the past year. He attributes this drift that has been going on for the past forty or fifty years to two things -- federal overreach into areas the Constitution delegates to the states, and the election of Senators on a public ballot rather than by state legislatures as originally designated in the Constitution. He sees Roe v. Wade as being one of those areas where the federal government absconded with the authority and right originally intended for states.

So, when on October 6th, 2020, just one month before the presidential election, former vice-president Joe Biden pledged to make the SCOTUS Roe vs. Wade decision "the law of the land" when he became president, that was a shot across the bow that should have been a warning to those who love life and oppose abortion. That may surprise many, not because of who Joe Biden is, -- for we've known for a long time that his earlier claim to be pro-life as opposed to pro-abortion was simply not true, -- but because they thought the Supreme Court majority opinion made Roe vs. Wade into law.

It did not, and it is not! IT NEVER HAS BEEN A LAW. It is an opinion by the 1973 Supreme Court handed down on a ingenious and deceptive law suit about the right to privacy, and not about abortion per se except, as I mentioned earlier, as it pertains to a woman's right to privacy. It was a professional legal slight-of-hand maneuver that has done more damage than any legal action probably since the Scopes Trial. It has not only led to the killing of 60+ million babies, but it has opened the floodgates of immorality and federal overreach.

Almost everyone has heard about "Roe vs. Wade" and that it is presumed to be a nationwide law legalizing abortion. However, it was NEVER made into a law. This, therefore, has been one of President Biden's goals. As I noted earlier, just a month before the 2020 election, he pledged to make it, "the law of the land". You see, Congress has NEVER passed an abortion law of any kind.

The History.com website has an excellent digest of Roe v. Wade that is worth reading. I would recommend it at https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/roe-v-wade. The article points out a little history of abortion in the United States. It states, . . .

"Until the late 19th century, abortion was legal in the United States before 'quickening,' the point at which a woman could first feel movements of the fetus, typically around the fourth month of pregnancy.

"Some of the early regulations related to abortion were enacted in the 1820s and 1830s and dealt with the sale of dangerous drugs that women used to induce abortions. Despite these regulations and the fact that the drugs sometimes proved fatal to women, they continued to be advertised and sold.

"In the late 1850s, the newly established American Medical Association began calling for the criminalization of abortion, partly in an effort to eliminate doctors’ competitors such as midwives and homeopaths.

"Additionally, some nativists, alarmed by the country’s growing population of immigrants, were anti-abortion because they feared declining birth rates among white, American-born, Protestant women.

"In 1869, the Catholic Church banned abortion at any stage of pregnancy, while in 1873, Congress passed the Comstock law, which made it illegal to distribute contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs through the U.S. mail. By the 1880s, abortion was outlawed across most of the country.

"During the 1960s, during the women’s rights movement, court cases involving contraceptives laid the groundwork for Roe v. Wade.

"In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law banning the distribution of birth control to married couples, ruling that the law violated their implied right to privacy under the U.S. Constitution. And in 1972, the Supreme Court struck down a law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried adults.

"Meanwhile, in 1970, Hawaii became the first state to legalize abortion, although the law only applied to the state’s residents. That same year, New York legalized abortion, with no residency requirement. By the time of Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion was also legally available in Alaska and Washington.

So, it seems that Roe v. Wade in some ways was another example of how liberal minds know how to bide their time, continue pressing the issue using the well-tried "drip-drip-drip-drip" patience approach until a liberal Court can be found to strike down an anti-abortion law in one state. They found it in the Warren Court.

And yet, after 48 years since Roe v. Wade, there is STILL no legislation that makes abortion actual law ---- only a Supreme Court case that struck down a Texas ban on abortions in 1973! In fact, this has been such a serious matter among pro-abortionists that they have repeatedly urged pro-abortionists in Congress to do that very thing. Even the ACLU has asked Congress more than once to make it "the law of the land".

Case in point ---- In 1999, on the 26th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling by the Supreme Court, the ACLU wrote a letter to Congress asking the House and Senate to pass a law that would make abortion "the law of the land". In fact, a letter written by Laura Murphy, the Director of ACLU's national office in Washington, urged Congress to take such action. An intense letter in spirit, some portions seem to plead with Congress, even "expecting" Congress to act. If you read it carefully, you can even sense a bit of intimidating threat in certain points.

The letter described Roe v. Wade as being, "...a giant leap forward in the fight for women's health and equality." It went on to state the ACLU's beliefs by saying, . . .

"We'd like to take the opportunity presented by this historic day to focus again on the importance of the right to choose to women's health and liberty, to continue to distinguish fact from fiction, and to emphasize the the absolute necessity of protecting the rights secured twenty-six years ago."

Murphy repeatedly expressed the ACLU's expectation of that 1999 Congress with statements such as . . .

"This Congress, we anticipate that a variety of measures restricting women's right to choose will once again be introduced."

Murphy also listed a number of actions they expected would probably come from states opposed to abortions, such actions that made it clear just how strongly many Americans still were toward legalized abortions. Then, after "warning" Congress of those dangerous threats from state legislatures, she concluded by stating, . . .

"This anniversary is a time to remember what it was like in our society before choice was a protected right and to increase our resolve to ensure that efforts to turn back the clock do not succeed. We thank you for your past support of, and for your future commitment to, protecting women's health and equality with the right to choose."

If you'd care to read this letter in its entirety, (it's too lengthy to include here), go to https://www.aclu.org/letter/letter-congress-26th-anniversary-roe-v-wade .

Up to now, some 48 years later, Congress has Still Not Passed legislation that makes Abortion "the law of the land". In fact, in my research I stumbled onto a very interesting article written way back in 2000 by the Central States Co-Chairman of the Constitution Party, Greg Moeller. Sadly, most Americans tend to discount "third party" influence as being insignificant. In fact, if you talk to people who are disenchanted with the Democratic and Republican Parties, they would rather see themselves as "Independents" rather than as members of the Libertarian, Constitution, or Communist Parties. There seems in their minds to be some kind of stigma to being identified with a specific party other than Democrat and Republican. And, as we know from the George Wallace campaign, serious third parties tend to guarantee a victory for one of the two major parties.

Nonetheless, having lived in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri, and paying relatively close attention to local, county, and state elections, I've come to appreciate the contribution such parties make to the debate. As I've gotten to know some of those folks, I find their opinions to be of significant value. Libertarians offer something I believe in very strongly -- individual liberties guaranteed as the Constitution proclaims. Those of the Constitution Party have as their bulwark the standard of the Constitution as written by our founders. I believe that as well.

When Jo Ann and I lived in southwestern Missouri, we attended a number of county-sponsored gatherings where candidates for national, state, and county offices from all parties were invited to present their respective cases. I was particularly impressed with candidates from the Constitution Party because they so strongly believe in the Constitution as written by the founders and not as a "living" progressive document that can be changed by whim, opinion, or preference. So, when I read Moeller's article, I was impressed with what he had to say in his "Roe v. Wade Is Not the Law of the Land: Exposing the myth of judicial supremacy". Among other things, he wrote, . . .

"Widely accepted as the 'law of the land,' it is held in large part responsible for the execution of over a million pre-born children in the womb in the United States each year. Consequentially, it has been concluded by many that until Roe v. Wade is 'overturned' and no longer the 'law of the land' that there is nothing substantial that can be done about 'legal' abortion.

"As tragic as these legal circumstances may seem, there is perhaps an even more tragic aspect to this entire issue, one that is born out of gross ignorance of the plain text of the Constitution on the part of not only the American public but even many pro-life legislators nationwide. What is it that has gone so wrong after all these years? It's simple. We have been lied to. Roe v. Wade is NOT a law at all, even less the 'law of the land'. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact, a fact that is easy to understand by simply picking up the Constitution and reading it."

The Constitution is crystal clear ---- it is the Legislature that passes, amends, and nullifies laws. The Judicial Branch passes judgment on whether or not a law adheres to the Constitution. Just because a court hands down a "judgment" or ruling on a matter does not make it a law, though it can deem it legal; nor does it discount an existing law from no longer being a law. Only the Legislature can do that. This is part of the genius of our form of government -- the separation of powers. Congress makes laws, the Judiciary determines its constitutionality, and the Executive Branch takes the final step by signing or vetoing what Congress passed through the laborious checks and balances system of the two divisions of Congress -- the House and the Senate. Then the Executive Branch is obligated to administer the law -- according to the Constitutional. Our founders were brilliant in creating this system.

But this is still President Biden's goal -- to make Roe v. Wade which the Supreme Court merely deemed a Dallas County anti-abortion law to be unconstitutional (with a real "stretch" of the "right to privacy" clause), into a law enacted by Congress. I doubt seriously that it will actually happen during his first term because it will require some pro-life Democrats to vote in favor of something they oppose. The changes after the 2022 mid-terms will likely be even less. But, stranger things have happened already, so it is always possible.

BACKGROUND TO ROE V. WADE:

Most people know a little about "Roe" -- or "Jane Doe" as she is identified, and not much else -- especially concerning the background and the legal ramifications. There are two particular things that most people don't know: --- 1) They don't know who "Wade" is and the background leading up to the SCOTUS ruling, and 2) They don't know that "Roe vs. Wade" did absolutely NOTHING to make it a federal law. The overwhelming number of American citizens think it is actually the law -- and it is not.

So, let's take some time to dig into the actual facts about "Roe vs. Wade".

+ The Motivation: -- In the "modern America" era of the early 20th Century some women who wanted abortions resorted to illegal, dangerous, “back-alley” abortion procedures, self-induced abortive drugs, or folklore practices. In the 1950s and 1960s, the estimated number of illegal abortions in the United States ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year, according to the Guttmacher Institute. This was, for them, of course a great argument for trying to legalize abortions.

+ Jane Roe: -- By now we know that "Jane Roe" in the lawsuit was actual Norma McCorvey, a Texas woman just 22 years old, divorced, homeless, and pregnant. She had dropped out of school at age 14, and had grown up in difficult impoverished circumstances. In court documents, McCorvey became known as “Jane Roe.” After having given birth to two babies previously, whom she had given up for adoption, this time she sought to terminate an unwanted pregnancy through an abortion. At the time of McCorvey’s pregnancy back then, abortion was legal in Texas, but only for the purpose of saving a woman’s life. All other abortions were illegal.

McCorvey was by no means one of those wealthy American women who could travel to other countries and obtain abortion an abortion where the procedure was both safe and legal, and she certainly didn't have the wherewithal to pay a large fee to a doctor in the U.S. who was willing to secretly perform an abortion. So, as the legal process dragged on for three years, McCovey gave birth and put the child up for adoption.

+ Coffee and Weddington: -- After trying unsuccessfully to get an illegal abortion, McCorvey was referred by an adoption agency to Texas attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, pro-abortion feminists who were looking for an opportunity to challenge anti-abortion laws. They needed a "willing subject", and McCorvey was a perfect fit. In 1970 attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington filed a lawsuit in McCorvey's behalf, but also for all other women, present and future, "who were or might become pregnant and want to consider all options." When Weddington argued before the Supreme Court, she was only 26 years old.

Joining in the lawsuit was a Texas doctor who had previously been arrested for having violated the Texas law that allowed abortion only if it would save the mother's life. He argued that the state's abortion laws were too vague for doctors to follow. It was a crime to get an abortion or to attempt one for any other reason.

Norma McCorvey only met with her two lawyers twice. When she met with them the first time. over beer and pizza, she didn't know what the word "abortion"meant. Her lawyers, Coffee and Weddington, told her that abortion just dealt with a piece of tissue, and that it was much like passing her period. She remembered a John Wayne movie had talked about "aborting the mission", so she thought it meant to "turn around and go back", as in going back to not being pregnant.

and the other time she met with them to sign an affidavit that she hadn't even read. She also was never called to appear in any court proceedings, whether state, district, or federal, and, to cap it all off, she never heard the results of court proceedings from the two lawyers, but instead found out about the infamous ruling from the newspapers.

+ Wade: -- Henry Wade was the District Attorney of Dallas County, Texas. He was already well known as a hard-nosed D.A. who had gained the national spotlight by prosecuting Jack Ruby who had killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy. During the trial, Wade presented three main arguments in his defense of the Texas anti-abortion law:

+ States have an interest in safeguarding health, maintaining medical standards, and protecting prenatal life

+ A fetus is a "person" protected by the 14th Amendment

+ Protecting prenatal life from the time of conception is a compelling state interest

All of those arguments were legitimate then, and still are today. However, when in June 1970, a Texas district court ruled that the state’s abortion ban was illegal because it violated a constitutional right to privacy, Wade declared he’d continue to prosecute doctors who performed abortions. It ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the earlier District Court ruling, and in that action, almost all state laws restricting abortions in any way were nullified and became moot.

At that point, abortions became legal in all states because the Supreme Court ruling was applied nationally, not just on Texas alone.

+ The Ruling: -- On Jan 22, 1973, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, struck down the Texas law banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure nationwide. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry Blackman, the court declared that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment.

The Court was skeptical over the idea that life begins at conception, the belief held by the State of Texas even at that time, and that both the State and the Constitution indicate constitutional protection beginning at conception. However, because the Constitution does not provide a definition of a "person," but does say that its protections cover those who are "born or naturalized", the Court concluded that 'the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.'

Also, in the Roe v. Wade decision the Court pointed out the differing views on when life begins. For example, many Jews believe that life begins at birth while Catholics believe that life begins at conception. While this 1973 view was that, though they vary in several ways, doctors' views then tended to lean toward the belief that life begins sometime before birth. Today, it is almost unanimous among the medical field that life actually does begin at conception, just as the Bible indicates.

When it came to the nine months of pregnancy, the Court divided pregnancy into three trimesters, and declared that the choice to end a pregnancy in the first trimester was solely up to the woman. In the second trimester, the government could regulate abortion, although not ban it, in order to protect the mother’s health.

In the third trimester, the state could prohibit abortion to protect a fetus that could survive on its own outside the womb, except when a woman’s health was in danger.

+ The Roe v. Wade Legacy: -- Following the Supreme Court's decision, Norma McCorvey maintained a low profile, but then in the 1980s became extremely active in the abortion rights movement as its spokesperson. However, after becoming friends with the head of an anti-abortion group and converting to Catholicism during the mid-1990s, she turned into a vocal opponent of the procedure.

Many people see Roe v. Wade as another example of "judicial activism". That term means that judges base their decisions on personal views rather than existing constitutional law. The "right to privacy" idea comes from the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Due Process Class does not explicitly say that Americans have a right to privacy, but the Supreme Court has n general accepted that idea as far back as 1891. In fact, in 1972, just a year before Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court held that, . . .

"In a Constitution for a free people, there can be no doubt that the meaning of 'liberty' must be broad indeed."

In Roe v. Wade, the Court decided that the "right to privacy" included a woman's control over a pregnancy. Since then many states have imposed restrictions that have weaken abortion rights, and Americans remain divided over support for a woman’s right to choose an abortion.

+ Seven Little Known Facts about Roe v. Wade -- According to the website, catholic.com, there are some facts about the lawsuit that very few people know. Because McCorvey became a devout practicing Catholic, she was repeatedly interviewed about her conversion to Christianity and what led to her change of heart regarding abortion. I find these quite interesting, and was not aware of several of them. Perhaps you are the same. They are . . .

1. "Jane Roe", Norma McCorvey never had an abortion. Instead, she carried the little girl up to full term, delivered her, and then gave her up for adoption, as she had done with the previous two. To her dying day, McCorvey resented the assumption that she had had an abortion, and was deeply saddened that her name was so connected to the practice.

2. During Supreme Court arguments, Attorney Sarah Weddington laughed as she answered a question posed by Justice Potter Stewart. It's not so much that she laughed, but that she laughed in response to this specific question:

Justice Potter Stewart: "Well, if it were established that an unborn fetus is a person within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, you would have almost an impossible case here, would you not?"

Weddington: "I would have a very difficult case." [Then she laughed.]

Justice Potter Stewart: "You certainly would because you’d have the same kind of thing you’d have to say that this would be the equivalent to after the child was born."

Weddington: "That’s right."

Justice Potter Stewart: "If the mother thought that it bothered her health having the child around, she could have it killed. Isn’t that correct?"

Weddington: "That’s correct."

Justice Potter's point was that if it could be shown that the unborn is a person, and thus deserving of legal protection under the fourteenth amendment, then the entire case for legal abortion would fall apart. That, -- or worse, that it could be used to justify killing born children if the mother so wished. Weddington laughed as she admitted this.

3. The majority decision in Roe v. Wade contained some very weak argumentation, so much so that the State of Texas argued that, because life begins at conception (a fact already having been medically proven even back then), the unborn are just as entitled to legal protection under the law as a born child. The Court sidestepped the issue with this response?

"We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."

The Catholic website went on to show just how irresponsible and irrational the Court's response really was, stating, . . .

"This is an incoherent line of reasoning for two reasons. First, the State of Texas is right: life begins at conception. This simple biological reality is not a “difficult question” and was known even in 1973. Second, the Court concluded that, because one may not know when life begins, abortion should, in the name of privacy, be legal. Even if one is not convinced as to whether the unborn is a human person, that’s actually a good reason not to kill one. To borrow an analogy from Peter Kreeft, if a hunter sees something moving in the brush but isn’t sure if it is a deer or his fellow hunter, wouldn’t that be a good reason to not shoot into the brush?

"The majority opinion’s line of reasoning fails both basic biology and logic. Even Edward Lazarus, who clerked for Justice Blackmun, remarked that 'As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible … Justice Blackmun’s opinion provides essentially no reasoning in support of its holding'.”

4. The majority decision was countered by a severe commentary of dissent by the minority in the ruling. The majority decision, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, was based primarily on a so-called “right to privacy” under the fourteenth amendment. Even though the Court acknowledged that the Constitution does not explicitly contain a “right to privacy”, Blackman stated that such a right is "implied" in the “penumbras” (shadows) of "certain sections" of the Constitution.

The dissenting opinions were strongly stated by Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist. In the dissenting opinion, White wrote,

"I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court’s judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant women and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes."

In his portion of the dissenting opinion, Rehnquist wrote the following concerning the applicability of the fourteenth amendment to any so-called “right to privacy” that might extend to striking down state abortion laws:

“To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.”

Rehnquist also pointed out what little the Court actually knew about the plaintiff. He said that the Court knew, . . .

“...only that plaintiff Roe at the time of filing her complaint was a pregnant woman…she may have been in her last trimester of pregnancy as of the date the complaint was filed.”

In other words, the court’s decision may not have even applied to the plaintiff’s actual situation.

5. Roe v. Wade was almost overturned in 1992 in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey lawsuit. Those who oppose overturning Roe v. Wade often contend that to do so would make abortion illegal throughout the United States. I'm far from being an authority of any kind when it comes to law issues, I do know this is not true.

As I understand it from legal minds who have explained it to me -- and I've also heard it from various attorneys in recent television programs -- IF (and that's a big "IF") Roe v. Wade were overturned tomorrow, the legal questions regarding abortion would then become the prerogative of the states, which is where it should be decided anyhow.

The demographics, values, and moral convictions are often very different from state to state, and as part of the rights of the federal government, abortion issues and decisions do not belong to the federal government, but rather belong to the states. So, once again, federal government overreach took place in the Roe v. Wade decision.

In February 2005, McCorvey actually petitioned the Supreme Court in McCorvey v. Hill to overturn the 1973 decision, arguing that she had standing to do so as one of the original litigants and that the case should be heard once again in light of what she claimed was evidence that the procedure harms women. Her petition was denied by the Court.

6. Norma McCorvey repeatedly has stated that she was actually coerced into filing the lawsuit, and into making up lies about her situation. According to her own testimony, she claimed that she was instructed to state that she was pregnant because of rape in order to add favorable weight to the case and make it more sensational so as to gain sympathy in the courts and in public opinion.

Both Linda Coffee (of Women’s Equity Action League) and Sarah Weddington, were looking for pregnant women whose personal; situations could be used for challenging existing abortion laws. McCorvey later stated that she believed that she had been coerced and that the reason Coffee and Weddington used her was in order to bring a case before the Court that would strike down states’ laws and policies that restricted or prohibited abortion. McCorvey personally acknowledged that she had no interest in such matters.

7. McCorvey came to faith in Christ as Phillip Benham, national director of Operation Rescue, shared the Gospel with her. She committed her life to Christ and later became a devout Catholic and pro-life advocate. When she began her involvement in the pro-abortion industry, she worked at an abortion clinic helping other women have abortions. However, there came a point in time while at work when all of that changed. In her own words, she wrote, . . .

"I was sitting in O.R.’s offices when I noticed a fetal development poster. The progression was so obvious…something in that poster made me lose my breath…It’s as if blinders just fell off my eyes and I suddenly understood the truth—that’s a baby!

"I felt crushed under the truth of this realization…All those years I was wrong. Signing that affidavit, I was wrong. Working in an abortion clinic, I was wrong. No more of this first trimester, second trimester, third trimester stuff. Abortion—at any point—was wrong. It was so clear."

Later McCorvey said,

“I think it’s safe to say that the entire abortion industry is based on a lie…I am dedicated to spending the rest of my life undoing the law that bears my name.”

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ABOUT ROE V. WADE:

1. If you are one who would like to know more about the inner workings surround the Roe v. Wade ruling and how it has impacted American culture, there are numerous websites written from both pro-abortion and pro-life perspectives. Here are just a few of the many that I researched:
    + https://supreme.findlaw.com/supreme-court-insights/roe-v--wade-case-summary--what-you-need-to-know.html
    + https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/roe-v-wade
    + https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/seven-important-facts-to-know-about-roe-v-wade
    + https://www.lifenews.com/2015/01/20/five-facts-about-norma-mccorvey-of-roe-vs-wade-you-probably-didnt-know/
    + https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/roe_v_wade_%281973%29
    + https://famguardian.org/Subjects/LawAndGovt/Articles/RoeVWadeNotLaw.htm

2. Roe vs. Wade was built on a total lie.

3. Before her death, the "Jane Doe" used not only revealed her true identity, but also unequivocally condemned abortion.

4. Since Roe v. Wade, nearly 63 MILLION babies have been lost to abortion.

5. That means that Americans have killed an average of 1,313,000 innocent lives were destroyed and robbed of any chance at life. That is 4,603 babies' lives are terminated in the womb every day for the past 48 years. That tallies out to over 140 abortions per hour -- or over two per minuted.

6. If the stated reasons given in all the surveys from Planned Parenthood and other agencies to have an abortion are indeed accurate -- and all evidence indicates they are -- then that means that since January, 1973, over 59,800,000 abortions were committed simply for the sake of reputation, personal inconvenience, economic reasons, or or career liabilities. That is a sad and sick indictment on us as a nation.

FINALLY:

By now, you surely know how I feel about abortions. I have an incredible sensitivity to those who believe they found it necessary to have an abortion; we know several personally who made that difficult choice. And, I will not condemn or castigate any who have gone that route. I am deeply grieved that they evidently did not consider the alternatives or perhaps felt there were no reasonable alternatives.

But what grieves me more -- actually it angers me -- is that our nation, by neglect, ignorance, and compromise, has allowed itself to become one of the top three or four nations in the world that deliberately takes the lives of its unborn. Of all nations in the world, the United States -- a nation founded on the Judeo-Christian principles of the Bible -- has surrendered to the demonic lie that life is of little value, and "when it's over, it's over", whether it's in the grave at age 90 or on the streets at age 30, or in the womb at the age of 15 days.

Frankly, I am convinced that AIDS, SARS, natural disasters, and now COVID-19 are God's attempts to get our attention and cause us to repent over killing so many millions of His creations made in His image.

Next week I want to consider the issue of abortion from how it relates to our Constitution and the thinking of our founding fathers. Now, I need to decompress, get a bite of supper, and crash for the evening. So, until next week, I remain . .

In His Bond, By His Grace, and for His Kingdom,

Bob Tolliver -- Romans 1:11

Life Unlimited Ministries
LUMglobal
[email protected]

"A fire kept burning on the hearthstone of my heart, and I took up the burden of the day with fresh courage and hope." -- Charles F. McKoy

"If Jesus had preached the same message that many ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified." -- Leonard Ravenhill

"The time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the Church will have clowns entertaining the goats." -- Charles H. Spurgeon

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