How difficult it is at times to conclude that each and every human being is of equal value in creation. Were it not the plan of a Divine Creator, the concept of human equality might be considered absurd.

Our senses acting alone would conclude that equality is obviously not the case. Tragically, though, inequality has legally prevailed in these once-United States of America now just one year short of a half-century. Your equal treatment under the law is conditioned on how you are defined by the Supreme Court of what is still the greatest country on the face of this earth.

This nation and its legal basis were predicated on belief in a Divine Creator from whom we derive our rights, however, and it has survived because of this belief. Its future survival is also totally dependent on this higher principle, one which has been tested before.

Once again, we are approaching a fork in the road. It is one which surely does look familiar. Our study of history should call to mind a man held in legal slavery named Dred Scott. He WAS deemed to be unequal. The truth did eventually prevail, though, but the price in terms of human lives was staggering.

The writer took a deep pause just before noon on Dec. 1 of this past year, while pausing to view a grotto visible through the dining room picture window. The reason was to say a reflective prayer for God’s intercession in a formal hearing which was then being held in the U. S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. At the core of this legal undertaking – in lay person’s terms – was an uncomplicated two-fold question: What constitutes a human being, and does the government have an obligation to control the environment which allows a human’s heart to continue beating. Not sounding legal? Not meant to!

The case originated in Mississippi and is known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Because of the nature of the issue involved, Dobbs is inextricably entwined with the landmark Roe v. Wade decision whose hearings had been held by the Supreme Court just 50 years earlier.

Over 62 million newly-created human beings residing in their mother’s womb have been destroyed before taking a first breath because of the 7 to 2 decision, which was ruled in favor of the plaintiff who used the pseudonym Jane Roe.

Just over two years after the Roe decision, Newsweek magazine had its cover story on the aftermath of the decision, and the cover had a picture of a child who had been developing in the womb for 15 weeks prior to removal. To say that it was an eye-opener to many people surely was the understatement of the year.

The main provision of Dobbs is to set 15 weeks’ gestation as the point beyond which any abortion procedure can be performed. Dobbs and legislation in several other states have sometimes been labeled “heartbeat bills” because science has clearly established that a fetal heartbeat is detectable at this point in a pregnancy.

The obvious irony present in this scenario is that the foremost opponents to this type of legislation, including the current president of the country and all his top officials, have predicated the approach to the Covid-19 pandemic with a succinct slogan: Follow The Science.” As regards any legal actions relating to the abortion procedure legalized by the Roe decision, they then flip 180 degrees.

That Roe was the pseudonym for an out-of-wedlock pregnant woman named Norma McCorvey is well-known. Her somewhat jumbled Cajun personality went much deeper, though, when one got to talk to “Miss Norma” about her upbringing and youthful environment. What shaped her persona, that which people observed on the surface, actually covered an individual with deep personal warmth.

God has since called this woman home, leaving many who knew her personally to conclude she is now part of that great communion of saints – and a smiling “Miss Norma.” This is not what many devious individuals who exploited her personal problems would like to have been her destiny.

Dobbs is also inextricably tied to Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which in 1992 ruled in favor of the defendant in upholding the legalization of abortion by Roe v. Wade. This was another sad example of the Supreme Court’s failure to face the humanity of the pre-born “fetus,” which literally from Latin translates to “little one.”

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is often cited as the deciding vote, but Anthony Kennedy’s so-called jurisprudence was what prevailed, and it leaves one wondering how he can face each day in retirement. His attempt to define what constitutes truth was convoluted. Yet he would be the deciding vote later to legally destroy our multi-millennial concept of marriage being only between a man and a woman.

The decision on Dobbs by the Supreme Court is a great hope for the Right To Life movement. But it may not be what many are looking to accomplish. When the decision is handed down, it certainly will diminish the number of pre-born humans destroyed each day, but this decision alone will not bring legalized feticide to an end. It will not overturn the disastrous legal reasoning which prevailed back in the early 70s.

Abortion is actually a deceptive word to use, because the issue is not the act performed – but the subject affected by the act. The subject being aborted is a HUMAN BEING, and it is precisely this humanity that, once accepted, will eventually relegate Roe v. Wade to the scrap heap of history.

Follow the science! We are not dealing only with pieces of flesh; we are dealing with a well-organized, developing member of the human family. Not only is there a beating heart detectable in as few as 22 days of gestation, but at the very moment a sperm joins with the ovum, the complete DNA of a distinct HUMAN BEING begins his or her existence. Nothing in any of our lives exceeds the marvel of what happens when this act occurs.

And just to think that each and every one of us had such a beginning!

To say this boggles the mind actually underplays its true magnificence. Some of us ARE at a loss for words, admittedly, in this regard except to repeat the Cliché of the Day: Follow the Science.

Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the Roe decision for the entire Supreme Court stated that, if that which was developing in the mother’s womb could be considered a legal “person,” the decision would not have been handed down. The irony is glaring – and hypocritical.

Dred Scott was granted freedom by his legal master, but for millions of others held in slavery, it was necessary to pass the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U. S. Constitution in order to grant freedom to former slaves who legally were property. Additional civil rights legislation proved to be still needed.

The irony is that the 14th Amendment would ultimately be used legally to allow a newly-developing child in utero to have his or her life ended by use of a scalpel, suction device, or other medical means. The Court had earlier found a constitutional “right to privacy” in its “penumbras” and “emanations.”

The 14th Amendment was the avenue used by attorneys Weddington and Coffee to establish this newly-located “constitutional right” which Justice Blackmun introduced in the Roe v. Wade decision.

To the “right to life” community, as the Newsweek article correctly referred to Roe opponents, it was created out of thin air and “raw judicial power” as Justice Rehnquist referred to it in his scathing dissent.

In the years subsequent to their 1975 article, the entire lexicon of the abortion industry has changed with regard to terminating the life of a newly-created human being in utero. Yes, it is an industry which includes the abortion providers, political bodies, academia, the media, and sundry power blocs.

Witness this recent AOL headline story!

Right To Lifers are now “anti-abortionists,” and the entire process is not “destructive rights,” but “REPRODUCTIVE rights” – although the subject is about destroying a him or a her who has already been reproduced. Clearly, they are objectifying a someone, but the media only creates rules for others to follow.

At fertilization we all had the DNA of a never-before-created HUMAN being. Only two conditions needed to be met: to be left in the same locale until expelled by our mother, as nature provided; or to be safely removed by Cesarean section – after reaching the age of viability.

Meeting someone such as a Gianna Jessen decades ago, who was forcibly aborted – and survived – was an extremely moving experience. There are many others today, abortion survivors. but the MSM avoids them because they are such compelling examples of what Right To Lifers have been defending from the outset of this horrendous segment of our nation’s history – beginning January 22, 1973. Melissa Ogden is one such, after having survived a saline abortion. She is on the lecture circuit, and needless to say, an avid Right To Lifer.

New “heartbeat” laws are aimed at protecting the newly-created HUMAN, a separate individual from the mother. It takes aim at Roe because it exposes the 50-year-old arguments which ignored the humanity of a victim, who over this near-half-century has been given no legal protection.

With all of today’s glorification of science is one branch of science that was brushed aside by the two Texas lawyers and their political allies who lured Norma McCorvey into being their standard-bearing plaintiff. It is embryology, that study of how all of us developed from microscopic size to taking our first breath. Some of the following facts are surely worthy of note:

1. At conception, the new creation contains 23 chromosomes from the mother and the same from the father.

2. At one month of age, the embryo is l0,000 times the size of the fertilized egg.

3. At 40 days gestation, brain waves are detectable.

4. By the 7th week, toes form while the nose and eyelids become more distinct.

5. In the 3rd month, the fetus has started to grow hair on the head and is swimming.

6. After the 4th month, dream (REM) sleep by the baby in utero is detectable.

The esteem with which the public once held the Supreme Court has diminished enormously by its handing down a wrongful death-dealing decision, such as it did in Roe v. Wade. Can our trust in this branch of government ever be recovered? The answer clearly is yes, and we the citizenry are the ones called to make it so.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, always described by the MSM as a conservative, was a major disappointment as regards the original intent of those who wrote our cherished Constitution. In writing for the 5-4 majority in favor of Planned Parenthood over Casey, he was far from the beliefs of the Founders when he wrote: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and the mystery of human life.” These words should weigh heavily on his conscience now, as they surely sound more Alinsky-like than Jeffersonian.

Human life is sacred, and we will follow with some more Kennedy words: “The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true.” Agreed! It seems so fitting to add once again: Follow the science.

During the presentation of the arguments favoring Dobbs last Dec. 1, Justice Sonia Sotomayor got herself into the area of science by discussing fetal pain and went as far as to compare this with bodily responses from a dead person. Yes, a dead person. She came across as somewhat rude, a demeanor far from that of a professional jurist – let alone a member of this nation’s Supreme Court.

With regard to the topic being introduced, Sotomayor interjected that “about 40 per cent of dead people who if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. These are spontaneous acts by dead brain people.”

Kagan, Breyer, and Sotomayor are pro-Roe zealots and sure-fire votes against Dobbs and any limitation whatsoever of Roe v. Wade or the 1992 decision for Planned Parenthood. They are locked into the Secular Fundamentalist thinking which has ruled this once-proud nation for well over a half century now.

The three Trump-era additions to the highest court in the land have been acclaimed as a blessing, and together with Alito and Thomas are conservative thinkers. Justice Clarence Thomas has become more vocal of late, and he and Justice Alito are obviously heirs to the Antonin Scalia originalist approach. The one sad note is our inability to place trust in Chief Justice John Roberts, given his pro-Obamacare legalistic double-talk regarding that decision.

Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist, is not only a person who best describes what he used to call “the content of the uterus,” but he is passionately now dedicated to see it outlawed. After personally listening to his story of conversion to the Right To Life movement, no one – yes, no one – could ever deny the humanity of those who are killed daily in this country’s so-called “clinics.” Clinics are for healing – not for submitting our earthly brothers and sisters to a premature death.

The abortion doctor had a sincere conversion, and his willingness to tell his story makes him more impressive. In person he holds nothing back and shows genuine regret. Even when he went to congressional hearings, he demonstrated what is involved in “the procedure.” He does not confabulate and uses the proper medical terminology.

With regard to raising the issue of “stare decisis” and the Roe decision (in layman’s terms: let what is stay as is}, it should be easily dismissed. Brown v Board of Education, which desegregated our schools, overturned Plessy v Ferguson, handed down 62 years earlier.

The real issue in Dobbs, as in Roe, is: Does viability overrule the essential humanity of the child in the womb?

Justice Sotomayor, it must be noted, obviously made no mention of fetuses having been surgically removed from the uterus, having corrective surgery performed by a doctor, and then being returned safely to the mother’s womb to await birth. The photography is awe-inspiring – and truly healthy viewing for all ages. The scientific advances in fetology have been a magnificent benefit in advancing the Right To Life movement’s efforts this last half-century. We have been fighting for HUMANS – the word “person” notwithstanding.

Individual voting on Dobbs by the justices has already taken place, while the Supreme Court spends its time on other cases. Clerks for each justice are in the process of writing their individual opinion. In the interim, before the official announcement, which is expected in June, votes could be changed. The public will never know – publicly at least.

In the forefront is Chief Justice John Roberts, who has been a disappointment to traditionalists, because he has never demonstrated a commitment to the original intent of the authors’ words.

Kagan, Breyer, and Sotomayor are a foregone conclusion to vote for the defendant. Thomas and Alito are not only for Dobbs, but they would overturn Roe v. Wade in the process.

Should the three newest justices join the two originalists, this nation’s horrendous practice of destroying pre-born humans would go the way of Supreme Court rulings that upheld racial segregation.

But: John Roberts looms large.

Will Chief Justice Roberts' tendency to favor his political image end up swinging one of the three new justices into a decision which tries to please both sides?

A sub-question: How much psychological damage still lingers with Brett Kavanaugh after the contrived savage attacks on him during his confirmation hearings?

As we reach the 49th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, even with a single-digit cold wave inhabiting the New England environment, a beautiful stand of majestic pine trees could be seen looming in the distance through the Dining Room window – seemingly giving the grotto protection. The scene appeared to be affirming the power of the Almighty to prevail in the end.

May the Good Lord with His majestic power re-set this nation’s course, inspiring five or six justices during this interim period to decide to end the malignancy which has so weakened this nation’s body and spirit.