By Judie Brown
Last week, Maine senator Susan Collins (R) delivered a speech the day before Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed. It seems that this speech defined the crux of the debate between the two sides. If that is the case, then we can be assured that the entire clash of worldviews over this Supreme Court nomination came down to one thing: whether or not abortion would be protected.
During her speech, Senator Collins, a strong advocate for abortion, said, “Finally, in his testimony, he noted repeatedly that Roe had been upheld by Planned Parenthood v. Casey, describing it as ‘precedent on precedent.’ When I asked him would it be sufficient to overturn a long-established precedent if five current justices believed it was wrongly decided, he emphatically said ‘no.’”
And just over a month earlier this same senator explained that she “would not support a nominee who demonstrated hostility to Roe v. Wade,” stating that the Supreme Court decision made abortion a “constitutional right.”
So, where does that leave the babies? Well, when the very identity of these children is pushed aside in deference to a rhetorical battle of semantics, the babies are still nowhere.
There is a crisis of truth that goes far beyond this Supreme Court nomination and the circus that surrounded it.
Professor Charles Rice (d. 2015) once addressed what the Constitution has to say about preborn children. He then pointed out that the Supreme Court’s rulings on abortion include “four principal elements”:
- The unborn child is a non-person and therefore has no constitutional rights;
- The right of his mother to kill that non-person is a “liberty interest” protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment;
- The states may impose some marginal restrictions on abortion but are barred from effectively prohibiting abortion at any stage of pregnancy;
- Efforts undertaken in the vicinity of an abortuary to dissuade
women from abortion are subject to more stringent restrictions than are other forms of speech, assembly and association.
It is therefore perfectly clear that, according to the laws of this nation, the preborn child is a nonexistent human being. This will remain the case until a majority of Americans see the reality of what abortion does to a preborn child and that this aborted individual is in fact a person and a member of the human family—someone deserving of having his human rights and his right to life protected.
St. John Paul II underscored this truth when he said: “Particularly, among the fundamental rights of man, the Catholic Church claims for every human being the right to life as the primary right. She does it in the name of the truth about man and to protect his freedom, that cannot be sustained without respect for the right to life. The Church affirms the right to life of every innocent human being and at every moment of his existence.”
To repeat, only if and when the preborn child’s right to life is recognized as a nonnegotiable right will his freedom and his right to life be secured.
This is the challenge we face.
This is the truth upon which the very existence of our fight to secure protection for the innocent preborn child is hinged.
This is the principle that is sorely absent from public debates and wildly disrespectful demonstrations and speeches by elected officials such as Senator Susan Collins.
St. Thomas Aquinas once wrote: “[It is] better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.”
Pro-lifers must illuminate the nonnegotiable truth that abortion is not and never has been a political matter. Abortion is a deliberate act that results in death—the death of a fellow human being.
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Learn the facts.
Teach the truth.
Protest the evil.