Supreme Court Ruling Prompts New Call to Act
by Most Rev. Robert James Carlson
I hope you are actively questioning the wisdom of our nation’s highest court. I have wondered at great length what exactly they were thinking when they announced on June 28 a decision to strike down Nebraska’s ban on partial birth abortion, thus affecting our own South Dakota law.
The case, one of the most historical abortion decisions ever made by the court, is Stenberg v. Carhart. Don Stenberg is Nebraska’s Attorney General for Nebraska who fought to keep the state’s ban, which was supported by all but one of Nebraska’s legislators. Dr. Leroy Carhart is a Nebraska abortionist who sued the state in 1997 so the law would not take effect. The case made its way to the Supreme Court where they ruled against the Nebraska law, saying it would place an "undue burden" on a woman’s decision to end the life of the child growing within her.
You and I know partial birth abortion is a particularly abhorrent procedure where a child is almost fully delivered, the back of his head punctured with a scissors, a vacuum is used to then remove the child’s brain so it’s skull will collapse and finally the dead child is delivered. This gruesome depiction of what some call a "human right" gives shivers to the vast majority of Americans. In fact, a recent poll commissioned by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus showed 68% of Americans would like to see this barbaric procedure outlawed.
Congress has voted three times to listen to the people and ban this specific form of abortion, which more closely resembles infanticide. Even pro-choice congressmen have voted to rid our nation of this brutality. But our President, and now five of the nine Supreme Court justices, have said banning this procedure is unconstitutional.
In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul said even those who have not heard the law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, still know what is right and wrong, because "what the law requires is written on their hearts," (Rom. 2:15). This knowledge of what is right and wrong is known as the "natural moral law." So even those who have not had the privilege of learning God’s word or his Commandments know what is good and what is evil. We know abortion, especially partial birth abortion, is evil because it is written on our hearts.
Pope John Paul II tells us that abortion is "the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth," (Pope John Paul II, encyclical The Gospel of Life, Evangelium Vitae, 58). It should be crystal clear that partial birth abortion is truly an abominable crime against humanity.
At its most basic level, government is designed to prevent such injustices. The idea of a "right" to partial birth abortion is misguided. It has never been identified just where in the Constitution we are given the "right" to take a human life. Our most fundamental of human rights is instead, the right to life, which must belong to everyone in order to be effective, even the weakest and most defenseless humans. Abortion can not be celebrated as a freedom since it accomplishes the contrary, robbing individuals of their freedom by taking their very lives. A law allowing or promoting abortion therefore deserves no respect and has no moral force.
As Cardinal William Keeler pointed out after the divided 5-4 decision was handed down, "The (Supreme) Court has shown an utter disdain for the moral judgment of Americans who, through their elected representatives, have voted by wide margins to stop this practice in thirty states and at the federal level."
The cardinal says this decision should be a wake-up call to the people of this country and he is right. This decision, coupled with Roe v. Wade and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decisions, have done nothing more than grant license to destroy innocent human life. With their decision in Stenberg v. Carhart, the Court has said not only can human life be destroyed inside the womb, but outside the womb as well. It is yet another example of extreme judicial overreach.
Dr. Leroy Carhart challenged his state’s law saying it was too broad and didn’t offer a "health" exception to protect the health of the mother. The Supreme Court, in Doe v. Bolton, a companion case to Roe v. Wade, defined "health" as all encompassing – physical, emotional, psychological and familial factors are considered, along with the woman’s age. Leaving a health judgment in the hands of an abortionist is absurd. As Justice Anthony Kennedy points out, a ban that relies on the judgment of doctors like Dr. Leroy Carhart, "is no ban at all."
Carhart erroneously believed the ban would apply to other abortion methods. Again, Justice Kennedy explained the law was quite specific and Nebraska was choosing only "to forbid a procedure many decent and civilized people find so abhorrent as to be among the most serious crimes against human life."
Despite Justice Kennedy’s passionate plea, five justices disagreed and Justice Stephen Breyer, in writing the opinion of the Court said the law was too vague and would indeed regulate other means of abortion. While I would certainly love to see all abortion eliminated, his assessment of the Nebraska law is wrong.
Even the American Medical Association agrees. The AMA told the Court that partial birth abortion could not be confused with other methods because no other procedure is performed in the same manner. The AMA also said partial birth abortion is a procedure "never medically necessary."
Who can then understand the courts twisted logic in affirming such barbaric acts? How can anyone argue this procedure is in the best interest of the mother? Or anyone else for that matter? De-sensitizing society to the killing of innocent babies can not be good for us.
The campaign against partial birth abortion was supposed to get abortion supporters to draw a line at birth. If they do not, and it appears they won’t, should we assume they would not draw that line anywhere? What if someone views me or you as less than human, should we give him or her license to kill? The abortion logic is mercilessly contorted and when we accept one form of killing based on "moral reasoning," we force ourselves to then consider others on the same basis.
The challenge for the Supreme Court lies in recognizing the humanity of the unborn child, which they have not done in either Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey or Stenberg v. Carhart. We are all human, we all have dignity and we are all created in the image and likeness of God, born and unborn. Life is created at the union of the egg and sperm. This is not just Catholic teaching – it is a proven scientific fact – a fact on which there is clear agreement, even among leading abortion supporters.
The New York Times recently proclaimed this scientific fact too. In an article about the scientific breakthrough of DNA mapping, the author says, "Millions of times a year, egg genome meets sperm genome, and the result is a human baby, its parts all in place, its brain a universe of love and meaning," ("Reading the Book of Life: The Context; A Pearl and a Hodgepodge: Human DNA," New York Times, June 27, 2000).
What the Supreme Court has done is simply shameful.
This is a time for all of us to respond. I am asking all parishes to offer a Mass of reparation for the Court in the wake of this decision, which encourages the continuation of infanticide. I would also invite all those who attend this Mass to sign a letter of protest and send it to the Supreme Court to condemn their actions.
Let us strengthen our resolve to elect only candidates who are pro-life, who will uphold and who believe in the fundamental right to life. As I have said on many occasions, congressmen can not claim to be Catholic, nor pro-life, and still maintain a pro-abortion voting record. On a national level, we need to support leaders who will appoint pro-life justices to our nation’s courts.
The time for all of us to act is now.
© August, 2000 Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls
This item 2965 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
