OTHER COMMENTARY / EXCERPTS : Trust Not in the Constitution, but in Votes

Despite the joy most pro-lifers feel, the Supreme Court’s decision on Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services appears to be based on nothing more solid than the personal whim of the justices.

Just as Roe vs. Wade was based on the completely arbitrary “trimester” approach, devised by Justice Blackmun in an attempt to create a synthesis between medical opinion, law and theology, the court’s latest ruling permitting states to restrict abortions smacks of arbitrariness by failing to include an unassailable base for the unborn’s right to life that would have provided a standard for the future.

The founders had such a base when they framed the Constitution: “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” among which was the right to life.

The court makes no reference to any such endowed right for the unborn by a creator, giving a future court the opportunity to decide what it wishes. One court giveth, one court taketh away.

As former Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes said, “The Constitution is what the justices say it is,” undercutting the foundation of a document that has served us well for more than 200 years.

While some pro-lifers can today rejoice that the long national abortion nightmare seems to be ending, they should remember that without a return to law based on an unchanging principle, abortion could again come back to haunt us when a future court, or even this court, decides, for whatever reason, to resurrect Roe vs. Wade.

For now the court has invited states to pass legislation restricting abortion. And well they might.

Clearly the momentum has shifted as increasing numbers of Americans became disturbed over unrestricted abortions. As more women testified to post-abortion syndrome and as Operation Rescue made headlines by blocking entrances to abortion clinics, the staggering number of abortions performed daily--4,000--has become, for many Americans, intolerable.

The Supreme Court has let stand a declaration in Missouri law that “the life of each human being begins at conception.” For 16 years, though, the court concluded arbitrarily that life begins at birth. That decision led to the deaths of more than 24 million babies and the emotional scarring of millions of women. Having seized absolute power, the court did not feel the need to say it is sorry.