Supreme Court, Supreme Court, Supreme Court

Posted in: News By House Divided on April 10, 2017

On August 17, 2000, singer Barbra Streisand told the audience at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee, “The first three reasons to vote for Al Gore (for president) are the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court… Our whole way of life is at stake. I shudder at how a more conservative court can put at risk all we hold dear”. Everyone understood Streisand was referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.

Decided in 1973 by a divided court, Roe declared any unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion was unconstitutional. Overnight, Roe effectively legalized abortion in all 50 states, yet millions of Americans believed Roe was wrong when written.

Before Roe, abortion was not the polarizing issue it is today. For example, in 1971 Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy declared, “Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its early stages, has certain rights which must be recognized – the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old”. By 2016, the Democrat position on abortion had hardened. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pledged, if elected, not to nominate anyone to the Supreme Court who would reverse Roe saying, “the unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights”.

Our Supreme Court is a respected institution, but it’s not infallible. For example, in Plessy v. Ferguson the Court legalized racial segregation in public schools under the Doctrine, “separate but equal”. At the time, millions believed Plessy was wrong when written…and they were right. Decided in 1896, Plessy was eventually overturned in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education – but not before generations of African-Americans lost their chance for an equal education.

In February 2018, the New York Times published The Abortion Memo by David Brooks. In it, Brooks questions the political wisdom of the Left, which insists the right to late term abortions is sacrosanct. Brooks believes it’s because baby boomers view “the pro – choice movement as integral to their feminism”. What brand of feminism clings to the right to choose late term abortions?

In 2008, prominent feminist Camille Paglia, a “firm supporter” of abortion, gave us insight into that mindset. Paglia stunned fellow liberals when she said, “I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. “Paglia criticized “liberals (who) have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just insensate tissue”.

No history of abortion in this country would be complete without mention of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. In 1957, during a television interview with Mike Wallace, Sanger was asked, “…do you believe there is such a thing as sin? “. Sanger replied, “I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world… “. It was well known Sanger believed abortion would reduce the population of “undesirables”. For example, during an interview in 1980 Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said, “I thought at the time Roe was decided there was concern about population growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of “. Who are the people Sanger and Ginsburg “don’t want to have too many of”?

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. held a different view of human life. King believed in “the non-violent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life”. He said , “Man is more than a tiny vagary of whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke from a limitless smoldering…Man is a child of God, made in his image, and must be respected as such’”. It was Kings Theology – not his political ideology- that fueled his successful opposition to Plessy and its progeny.

Americans were recently surprised when Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he’d retire from SCOTUS, effective July, 31st, leaving President Donald Trump to appoint his successor. The Left believes Trump was elected by “deplorables”. They forget candidate Trump circulated a list of 25 judges he would pick from to fill vacancies on the Supreme Court if elected President; Neil Gorsuch was on that list.

Today, the Left knows the real reason so many Americans supported Trump: Supreme Court, Supreme Court, Supreme Court!