The recent court decision in Oklahoma is a perfect example of such numbed thinking. In a decision that stunned pro-life Americans, the Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously struck down a proposed ballot measure that would have, if passed by the voters in that state, recognized the humanity of the child prior to birth. According to the Huffington Post, “The Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously vetoed a ballot measure that would have given embryos full personhood rights on Monday, ruling it ‘clearly unconstitutional’ because it would block a woman’s legal right to have an abortion.”
The advocates of death for the preborn are running scared. Opponents of the Oklahoma proposal “contend the measure would ban abortions without exception and interfere with a woman’s right to use certain forms of contraception and medical procedures, such as in vitro fertilization.”
Nancy Northup, president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said, “This amendment would have run roughshod over the fundamental, constitutionally protected reproductive rights of all Oklahoma women.”
There they go again! Proponents of abortion always argue that a woman has specific rights guaranteed by the Constitution and that among those rights is the right to kill her preborn child. Why? According to current law, preborn human beings have no rights.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court alleged that the proposed constitutional amendment could not move forward because it was “repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.”
In other words, according to Oklahoma Supreme Court justices, the Constitution of the United States contains principles that deny human rights to an entire class of human beings—preborn children—because their mothers have a right to end their lives if they wish to do so. In fact, the United States Supreme Court in its Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 did redefine who is and who is not a human being. Because of this, such berserk notions as those emanating from the Oklahoma justices have taken on the identity of constitutional law.
On the other side of the argument Steve Crampton, vice president for legal affairs and general counsel for Liberty Counsel, which represents Personhood Oklahoma said, “This ruling epitomizes judicial overreaching. It not only misinterprets and misapplies federal constitutional law, but it also denies states’ rights and strips Oklahomans of their right to petition for a substantive change in state law.”
What the Oklahoma justices have done is pander to the culture of death by insinuating that the people’s right to amend the state constitution by popular vote to make it clear that every preborn child is a person is anathema to their political agenda. These justices, like the U. S. Supreme Court justices in 1973, do not recognize the fundamental truth that justice must be grounded in the natural law.
The act or action that results in the death of human beings prior to birth is an injustice and that is what the people of Oklahoma should be given a chance to state publicly—both for the record and for posterity.
This is not a debate about women’s rights; it is not a debate about birth control or in vitro fertilization. It is a debate about what is right and what is wrong. Period. It is as simple as this:
• If a child can be killed because his mother ingests a pill for the alleged purpose of avoiding pregnancy, then that pill is deadly and should not be available. It should be banned by law.
• If a child can be killed because clinicians are creating human beings in petri dishes and then choosing only the fit to be transferred to their mothers, or surrendering certain children for research purposes, then the practice of in vitro fertilization and related fertility treatments should not be available. It should be banned by law.
• If a doctor or a nurse practitioner can perform a procedure designed to result in the death of a human being prior to birth, then that act should not be available. It should be banned by law.
The people of Oklahoma have every right to make this clear.
