The U.S. Constitution <i>requires</i> civil magistrates to protect the unborn...

Tim,

I thought the post linked below and the article linked in the post by Robert George (reflections) were interesting relative to these issues and the practical challenges of changing the status quo on abortion:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/01/19/the-fourteenth-amendment-and-the-personhood-of-the-unborn/

Tom

Tom, we live in the land of the blind when, as I repeat once more, the one-eyed man is seen as a monster. In your link above from Between Two Worlds, Justin tells us to give up on the U. S. Constitution because even the most conservative SCOTUS justices presently serving think it's hopeless: "Scalia and Thomas want the Court out of the 'abortion-umpiring business,' which they think has undermined the integrity of the Court as a constitutional and political institution."

Yes, yes. Our sad justices parrot the same argument made against reversal of Roe v. Wade by Republican-appointed justices back in 1993 in "Planned Parenthood vs. Casey." Disgusting.

Joe Sobran summarized this betrayal of Constitutional jurisprudence (that Justin commends) this way:

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In 1993 the Court handed down one of the most bizarre decisions of all time. For two decades, enemies of legal abortion had been supporting Republican candidates in the hope of filling the Court with appointees who would review Roe v. Wade. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Court finally did so. But even with eight Republican appointees on the Court, the result was not what the conservatives had hoped for. The Court reaffirmed Roe.

Its reasoning was amazing. A plurality opinion — a majority of the five-justice majority in the case — admitted that the Court’s previous ruling in Roe might be logically and historically vulnerable. But it held that the paramount consideration was that the Court be consistent, and not appear to be yielding to public pressure, lest it lose the respect of the public. Therefore the Court allowed Roe to stand.

Among many things that might be said about this ruling, the most basic is this: The Court in effect declared itself a third party to the controversy, and then, setting aside the merits of the two principals’ claims, ruled in its own interest! It was as if the referee in a prizefight had declared himself the winner. Cynics had always suspected that the Court did not forget its self-interest in its decisions, but they never expected to hear it say so.

The three justices who signed that opinion evidently didn’t realize what they were saying. A distinguished veteran Court-watcher (who approved of Roe, by the way) told me he had never seen anything like it. The Court was actually telling us that it put its own welfare ahead of the merits of the arguments before it. In its confusion, it was blurting out the truth.

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We see that working inside the Beltway turns almost everyone into cynics, and employees of Evangelical publishing houses think this must be right because so-called conservative (because Republican-appointed) SCOTUS justices say so.

Robert George succeeds in knowing the truth any elementary school student has not yet had beaten out of his brain, that our governments are to guard their citizens from wholesale slaughter. How Ron Paul has forgotten this, let alone how he argues that his forgetfulness is required by the U.S. Constitution; and how several SCOTUS justices have failed to recover the truth in all these years since their law school deformation, is beyond me (and many others among us).

Here's George's wise grasp on our U.S. Constitution:

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/10/4055

Love,

TB

PS: I'm sure you all realize that the real problem in the Third Reich was that Germany's Constitution didn't provide for it's federal government to stop the Holocaust. It was a political issue and there was simply no home for anti-Holocaust legislation or action. Laws against murder of the Jews were matters for the individual states of Germany. And their Fourteenth Amendment was written for blacks--not Jews.

I mean, what could anyone do to oppose the power and authority and military might of their federal government? And if the states let it happen, what was anyone to do?

The citizens of Germany during the Third Reich show how careful we have to be not to throw out constitutional government simply because we're all wrought up in sympathy for one small people group.

Gotta keep our objectivity here.

This is why we didn't step in with Rwanda. I mean, really--where does our Constitution make us our brother's keeper? And you know, it was their civil magistrates who ordered the machete slaughter. Do you really think even the Christians there should have refused to obey, let alone spoken out in opposition to, their civil authorities?

The law's the law, you know.

>>> PS: I'm sure you all realize that the real problem in the Third Reich was that Germany's Constitution didn't provide for it's federal government to stop the Holocaust. It was a political issue and there was simply no home for anti-Holocaust legislation or action. Laws against murder of the Jews were matters for the individual states of Germany. And their Fourteenth Amendment was written for blacks--not Jews.

With this and with the parable of the Hutu father who wrote "Let the Church Be the Church: Gospel Centrality from My Front Porch" as the slaughter went on around him ( http://www.baylyblog.com/2012/01/a-parable.html ), I'm beginning to get it through my head. Keep at it, Tim.