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Dobbs

Reason Demands an End to Roe

By | Dobbs, LBB, Legal, News and Events, Sanctity of Life, Substack | No Comments

A young wife and her husband were enthusiastically awaiting the birth of their first baby. It was a girl. They had already done a big baby shower with family and friends; they had bought all the furniture and decorated the room— a beautiful retreat of yellow and pink. They had faithfully kept every doctor’s appointment and attended all the classes, learning everything about what to expect when you’re expecting. They had even named her: Mary Beth.

But at 28 weeks (7 months), mom confesses she was not ready. She is just too young and not mentally and emotionally prepared to be responsible for another human being. So instead, she wants to have an abortion.

Dad earnestly pleads with her to no avail. “It’s my body,” came the answer.

“Is an abortion even legal so far along in a pregnancy,” he thought? Yes, one quick Google search informed him that there are no limits even for late-term abortions in their home state of New Jersey. He quickly found a clinic’s website offering the service and explaining a third-trimester abortion procedure, but he could not bear to finish reading the short description. He even explored legal options but has no recourse.

So, on a day they were supposed to go to another doctor’s visit and see their baby girl on the latest sonogram, mom will instead drive to an abortion clinic to “terminate her pregnancy.”

Such is the state of abortion policy in our nation. It is part of the wretched legacy of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that invented a constitutional right to abortion…

Click here to read the rest of Mario’s exclusive Substack column. And be sure to subscribe below to never miss one of his posts again!

Praying for Dobbs

By | Dobbs, News and Events, Sanctity of Life | No Comments

Concerned Women for America

Six Month Spiritual Engagement for Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health

The December 1 oral arguments for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health were just the beginning of our pro-life efforts for this case. If the Court keeps to its historical track record of rendering decisions on “controversial” cases in the last weeks of its term, the Dobbs decision will likely be announced by the end of June.

Until the Supreme Court renders its decision, our posture must be on our knees before the Lord. CWA is encouraging our leaders, members, and friends across the country to set aside the fourth Monday of the next six months, beginning January 24, for focused prayer on the Dobbs case. Using the 30 Days of Prayer for Life prayer booklet and our monthly prayer points listed below, we encourage you to gather together people to pray in person, over the phone, or via Zoom.

Monday, January 24, 2022

Using the 30 Days of Prayer for Life booklet, read silently or aloud prayers 1, 2, 13, 14, and 15.

Strategic Prayer Points:

  • Pray that the March for Life, held on January 21 in Washington, D.C., had a great spiritual impact on the Justices and their law clerks as they continue to study and prepare their opinions for the Dobbs vs Jackson case.
  • Pray for the media, that they will see the importance of the March for Life in light of the Dobbs case and choose to report on the march and the case both fairly and accurately.
  • Pray that the decision of the Dobbs case will end the federal scourge of abortion on our nation.
February – June prayer points will be listed soon.

Indefensible Roe – The Scientific Track

By | Dobbs, Legal, News and Events, Sanctity of Life, SCOTUS, Substack | No Comments

Do not believe your lying eyes.

This (pictured above) is not a baby. No sir.

If it were a person, then the Supreme Court itself admitted in Roe they would not have made the decision they made to allow her to be crushed and sucked out of her mother’s womb.

It is actually a good thing they didn’t have such confusing pictures back then. In 1973, when Roe was decided, they thought a baby at 15 weeks, as is at issue in the Mississippi law being challenged in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, looked like this:

Much easier to declare that this is some sort of tissue, part of a woman’s body, instead of a baby deserving of love and care. That is why the pro-abortion side in Dobbs wants the justices to keep women back in 1973. Nothing has changed, they argued on the day of oral arguments…

<em><a href=”https://mariodiaz.substack.com/p/indefensible-roe-the-scientific-track”>Click here</a> to read the rest of Mario’s exclusive <a href=”https://mariodiaz.substack.com/”>Substack column</a>. And be sure to subscribe below to never miss one of his posts again!</em>

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Supreme Court Releases Opinions in Texas Abortion Law Cases

By | CWA of Texas, Dobbs, LBB, Legal, News and Events, Sanctity of Life, SCOTUS | No Comments

As we discussed recently, the state of Texas presented a novel problem to the United States Supreme Court by enacting a law prohibiting abortions after a heartbeat is detected, but giving the right of enforcement to private citizens and not to any state official. Today, the Court handed down its opinion dismissing most of the claims but preserving the challenge going forward. Here is a short summary.

When abortionists sought to challenge S. B. 8, the Texas Heartbeat Act, they really had no one to sue because no state official is charged with its enforcement and no private citizen had sued. Still, they tried to push the legal envelope by suing a whole host of people, including state judges or state law clerks, the attorney general, some licensing officials, and even a potential private citizen defendant in an effort to enjoin the law and prevent it from going into effect.

The United States also tried to intervene, given its radical pro-abortion stance under President Joe Biden. That was the easy part (United States v. Texas). Its claim was summarily dismissed by the Court (8-1), as expected, with only Justice Sotomayor dissenting. The United States simply has no business interfering with this state law and basically seeking an unprecedented injunction against all persons in the country. Their effort would break with the most fundamental principles of federalism in our Constitution.

The more interesting challenge (Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson) is a bit more complicated. In its opinion, the Court wanted to stress first what it was not deciding. “In this preliminary posture, the ultimate merits question, whether S. B. 8 is consistent with the Federal Constitution, is not before the Court,” said Justice Neil Gorsuch who wrote the majority opinion.

He summarized, “The Court concludes that the petitioners may pursue a pre-enforcement challenge against certain of the named defendants but not others.” So, who can be sued? Well, not court officials: “Under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, named defendants Penny Clarkston (a state-court clerk) and Austin Jackson (a state court judge) should be dismissed.” Not the attorney general: “Texas Attorney General Paxton should be dismissed.” And not a private citizen prematurely (an affidavit showed he had no intention to sue): “The sole private defendant, Mr. Dickson, should be dismissed.”

But the Court leaves open “other defendants (Stephen Carlton, Katherine Thomas, Allison Benz, and Cecile Young), each of whom is an executive licensing official who may or must take enforcement actions against the petitioners if the petitioners violate the terms of Texas’s Health and Safety Code, including S. B. 8. Eight Members of the Court hold that sovereign immunity does not bar a pre-enforcement challenge to S. B. 8 against these defendants.”

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from this last pronouncement, saying he would have dismissed the case against “all respondents, including the four licensing officials.”

It also declared “petitioners may bring a pre-enforcement challenge in federal court as one means to test S. B. 8’s compliance with the Federal Constitution. Other pre-enforcement challenges are possible too; one such case is ongoing in state court in which the plaintiffs have raised both federal and state constitutional claims against S. B. 8. Any individual sued under S. B. 8 may raise state and federal constitutional arguments in his or her defense without limitation.”

So, the bottom line is that the challenge to this law will continue as to the allowed defendants.

It is important to note that Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, expressed considerable frustration with the law in concurring in part and dissenting in part. He wrote, “Texas has employed an array of stratagems designed to shield its unconstitutional law from judicial review.”

It seems clear the Chief views the law as an attack on the Court itself. “The clear purpose and actual effect of S. B. 8 has been to nullify this Court’s rulings … Indeed, ‘[i]f the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery.’[] The nature of the federal right infringed does not matter; it is the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system that is at stake,” he wrote.

We will have to wait for a further challenge to see where the more conservative justices land on the issue.

As I mentioned before, this problem is of the Court’s own making, by injecting itself into the political abortion debate. Texas is simply trying to protect life, which most of its citizens demand, and trying to work within the arbitrary and dubious parameters the Supreme Court has set up. The best way for the Court to guard its legitimacy would be to reverse Roe and Casey in the Dobbs case, and then states like Texas would be free to protect life, without having to come up with innovative ideas to appease the Supreme Court’s personal preferences.

An Historic Day at the Supreme Court

By | Dobbs, Maine | No Comments

Concerned Women for America (CWA) of Maine was represented at the Supreme Court of the United States prayer rally on December 1 for oral arguments of the pro-life case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Amber Corum, Melissa Stephens, and I were honored to be present to pray and hear from over 30 great pro-life organizations and speakers, including CWA’s CEO and President Penny Nance, Abby Johnson, Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rogers (R-Washington), Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Missouri), Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), and many more!

It was encouraging to see the thousands that God raised up, passionate for the sanctity of life. We estimated that much more than two-thirds of those present were pro-lifers. It was a joy and honor to pray together.

What’s next for Dobbs vs. Jackson? CWA will answer this question and update us on all things Dobbs in a webinar on Wednesday, December 8, at 2:00 EST. Learn more about the webinar and register here. Read CWA’s analysis of the case on our Dobbs page here.

Please Pray: While we await the court’s decision, please pray that the Justices will rule in favor of life. It’s time that we finally correct our egregious mistakes and end the greatest human rights violation in America.

To God be the glory.

Penny Morrell
State Director

Webinar: What’s Next for Dobbs v. Jackson?

By | Dobbs, News and Events | No Comments

Several thousand pro-life supporters rallied and prayed outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, December 1, as the historic Supreme Court oral arguments were heard for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Tens of thousands more joined in prayer from around the nation!

Concerned Women for America (CWA) is hosting a live webinar one week after the oral arguments to provide perspective on all the activity that happened outside the Court on December 1, and to answer the question everyone is asking, “Now that the oral arguments are over, what’s next for the Dobbs v. Jackson case?”

On Wednesday, December 8, join CWA’s CEO and President Penny Nance and CWA’s Legal Counsel Mario Diaz, Esq., as they debrief the December 1 oral arguments and discuss what happens next with the Court on this critical pro-life case.

Whether you attended the December 1 event or joined us in prayer from home, this webinar is for you!

Here are the details:
Date: Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Time: 2:00 p.m. EST [1:00 p.m. CST; 12:00 p.m. Mountain; 11:00 a.m. CST]

Click here to register. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Penny Nance Speaks at Supreme Court Rally for Life

By | Dobbs, News and Events, Sanctity of Life | No Comments

12.1.21: A day to remember. Concerned Women for America was proud to help bring thousands of activists and college students from all over the country to Washington, D.C., to pray on the steps of the Supreme Court today while the Justices heard oral arguments in the biggest abortion case of our lifetime.

While we have a few months to wait until the final decision that could end the culture of abortion in America, we are so encouraged by the passion of the prayer warriors who stepped up to defend the least of these.

Click below to watch our CEO and President Penny Nance’s full remarks from the rally.

Three Takeaways from Today’s Dobbs Oral Arguments

By | Case Vault, Dobbs, Legal, News and Events, Sanctity of Life | No Comments

Today, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the most important pro-life case of our lifetime: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. As hundreds of pro-life supporters rallied outside the courtroom (outnumbering the other side by a considerable margin!), inside the Justices heard arguments from the state of Mississippi, the Jackson abortion clinic, and the United States Solicitor General.

Here are the top three takeaways:

1-    Institutional Legitimacy was the Liberal Side’s Theme

Justice Stephen Brayer led the charge for the liberal side of the Court on this point. He quoted Casey and argued that to overturn Roe and Casey “Would subvert the Court’s legitimacy.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who blatantly and embarrassingly acted as an advocate for the pro-choice side instead of a justice of the Supreme Court, suggested the Court would not survive “the stench” of overturning Roe.

She’s obviously grown used to the fetor of more than 60 million babies aborted since 1973.

In the liberal side’s warped view, to overturn Roe would be a political action, but to impose abortion on demand on all Americans was not. They kept expressing concerns over the politicization of the Court as if it were not seen as activist in favor of abortion right now.

Mississippi’s State Solicitor General Scott Grant Stewart made clear that Roe and Casey had no grounding in the constitutional text and that the continued upholding of erroneous precedent is in fact more of a threat to the Court’s legitimacy…

Click here to read the rest of Mario’s exclusive Substack column. And be sure to subscribe below to never miss one of his posts again!

SPECIAL ALERT: Science Proved Us Right. STREAM NOW!

By | Dobbs, News and Events, Sanctity of Life | No Comments

Concerned Women for America is thrilled to drop a surprise special podcast episode TONIGHT ahead of the biggest abortion case of our lifetime being argued in front of the Supreme Court tomorrow. To brush up on the science of fetal development and the medical advancements since 1973, Penny is joined by pro-life OB/GYN Dr. Christina Francis.

Available below or wherever you normally get your podcasts!

 

Indefensible Roe – The Policy Track

By | Dobbs, Legal, News and Events, Sanctity of Life, SCOTUS | No Comments

Having established that “The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy,” as the Court accurately noted in Roe, and that the Court relied on that virtual right to further invent another constitutional “right” to abortion with no basis in law, history or tradition, we turn to the Court’s dreadful shift to policymaking and why it, too, is indefensible.

While the media’s caricature of pro-life laws around the country at the time of Roe is that they sought to completely ban it, without regard for women, the facts of the case in Roe were, of course, different. I think by now every reader knows that the media lies. Therefore, remember that when it comes to the coverage you hear around Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

The Texas law at issue in Roe actually had an exception for “medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother’s life.” If Roe were overturned, it does not mean abortion will be criminalized everywhere for every reason as some will have you believe. Instead, it would mean that laws would more accurately reflect the convictions of most Americans in their localities. What the Supreme Court did in Roe was impose its preferred view of abortion policy robbing “we the people” of a voice in the matter.

In Dobbs, Mississippi passed a law establishing a policy of restricting abortions after 15 weeks only to the cases of medical emergencies and or severe fetal abnormalities. There is no basis, constitutional or otherwise, for the Supreme Court to second guess a state’s policy in such a matter. …

Click here to read the rest of Mario’s exclusive Substack column. And be sure to subscribe below to never miss one of his posts again!

Indefensible Roe – The Legal Track

By | Case Vault, Dobbs, Legal, News and Events, RBG, Sanctity of Life, SCOTUS | No Comments

As that great bulwark of honesty Buddy the elf would say, Roe “sit[s] on a throne of lies.” This series will expose many of them in the spiritual, scientific, cultural, moral, and policy realm. But we start this endeavor with the most pressing deception as far as it concerns the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming considerations of the Dobbs v. Whole Women’s Health Organization case: the legal one.

It is a plain statement of fact that the U.S. Constitution has nothing to say about abortion. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. In fact, the fallacy of Roe is so deep, that the Court did not just invent the right to abortion, it actually based its decision to invent it on another “right” that appears nowhere in the Constitution. In an earlier case (Griswold v. Connecticut), the Court had “recognized” a new right to privacy that it now magically expanded to cover the right to abortions.

The Court is not even sure where this right to privacy comes from; it recognizes different theories. But wherever it came from, it is surely meant to cover abortion; it promises us. Here is how Justice Harry Blackmun, who shamefully wrote the Roe majority opinion, put it:

This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

And just like that, 185 years after the Constitution was officially ratified on June 21, 1788, the Court gives birth to a new right to abortion with no legal underpinning whatsoever…

Click here to read the rest of Mario’s exclusive Substack column. And be sure to subscribe below to never miss one of his posts again!

Indefensible Roe — An Introduction

By | Case Vault, Dobbs, LBB, Legal, News and Events, SCOTUS, Substack | No Comments

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Mississippi case where abortionists are challenging the state’s “Gestational Age Act,” should force the United States Supreme Court to reevaluate its disastrous abortion jurisprudence.

Because Mississippi’s law places strict limits on abortion after 15 weeks, it runs straight up against the Court’s nonsensical and arbitrary “viability” pronouncement which has somewhat guided the Court through its oversight of more than 60 million babies aborted since 1973. In Roe v. Wade, the Court invented a right to abortion out of nothing and established limits based on an arbitrary trimester framework, but it also recognized a state’s interests in the health of mothers and “potential life,” as it cunningly termed babies in the womb. Only when those state interests become “compelling” are states able to regulate abortion, perhaps even ban it.  The Court explained:

With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the “compelling” point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

The Court’s mushy pronouncement ensured it would continue to act as a super-legislature, second-guessing virtually every state attempt to protect life. Therefore, we continue to see a never-ending series of cases at the Supreme Court with citizens from different states trying to assert their interests in the health of mothers and protecting children in the womb…

Click here to read the rest of Mario’s exclusive Substack column. And be sure to subscribe below to never miss one of his posts again!

Your Voice in the Biggest Abortion Case of Our Lifetime

By | Briefs, Dobbs, Legal, News and Events, SCOTUS | No Comments

The Concerned Women for America (CWA) Legal Studies Department is proud to report that we have completed your amicus (friend of the Court’s) brief in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion case before the United States Supreme Court.  

From the outset, we let the Court know we are representing you, and we make clear the values for which you stand. “CWA believes abortion harms women, men, their families, and the nation and actively promotes legislation and public education to support women in crisis pregnancies and address the harms caused by pro-abortion policies,” we write on our Statement of Interest. And we conclude saying, “CWA believes it is false to suggest women need abortion to have equality. Moreover, we affirm women are not a monolithic group assenting to a homogeneous worldview on any policy issue so that this honorable Court benefits from hearing and giving value to a broad range of women voices in cases such as this one.” 

We present three basic arguments: (1) states should be free to make a reasonable determination about abortion policy that places a higher value on the life of mothers and their unborn children, (2) the Court has undervalued the state’s interest in women’s health by failing to give the proper weight to the physical, psychological, emotional, and even spiritual harms abortion has had on women’s lives, and finally (3) the Court should give proper weight to the views of a wide range of women’s voices, including those who reject the Court-created “right” to abortion. 

The first argument is simple. The Court’s abortion jurisprudence has no foundation in our Constitution and has therefore been predictably unreliable and inconsistent. We write: 

Advances in science and our understanding of the process and interests involved in the abortion decision today should push the Court not only to reconsider the definition and timing of viability but the factual underpinnings from Roe that it left standing in Casey. The time has come for the Court to rectify the constitutional error of Roe’s quasi-legislative analysis. States should never be prevented from presenting the evidence which undergirds their legislative reasoning as they fight to withstand a constitutional challenge to its laws in areas where the Constitution envisions them having ample freedom to engage based on well-established federalism principles.  

The lower court, in this case, did not even allow the state of Mississippi to show the scientific evidence on which it relied to enact the law at issue. The state’s interest in women’s health was front and center; therefore, we write of the great injustice of the court barring this evidence, “As a women’s organization, amicus considers the omission of the evidence for the state’s interest in the mother’s health from consideration at the pre-viability stage, for example, a grave misuse of the Court’s jurisprudence that the Constitution in no way prescribes.” 

The Constitution’s framework is key to our argument because, though the question before the Court concerns viability, the Court’s abortion jurisprudence problem is much more profound. We conclude: “Though not strictly necessary to resolve this case, the Court’s fundamental problems in this area of law go all the way back to Roe and Doe. To fully vindicate the constitutional principles involved requires an honest reversal.” 

Second, we argue, “Women’s interests should never be irrelevant in the abortion context at every stage of pregnancy, including at the pre-viability stage.” Period. “Amicus represents mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, and friends who have seen the devastation that abortion can have on women’s emotional, psychological, and spiritual lives.” We go on to present some of the studies of the mental health risks associated with abortion and let the Court know, “Any interpretation of viability that forces courts to exclude the consideration of women’s health, not only before choosing to have an abortion but also after that choice, as the lower court decreed here, should not be upheld.”  

And finally, third, we go to CWA’s roots. Pro-abortion women do not represent all women. They do not even represent most women. Pro-life is pro-woman. “[A] new AP-NORC poll found that, ‘most Americans say abortions should generally be illegal during the second and third trimester,’” we report, “One would never guess this by looking at the Court’s abortion precedent.” 

The hundreds of thousands of women amicus represent want to stress that women do not need abortion as a measure of equality. Women have intrinsic dignity and value, regardless of abortion public policy. The fact that men do not give birth is not something they see as a flaw but a feature of the beautiful way women are created—the imago Dei. Being mothers is not to women’s detriment, despite its many challenges. Women celebrate the diversity of our Creator and therefore affirm our dignity, aside from abortion. Amicus affirms the dignity of every woman, including unborn women. 

That is just a sample, but you can access the full document here. We are confident this brief is something you can be proud of, as we stand together before the Supreme Court and proclaim the truth with honesty and respect. 

It is an honor to serve you in such a way. 

CWA Submits Amicus Brief on Your Behalf

By | Briefs, Dobbs, Legal, News and Events, Sanctity of Life | No Comments

We are proud to let you know that today, Concerned Women for America (CWA) submitted its amicus brief before the United States Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case challenging the constitutionality of a Mississippi state law that places strict limits on abortions after 15 weeks.

CWA cherishes the opportunity to address the nation’s highest court on such an important topic that has caused so much pain to women, the more than 62 million babies lost to abortion since Roe v. Wade, and to the country.

We asked the Court to take an honest look at its abortion jurisprudence. It is time for the Justices to come clean and acknowledge what we all know: that the Court-created right to abortion has no basis in the Constitution, and states should be free to enact reasonable legislation that reflects the values of its citizens and the full range of interests at play when it comes to abortion.

We asked the Court to reclaim its impartiality as jurists. When it comes to abortion, many judges, like Judge Reeves at the district level in this case, have become advocates for a particular group of women, those who are pro-abortion—ignoring the majority of women who are for strict restrictions on abortion.

In this case, the lower court would not even allow the state to offer evidence of its compelling interest in women’s health. It declared it irrelevant. Our brief makes clear that women’s health should never be irrelevant in the abortion context, no matter the stage of pregnancy.

I think that is something all women—all Americans—believe.

The bottom line is CWA’s brief affirms the dignity of every woman’s life, including unborn women. That’s something we are proud to stand for; pro-life is pro-woman!

Here is a quote from our brief:

“The hundreds of thousands of women amicus represent want to stress that women do not need abortion as a measure of equality. Women have intrinsic dignity and value, regardless of abortion public policy. The fact that men do not give birth is not something they see as a flaw but a feature of the beautiful way women are created—the imago Dei. Being mothers is not to women’s detriment, despite its many challenges. Women celebrate the diversity of our Creator and therefore affirm our dignity, aside from abortion. Amicus affirms the dignity of every woman, including unborn women.”

We ask the Court to restore the dignity of women and the unborn, and concluded saying plainly, “the Court’s fundamental problems in this area of law go all the way back to Roe and Doe. To fully vindicate the constitutional principles involved requires reversal.”

Click here to read our filing in full.

CWA Court Update This Monday

By | Dobbs, News and Events, YWA | No Comments

Young Women for America invites you…

There’s been a lot of buzz around the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has decided to hear oral arguments this coming fall in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a Mississippi law that puts strict limits on abortions after 15 weeks. Learn what all the buzz is about from Mario Diaz, Esq., Concerned Women for America’s General Counsel, who is joining us on our June YWA leader’s call.

Mario will also discuss the latest opinions handed down by the Supreme Court this June when the last Supreme Court decisions are made from the current term. This is traditionally a month that will find groups like CWA/YWA outside the Supreme Court rallying. This term, we await an important religious liberty case called Fulton v. Philadelphia, having to do with adoption and foster care agencies. Don’t miss the call to learn more about all things SCOTUS!

Date: Monday, June 14
Time: 5:30 p.m. Eastern (4:30 p.m. Central; 3:30 p.m. Mountain; 2:30 p.m. Pacific)
Register: Register here. Please share the link with other likeminded friends and family. An email with the link for the call and other information will follow upon registration.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Fact Sheet

By | Dobbs, Legal, News and Events, SCOTUS | No Comments
  • The case1 presents a challenge to a Mississippi state law that places strict limits on abortions after 15 weeks.
  • The limited question before the Court is whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.2
  • The Mississippi law is known as the “Gestational Age Act,”3 and it seeks to protect women and unborn children by limiting abortions after 15 weeks only to the cases of medical emergencies and/or severe fetal abnormalities.
  • Though it is true that the Supreme Court manufactured a constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade,4 the Court has always recognized “the State has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus” (see Planned Parenthood v. Casey5).
  • The Court’s jurisprudence has been a complete failure in balancing those two interests, namely, the Court-created right to an abortion and the state’s interest in protecting the health of the mother and the life of a baby in the womb.
  • The Court has used many legal tricks to try to establish some guidelines, including a baby’s viability and the burden on the woman’s rights, but their efforts in this area have been decidedly legislative in nature and beyond the role the Constitution envisioned for the Court.
  • Scientific progress has given us a window into the womb, thereby destroying the foundation upon which Roe and Casey and the Supreme Court’s entire abortion jurisprudence rests.
    • With advancements in ultrasounds, not only do we know the life inside the womb is a baby, but doctors are able to perform life-saving treatment, even perform surgery, as with the famous cases of babies with spina bifida.6
    • Babies feel pain at a very early stage. The scientific evidence shows that from 15 weeks onward, “the fetus is extremely sensitive to painful stimuli, and that this fact should be taken into account when performing invasive medical procedures on the fetus. It is necessary to apply adequate analgesia to prevent the suffering of the fetus.”7
    • According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine,8 a 15-week-old baby:
      • Has eyes and eyelids with a well-formed face,
      • Limbs have developed,
      • The baby has hands and feet with little toes and fingers that have gone so far as to develop nails on them (he or she can make a fist!),
      • The genitals have appeared,
      • Organs are fast developing with the baby’s liver already making red blood cells of its own,
      • And muscle tissue and bones continue to grow and become harder, making it possible to begin to move.
  • It is time for the Supreme Court to catch up to the 21st Century.
  • Americans overwhelmingly support banning late-term abortion and restricting it during the first trimester. A recent Marist poll found 75% of Americans, including 61% of those who identify as pro-choice, say abortion should be banned at the very least to after the first trimester.9
  • It is time for Roe’s House of Cards to come tumbling down. Women and children deserve better than the legislative games the Supreme Court has employed up to this point!
  • It is the states’ highest duty to protect the health of mothers and the life of babies. They should be free to enact laws to do that in the best way they see possible, as Mississippi has done here.

Click here for a PDF version.

[1] Supreme Court Docket No. 19-1392, available at https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/19-1392.html.

[2] Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Question Presented, available at https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/qp/19-01392qp.pdf.

[3] Mississippi House Bill 1510, available at https://legiscan.com/MS/text/HB1510/id/1692666.

[4] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113.

[5] Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-744.ZS.html.

[6] The Perinatal Revolution, Colleen Malloy, M.D., Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst, M.D., MPH, and Tara Sander Lee, Ph.D, Issues in Law & Medicine, Volume 34, Issue 1, Article 2, (Spring 2019).

[7] Fact Sheet: Science of Fetal Pain, Charlotte Lozier Institute, available at https://lozierinstitute.org/fact-sheet-science-of-fetal-pain/, citing Sekulic S et al., Appearance of fetal pain could be associated with maturation of the mesodiencephalic structures. J Pain Res. 9, 1031, 2016.

[8] Fetal development, MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, available at https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002398.htm, accessed May 21, 2021.

[9] America’s Opinions on Abortion, January 2019, available at https://www.kofc.org/un/en/resources/communications/american-attitudes-abortion-knights-of-columbus-marist-poll-slides.pdf.

Momentous Pro-Life Case to the U.S. Supreme Court

By | Case Vault, Dobbs, Legal, News and Events, Sanctity of Life, SCOTUS | No Comments

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Explained

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a pro-life case out of Mississippi challenging a state law that places strict limits on abortions after 15-weeks. As with every single pro-life case that comes to the Supreme Court, you are about to hear news from the usual suspects in the liberal media that the world is about to end — again! Pay no attention to their hysterics. Here is what you need to know.

As the Supreme Court has said numerous times, states have a legitimate interest in limiting abortion and protecting innocent life. Relying on that premise, Mississippi’s “Gestational Age Act,” enacted in 2018, limits abortions after 15 weeks to the cases of medical emergencies and several fetal abnormalities.

The law was immediately challenged as unconstitutional by abortionists at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization. A federal district court agreed with the abortion clinic, declaring that Supreme Court precedent does not allow states to restrict abortions in this way until a fetus becomes “viable.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court’s decision.

Mississippi is now appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Court has fortunately granted the review.  Although you will hear the constant drumming of protecting Roe, the limited question before the Court is whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.

The case will be heard in the fall when the justices return from the summer recess. It joins Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, another pro-life case that will deal with a more procedural question about the State’s authority to ensure that laws are fully defended in the courts. Dobbs, therefore, becomes the most crucial pro-life case the Court will hear, given that it will deal with the merits of the law, testing the limits of the Court’s dubious abortion jurisprudence.

The scientific advances made since the lies upon which Roe and Casey were built have exposed the lie of abortion. As women peer into the womb, the fact that we are not dealing with a blob of tissue has become apparent. And given that undeniable fact, pro-abortion proponents and sympathetic judges have struggled to come up with a clearly arbitrary, yet credible, artificial line at which to allow abortions.

Most Americans (up to 74%) want to ban second and third-trimester abortions.

Now you may be thinking, “What difference does that make? This is a legal case, and polls shouldn’t matter to the Court,” and you would be right. Traditionally, the Court would look at the law and the facts of the case and render a decision on the law, giving the legislature ample room to operate and make policy determinations within constitutional limits.

Nevertheless, in the case of Roe—in the abortion context—the Court has so overstepped its role that all it has and will ever have (until it corrects itself) are questions of policy. Now they are legislating about viability and weighing and reweighing the state’s interests in protecting life and protecting women and children. It is embarrassing. Can there be any more compelling interest than these?

But when it comes to abortion, the Supreme Court has had to employ all kinds of gimmicks and smokescreens in order to ignore its traditional role and interpretative procedures to preserve the abortion fiction. Justice Anthony Kennedy admitted as much in the Carhart decision writing:

“It is true this longstanding maxim of statutory interpretation has, in the past, fallen by the wayside when the Court confronted a statute regulating abortion. The Court at times employed an antagonistic ‘canon of construction under which in cases involving abortion, a permissible reading of a statute [was] to be avoided at all costs.’”

What has the other side so bent out of shape this time around is that they are not sure they have enough liberal legal wizards to perform their abortion alchemy to save their all-encompassing pro-abortion standard, where even the most reasonable restrictions on abortion are unconstitutional.

There is indeed much hope for most Americans who support such restrictions, given the gains we have made at the U.S. Supreme Court. But far from a turn to the extreme right as you are sure to read about in the papers, all we will hopefully witness (God willing) is a return to the basic tenant of truth in law. A return to scientific reasonableness. A return to biological reality.

And that will be a monumental step indeed.