Letters to the Editor: Overturning Roe vs. Wade could be the end of our constitutional order

To the editor: Nicholas Goldberg is correct that precedent is not the reason to uphold Roe vs. Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion. What is at stake in the Supreme Court consideration of whether or not Roe is the law of the land is far more dire and sinister than mere stare decisis.

The Constitution and our whole system of law is at risk.

The Supreme Court is deciding whether Article 6 of the Constitution still holds as the heart of our legal system. Article 6 contains the supremacy clause, which makes federal law supreme in this country, not individual state law. Article 6 is part of what makes the Mississippi and Texas laws illegal.

Religious bias is the only reason that the current court is considering these challenges to Roe. The law should be absent of bias.

Glenn Shockley, Winnetka

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To the editor: According to Goldberg, “Roe and Casey deserve our support ... because they work.” Unfortunately you can’t tell that to the millions of the unborn who were killed and will never have what Goldberg calls “America’s fundamental liberties.”

Doug Meyers, Garden Grove

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To the editor: I heartily agree with Goldberg that Roe defends a fundamental American liberty. What is rarely discussed by practitioners of Christianity and other religions who want to repeal this precedent is their belief that ensoulment begins at conception.

This means that an amorphous incorporeal essence enters the moment the egg and sperm connect. So to abort a human being at any stage of development would be to abort a soul as well.

Of course, many religions do not specifically state at what point the soul actually enters a human body and where precisely it rests. (Someone I know was convinced his own soul did not make its entrance until the age of 30.)

In any case, this idea of ensoulment is one of the arguments that justifies the defense of those who are antiabortion: that you are not just killing a fetus, but an immortal inner spirit.

This theory did not seem at all plausible to an atheist like me until I ingested a psychedelic drug that allowed what appeared to be an electrified kaleidoscopic form to slip out of my supine body and cross the room. Much to my astonishment and relief, the form returned to my body, but has left me wondering ever since.

Fengar Gael, Irvine