Jerry Newcombe
Five reasons I think "Roe v. Wade" should be overturned
By Jerry Newcombe
Soon we can expect another contentious battle in the Senate over a Supreme Court nominee. For the last few decades, in all such battles, there has been one issue (spoken or unspoken) underlying so much of the fierce fighting: abortion.
Abortion is the Holy Grail to the American left. It dominates all over considerations. Far be it from any Supreme Court justice to try and overturn "Roe v. Wade," the January 22, 1973 decision which gave us abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy (when combined with its companion decision of the same day, "Doe v. Bolton").
What a dark day in American history. Here are five reasons I believe that "Roe" should be overturned.
1) It was all based on lies.
The main lie was that an abortion was needed for Roe (whom we later learned was Norma McCorvey) because she was supposedly gang-raped. But that was not true. McCorvey just wanted an abortion, and her attorney falsely promised to help her get one, knowing full well it could not happen in time (since cases that go up to the Supreme Court take time to adjudicate).
Another lie was the number of women who supposedly died in America because of illegal abortions. Abortionist Bernard Nathanson told the media that each year about 10,000 women died from illegal abortions. He later admitted that he made the number up from thin air, but a willing media reported it as if it were gospel truth.
In 1972, the last year before Roe, the CDC reports that 39 women died from illegal abortions in America. That may be 39 too many, but it's a far cry from 10,000.
Thankfully, both McCorvey and Nathanson became pro-life Christians and came to strongly oppose abortion.
2) It has no real Constitutional basis.
Even many pro-abortion scholars admit that "Roe" was a badly decided case. Megan McArdle wrote a commentary the Washington Post (7/4/18) on how she's "Pro-choice and against Roe," and states: "The decision itself is a poorly reasoned mess."
Justice Harry Blackmun wrote "Roe v. Wade." A retired judge, Randall Hekman, once told me: "Some of the clerks that worked for the justices referred to the draft of Justice Blackmun's opinion as 'Harry's abortion.' It was that bad."
The whole thing was based on the "right to privacy," which is not spelled out in the Constitution. Instead it comes from "Griswold vs. Connecticut" (1965), which stated: "...specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance...Various guarantees create zones of privacy."
What is a "penumbra" – the lynchpin of the "Constitutional basis" ultimately for "Roe"? I once asked that of constitutional attorney Mike Farris, who today is the head of the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Farris told me: "I had to take a course in astronomy to have any idea of what they were talking about. A penumbra is a shadow cast by a partial eclipse of the moon. The Bill of Rights doesn't have umbras and penumbras. It has words. It has meaning. It has context. And these made-up phrases, like the emanations coming from the penumbras of the Bill of Rights is just so much hooey that allows a judge to do whatever he wants to do. And it substitutes the rule of law for the rule of a judge's personal proclivities."
Roe is part of a recent tradition that views the Constitution as a living document subject to change – leading us to be governed by the whims of a handful of judges with lifetime tenure.
3) Abortion hurts women.
Many women who have had abortions have been shocked to find that they feel guilty about them, despite the culture's overall approval. They had thought they could get rid of the unwanted pregnancy, and everything would be fine. They were wrong.
Some of the most anti-abortion critics today are those who regretted having had an abortion.
Thankfully, many of the walking wounded have found healing through the cross of Jesus Christ. But the scars can remain. One pro-life woman put it this way: "For millions of American women, abortion is a heartache that will never go away, even after conversion. They may be healed, but the heartache will never go away."
4) Abortion kills millions of unborn babies.
Sixty million American lives have been snuffed out since "Roe." What a moral travesty.
5) God opposes abortion.
This reason is the only one that ultimately counts. God says He opposes the shedding of innocent blood. What must He think of the wide-scale deliberate slaughter of the innocents?
All of us reading these words should be grateful that we escaped the abortionist's knife. Tragically, tens of millions of our fellow Americans were not so fortunate.
© Jerry Newcombe
July 11, 2018
Soon we can expect another contentious battle in the Senate over a Supreme Court nominee. For the last few decades, in all such battles, there has been one issue (spoken or unspoken) underlying so much of the fierce fighting: abortion.
Abortion is the Holy Grail to the American left. It dominates all over considerations. Far be it from any Supreme Court justice to try and overturn "Roe v. Wade," the January 22, 1973 decision which gave us abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy (when combined with its companion decision of the same day, "Doe v. Bolton").
What a dark day in American history. Here are five reasons I believe that "Roe" should be overturned.
1) It was all based on lies.
The main lie was that an abortion was needed for Roe (whom we later learned was Norma McCorvey) because she was supposedly gang-raped. But that was not true. McCorvey just wanted an abortion, and her attorney falsely promised to help her get one, knowing full well it could not happen in time (since cases that go up to the Supreme Court take time to adjudicate).
Another lie was the number of women who supposedly died in America because of illegal abortions. Abortionist Bernard Nathanson told the media that each year about 10,000 women died from illegal abortions. He later admitted that he made the number up from thin air, but a willing media reported it as if it were gospel truth.
In 1972, the last year before Roe, the CDC reports that 39 women died from illegal abortions in America. That may be 39 too many, but it's a far cry from 10,000.
Thankfully, both McCorvey and Nathanson became pro-life Christians and came to strongly oppose abortion.
2) It has no real Constitutional basis.
Even many pro-abortion scholars admit that "Roe" was a badly decided case. Megan McArdle wrote a commentary the Washington Post (7/4/18) on how she's "Pro-choice and against Roe," and states: "The decision itself is a poorly reasoned mess."
Justice Harry Blackmun wrote "Roe v. Wade." A retired judge, Randall Hekman, once told me: "Some of the clerks that worked for the justices referred to the draft of Justice Blackmun's opinion as 'Harry's abortion.' It was that bad."
The whole thing was based on the "right to privacy," which is not spelled out in the Constitution. Instead it comes from "Griswold vs. Connecticut" (1965), which stated: "...specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance...Various guarantees create zones of privacy."
What is a "penumbra" – the lynchpin of the "Constitutional basis" ultimately for "Roe"? I once asked that of constitutional attorney Mike Farris, who today is the head of the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Farris told me: "I had to take a course in astronomy to have any idea of what they were talking about. A penumbra is a shadow cast by a partial eclipse of the moon. The Bill of Rights doesn't have umbras and penumbras. It has words. It has meaning. It has context. And these made-up phrases, like the emanations coming from the penumbras of the Bill of Rights is just so much hooey that allows a judge to do whatever he wants to do. And it substitutes the rule of law for the rule of a judge's personal proclivities."
Roe is part of a recent tradition that views the Constitution as a living document subject to change – leading us to be governed by the whims of a handful of judges with lifetime tenure.
3) Abortion hurts women.
Many women who have had abortions have been shocked to find that they feel guilty about them, despite the culture's overall approval. They had thought they could get rid of the unwanted pregnancy, and everything would be fine. They were wrong.
Some of the most anti-abortion critics today are those who regretted having had an abortion.
Thankfully, many of the walking wounded have found healing through the cross of Jesus Christ. But the scars can remain. One pro-life woman put it this way: "For millions of American women, abortion is a heartache that will never go away, even after conversion. They may be healed, but the heartache will never go away."
4) Abortion kills millions of unborn babies.
Sixty million American lives have been snuffed out since "Roe." What a moral travesty.
5) God opposes abortion.
This reason is the only one that ultimately counts. God says He opposes the shedding of innocent blood. What must He think of the wide-scale deliberate slaughter of the innocents?
All of us reading these words should be grateful that we escaped the abortionist's knife. Tragically, tens of millions of our fellow Americans were not so fortunate.
© Jerry Newcombe
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