I usually don’t agree with what Vox has to say, but here’s something they got right:
“The unfilled vacancy of Antonin Scalia’s seat combined with a Hillary Clinton victory in November could set the Court on a new course.”
That’s from an article called, “How the first liberal Supreme Court in a generation could reshape America.” It examines the impact judicial appointments have — something pro-lifers should be aware of.
The Supreme Court has a special talent when it comes to abortion: finding what isn’t there. For example, while the Constitution says nothing about a right to abortion, that didn’t stop Justice Harry Blackmun from discovering one. Where? Well, he said it was part of the “right of privacy.” Where’s that right enumerated? It’s not. As Blackmun himself admitted in Roe v. Wade, “The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy.” Despite this, Blackmun somehow knew that it both existed and protected abortion:
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
Blackmun also mentioned “the detriment” of being denied the chance to abort; the detriment of getting aborted didn’t come up. Here’s what that can look like:
After the amniotic fluid is removed, the abortionist uses a sopher clamp — a grasping instrument with rows of sharp “teeth” — to grasp and pull the baby’s arms and legs, tearing the limbs from the child’s body. The abortionist continues to grasp intestines, spine, heart, lungs, and any other limbs or body parts. The most difficult part of the procedure is usually finding, grasping and crushing the baby’s head. After removing pieces of the child’s skull, the abortionist uses a curette to scrape the uterus and remove the placenta and any remaining parts of the baby.
But it doesn’t stop there. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court overturned rules to protect women from unsafe abortion facilities. The plaintiff in that case, Whole Woman’s Health, was an abortion chain with a history of health code violations. They included using suction machines with “numerous rusty spots,” something that “had the likelihood to cause infection.” Also noted was the potential for “rodents to enter the facility.”
Other inspections documented “infection control issues” from staff failing to “perform the correct procedure for the sterilization of the surgical instruments.” In 2007, Whole Woman’s Health was fined for not having “a midlevel provider, a registered nurse, or a licensed vocational nurse” there either.
Now the First Amendment is under threat too. Time and again, hidden camera investigations have uncovered scandals at Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion chain. They include offering to arrange involuntary abortions on underage prostitutes who “can’t speak English” and “won’t know what’s going on…”
… telling a girl who claims to be 14 and pregnant by her 31 year-old boyfriend to lie about the man’s age when seeking an abortion…
… and accepting money from people who said they wanted to see black children aborted.
Naturally, Planned Parenthood wasn’t amused. As a result, their friends in the California legislature moved to outlaw these sorts of investigations. That law is being challenged, and the Supreme Court may eventually decide its constitutionality.
In the piece he wrote for Vox, Dylan Matthews said that “the Supreme Court is truly at a tipping point” and that “the implications of such a shift are massive.” I agree. I hope it’s something other pro-lifers recognize as well, as we continue working to persuade our leaders and to shift public opinion against abortion as the killing of innocents.
