NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: This is from the fall edition of LifeLines Magazine. If for some reason, you don’t get a copy, email us at lifelines@paprolife.org to be added to the mailing list.
By Michael Ciccocioppo, Executive Director ciccocioppo@paprolife.org
Imagine with me for a moment: Headlines from every media outlet announcing:
Roe v. Wade Overturned: States Free to Protect Children from Abortion
These are the headlines we have been waiting to read ever since January 22, 1973 when the Supreme Court of the United States announced its decision to take away the right of states to ban abortion.
Fifty states’ laws banning or severely limiting abortions were declared unconstitutional based on a fictitious “right to privacy” found nowhere in the Constitution. And when Roe v. Wade was paired with another decision that same day, Doe v. Bolton, abortion-on-demand was essentially legalized for any reason during all nine months of pregnancy.
Those of us in the pro-life movement who believe that Roe was wrongly decided are in good company.
Villanova law professor Joseph W. Dellapenna, author of Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History, has written, “The opinion [in Roe] is replete with irrelevancies, non-sequiturs, and unsubstantiated assertions. The Court decides matters it disavows any intention of deciding—thereby avoiding any need to defend its conclusion. In the process the opinion simply fails to convince.”
According to Paul Stark writing for LifeNews.com, “Even many scholars sympathetic to the results of Roe have issued harsh criticisms of its legal reasoning. In the Yale Law Journal, eminent legal scholar John Hart Ely, a supporter of legal abortion, complained that Roe is ‘bad constitutional law, or rather … it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.’”
Overturn of Roe Depends on the 2016 Presidential Election
The election of pro-life candidate Donald Trump will hasten the overturn of Roe and save the lives of millions of innocent preborn babies while sparing mothers of the physical, psychological, social and spiritual harm caused by abortion. Good for babies. Good for women.
The election of pro-abortion candidate Hilary Clinton will preserve Roe for generations to come and assure the continued horrific destruction of the lives of millions of preborn babies and wreak untold havoc on the physical, psychological, social and spiritual lives of their mothers. Bad for babies. Bad for women.
This is the reality before the voters because it is the president who has the responsibility to appoint justices to the Supreme Court for lifetime terms. And at the top of the to do list of a “President Trump” or a “President Clinton” will be to appoint a justice to replace the pro-life Justice Antonin Scalia who died in February, 2016.
Mr. Trump told David Brody of CBN that he believes that Roe was “wrongly decided.” He has vowed to appoint strict constructionist justices to the Supreme Court–Justices in the mold of Scalia who will rule on cases based on a strict interpretation of the Constitution as it was written by the founders.
Strict constructionist justices will see that there is nothing in the Constitution guaranteeing a so-called right to abortion or privacy. A majority of such justices will one day overturn Roe.
Since many members of the Supreme Court are likely to retire or die in office during the term of the next president, a “President Trump” would appoint as many as four more justices. This would flip the Court to a majority who would overturn Roe once and for all!
Mr. Trump is the only pro-life candidate for president who will flip the Supreme Court on abortion.
The Hill reported in February that during a recent forum, “a person in the crowd asked (Mrs.) Clinton whether she would impose a ‘litmus test’ upon potential Supreme Court justices other than on the issue of being pro-abortion.”
Mrs. Clinton replied, “I do have a litmus test, I have a bunch of litmus tests.” After naming a number of very liberal requirements she would have for any of her nominees to the Supreme Court, she added, “…we’ve got to make sure to preserve Roe V. Wade, not let it be nibbled away or repealed.”
Mrs. Clinton is the pro-abortion candidate for president who will use the Supreme Court to enshrine and expand abortion.
Remember that news headline we have all been waiting for?
Roe v. Wade Overturned: States Free to Protect Children From Abortion
If we elect Mr. Trump as the next president, most of us reading this article will actually see that headline in the foreseeable future.
If we elect Mrs. Clinton as the next president, most of us will never live to read this headline.
Restoring a Culture of Life Depends on the 2016 Presidential Election
Pro-life voters are not “single-issue” voters. We are concerned about a wide array of issues. We just prioritize all those issues and place bringing an end to abortion at the top of the list.
Besides appointing Supreme Court justices who will either overturn or enshrine Roe, the president influences whether we have a culture of life or a culture of death through pronouncements, policies and executive orders. Here is a brief summary of the direction our nation will go under a Trump or a Clinton presidency:
Mr. Trump wants to stop federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which performs over 300,000 abortions each year across America. Mrs. Clinton is endorsed by Planned Parenthood and invited the national president, Cecile Richards, to address the Democratic National Convention to thank Clinton for pledging her unwavering support for the abortion giant.
Mr. Trump wrote that, “Public funding of abortion providers is an insult to people of conscience at the least and an affront to good governance at best.” He opposes taxpayer funding for organizations which perform abortions. Mrs. Clinton wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment, a common sense measure which has had bipartisan support for more than three decades preventing government funding for abortion except in the rare cases of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother.
Mr. Trump wants to repeal Obamacare which requires abortion as a covered service in state health insurance exchanges unless a state opts out, as Pennsylvania has wisely done. Mrs. Clinton pledges “to defend Obamacare and build on its successes.”
Mr. Trump is against the late-term partial-birth abortion procedure according to his book, The America We Deserve, published in 2000. Mrs. Clinton voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban when she was a U.S. Senator.
Mr. Trump opened a column in the Washington Examiner: “Let me be clear — I am pro-life. I support that position with exceptions allowed for rape, incest or the life of the mother being at risk. I did not always hold this position, but I had a significant personal experience that brought the precious gift of life into perspective for me.” Mrs. Clinton flatly told Chuck Todd, on Meet the Press, “The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights.”
Finally, Mr. Trump is supported by the National Right to Life Committee Political Action Committee and endorsed by the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation Political Action Committee. Mrs. Clinton is endorsed by Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and EMILY’s List, the nation’s largest pro-abortion political action committee.
“None-of-the-Above” Is Not on the Ballot
Finally, some people tell me they would never vote for Mrs. Clinton because she is so pro-abortion. But they say they are not comfortable voting for Mr. Trump for various reasons. They are contemplating not voting at all, or writing in some other name for president.
Let’s face it, the next president will be Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton. Anything other than a vote FOR TRUMP is a vote FOR CLINTON. Every vote counts, and that non-vote could have been the vote that would have given us a pro-life president and the headline:
Roe v. Wade Overturned: States Free to Protect Children From Abortion
