Tag Archives: abortion

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Daily Broadside | Local Attorney in Virginia Refuses to Prosecute Pro-Abortion Protesters

Daily Verse | Ezra 3:12
But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.

Wednesday’s Reading: Ezra 4-6

Wednesday and I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my go-to news sources is The Epoch Times. They describe themselves as “founded in the United States in the year 2000 in response to communist repression and censorship in China. Our founders, Chinese-Americans who themselves had fled communism, sought to create an independent media to bring the world uncensored and truthful information.”

And while they still have a focus on China, they also cover news across the U.S. in a professional and objective approach. I have a paid subscription and highly recommend them.

Also, I was not paid for that endorsement.

I give them a nod because I’m highlighting an exclusive report they published yesterday that I found encouraging.

Virginia’s attorney general is calling on prosecutors to enforce a law that bars disruptions outside people’s homes after about 100 hundred protesters descended on the residence of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

At issue is Virginia code that forbids gathering outside a person’s house “in a manner which disrupts or threatens to disrupt any individual’s right to tranquility in his home.”

The law “states that protesting in front of an individual’s private residence is a class 3 misdemeanor,” Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Under Virginia law, local commonwealth’s attorneys are responsible for prosecuting violations of this statute. Attorney General Miyares urges every commonwealth’s attorney to put their personal politics aside and enforce the law,” she added.

The call comes after a noisy protest outside Alito’s home in Alexandria on May 9. Protesters shouted through loudspeakers and chanted “[expletive] Alito.”

You may remember that in 2021, Virginia businessman and political novice Glenn Youngkin beat former Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-Woke) in the gubernatorial election and Republican Jason Miyares beat incumbent attorney general Mark Herring, becoming the first elected Cuban American and Hispanic attorney general of Virginia. Their elections, along with the election of Republican Winsome Sears as lieutenant governor (becoming the first woman, the first woman of color, and the first Jamaican American elected to the post), electrified the nation as conservative Virginians pushed back—hard—on the efforts of the woke mob to corrupt our children in public schools through CRT and gender confusion, and the horrific attitude of then-governor Ralph Northam toward children who survive a third trimester abortion.

“The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

With the infanticidalist out of office, no one could have guessed that Roe v. Wade was itself about to be aborted, with a pro-life attorney general in office in a state in which several Supreme Court Justices live.

The irony.

The point is that in a country where mostly peaceful rioting is tolerated unless you’re a Trump supporter and the current administration is all but endorsing a campaign of intimidation against one of our last “independent” institutions, Virginia is uniquely situated to punch back twice as hard on the anarchists.

Unfortunately, it seems that Miyares has to prompt the local commonwealth’s attorneys to actually take action.

Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano did not respond to a voicemail or emailed questions after Miyares, a Republican, urged him to take action.

Descano, a Democrat who was a federal prosecutor in the Obama administration, has not remarked publicly on the protest.

Descano said on May 3, in response to the leak of the draft opinion, “I will never prosecute a woman for making her own healthcare decisions.”

A Democrat who served in the Obama administration.

You don’t say.

We should make it easy to impeach and remove these so-called “law enforcement” officials when they refuse to enforce the laws that were legally enacted by duly elected representatives and signed by the chief executive. No more of this, “I’ll decide which laws to uphold.” The office is supposed to enforce all of them, buster, not just the ones that fit your political priorities.

Federal law bars protesting near the homes of any judges “with the intent of influencing” them, but U.S. prosecutors have shown no indication they plan on pursuing charges against protesters, who recently went to the homes of several other justices in Maryland.

My shocked face is all worn out.

Brandon isn’t going to prosecute. He’s the titular head of an illegal junta that is all about finishing the fundamental transformation of the United States that Barack Hussein Obama started. And they don’t care how many laws they have to break to get there.

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Daily Broadside | Yeah, That Dirty Little Trick Isn’t Going to Help Democrats This November

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 36:16
But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.

Tuesday’s Reading: Ezra 1-3

Tuesday and the beat goes on. At least it does until it doesn’t.

If current polling has anything to say about November, the Democrats are in for a thrashing. They may think they’ve generated enough outrage with this SCOTUS leak to stave off the whipping that’s coming, but a new CNN poll conducted after the draft decision was made public leaves the Democrats with little hope.

The recent leak of a draft US Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade seemed to give Democrats a winning issue to rally base and swing voters in the midterm elections. After all, most Americans support the landmark 1973 high court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Our new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, however, shows that such hopes are likely unfounded. Republicans look like they remain in the driver’s seat for November because voters don’t trust Democrats on the all-important issue of the economy.

The May 3-5 CNN survey, conducted after the draft opinion became public, shows Republicans with a 49% to 42% advantage on the generic congressional ballot. If that 7-point lead held through the election, it would be as large a win for the GOP in the national House vote as it was in 2010 — when Republicans regained the House majority and ended up with 242 seats out of 435.

It’s the economy, stupid.

The vast majority of Americans aren’t facing an “unplanned” pregnancy. They’re facing food shortages, $4.56/gal. gas, and the anxiety of inflation. They might support Roe v. Wade, or they might not, but overturning a wrongly decided court decision from 50 years ago is not an election-year issue for them.

Nearly nine in ten U.S. likely voters say they’re concerned about rising inflation, and more than four in five say inflation will be an important issue in November’s Congressional elections, a new survey by Rasmussen Reports reveals.

The survey also found that the majority (60%) of voters say the Biden Administration’s policies have increased inflation – more than five times the 11% who claim the administration’s policies have decreased inflation. Another 25% say the policies haven’t made much of a difference, one way or the other.

[…]

Half (50%) of all likely voters rate Biden’s handling of economic issues as “poor.” Another 15% rate it as “fair,” while 18% call it “good.” About one in seven (14%) believe Biden’s economic policies have been “excellent.”

That “one in seven” who think Brandon’s policies are “excellent” is Hunter Biden.

Back to the CNN poll, the people who want to overturn Roe are the most enthusiastic about voting in the midterms.

More from Paula Bolyard:

If the congressional election were held today, 42% of respondents said they would vote for the Democrat nominee, with 49% favoring the Republican — a loss of two points for the Democrats and a gain of 4% for Republicans from the week prior. Reports of the demise of the Republican Party if Roe is overturned appear to be greatly exaggerated.

As Bolyard points out, abortion doesn’t even register on the list of things voters consider most important in this recent Gallup poll.

As I like to say — don’t get cocky. Nothing is certain these days, what with overflowing toilets in Atlanta causing flooding in six different states in 2020.

Be that as it may, whoever thought breaking with historical precedent and current law to try influencing the outcome of the court’s deliberation badly miscalculated. Instead of ginning just up hatred and rage, the act clearly underscored the dirty political tactics that the Left uses to get its way. The American public must be seeing the Democrat party and its allies for the seething hyper-partisan anti-Americans they are.

As I’ve said before, I’ll say it again: I’d rather be an American than a Democrat.

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Daily Broadside | The Mob Comes for the Justices and Demonizes the Right as “Extreme”

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 25:16
While he was still speaking, the king said to him, “Have we appointed you an adviser to the king? Stop! Why be struck down?“

Friday’s Reading: 2 Chronicles 26-28
Saturday’s Reading: 2 Chronicles 29-32

Friday and the end of the first week of May. And what a week it’s been.

The leak of the SCOTUS draft opinion on Dobbs remains the focus and the extremism is ratcheting up.

In response to the Monday night leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, a leftist group called Ruth Sent Us posted what it claims are the home addresses of the Court’s six conservative justices online in preparation for an organized “walk-by protest” set to take place outside the justices’ homes next week.

This is nothing more than pure mob tactics, meant to intimidate and harass, figuratively holding a gun to the head of “conservative” justices.

It brought to mind this image of inmate James McClain, who aims a pistol at Judge Harold Haley in the Marin County Hall of Justice in August 1970. He also holds a sawed-off shotgun taped to the judge’s neck. Both McClain and Haley were killed in the hostage-taker’s attempt to escape.

The judge represents SCOTUS, the guy with the gun is the anti-American Left, and the guy with his hands up is Normal Americans. Conservatives who cherish the America we used to know have to stop being this kind of Normie and throw themselves at the guy with the gun.

In collaboration with Vigil for Democracy, Ruth Sent Us generated and posted a Google Maps graphic pinning what it claims are the home addresses of Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Roberts, where they presumably reside with their families. Vigil for Democracy titled the map, “Extremist Justices,” adding, “Where the six Christian fundamentalist Justices issue their shadow docket rulings.” The map has 3,185 views so far.

The irony in labeling the six Justices “extremist” and “Christian fundamentalist.” The demonization of Christians for their stance on abortion is also disturbing. Do you think activists who are willing to dox Supreme Court Justices and confront the police how they do below would have any hesitation to doing the same to “Christian fundamentalists”?

Add to all of this Brandon’s declaration that if you voted for Trump — and at least 74 million of us did — you’re an extremist.

I’m sorry, but who are the extremists on abortion?

At the same time, House Democrats pass legislation legalizing elective abortion up until the point of birth, and their counterparts in state legislatures push laws legalizing elective abortion up to and even after the point of birth. In 2019, Ralph Northam, then the Democratic governor of Virginia, infamously defended a late-term-abortion law introduced by his colleagues in the state by suggesting that, if a baby was delivered amid an attempted abortion while the mother was in labor, “a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother” about whether the child would be “resuscitated.” In March, Maryland Democrats introduced a law that effectively decriminalized letting a baby die due to neglect through the first 28 days after birth. Just a few weeks later, a bill was introduced in the California legislature legalizing death-by-neglect for babies up to six weeks after birth.

Democrats today hold the most unequivocally, unapologetically, and grotesquely radical line on abortion of any major political party in the Western world. So, [Resident] Biden, tell us again — and speak slowly, so we can understand: Who, exactly, is “the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history”?

You need to understand, if you don’t already, that we are rapidly descending into a state of anarchy, facilitated by those in power and carried out by the useful idiots in the street.

“When you conduct yourself in an utterly lawless way, attacking the institutions of this country, attacking the founding documents of this country, attacking the history of this country, this is what you get: lawlessness,” [Levin] insisted during “Fox & Friends.”

He added, “”It’s just a matter of time. All these institutions are going to collapse. This is a grave assault on the Supreme Court.”

It may be that we will face an incredibly violent era as these issues play out, but for 1,725 babies a day, it will be worth the fight.

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | It’s Weird to Hear Abortion Supporters Say SCOTUS is Removing Their Rights

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 21:13
“But you have walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and you have led Judah and the people of Jerusalem to prostitute themselves, just as the house of Ahab did.”

Thursday’s Reading: 2 Chronicles 24-25

It’s Thursday and Cinco de Mayo. I hope my appropriation of that term doesn’t trigger anyone.

The news that continues to shock and awe observers is the leak of the Dobbs opinion. It was obviously a coordinated leak, as the rent-a-mob spooks were already cued, and the Democrats had their talking points ready to go at a moment’s notice. But now that the dust has settled some, cooler heads are examining the fallout, much as investigators pick over the remains of a downed airliner.

Here’s what some of them are saying.

“It is the first time a full draft opinion has been leaked in the Supreme Court‘s 233 year history, according to former law clerks.” The Left does nothing but criticize and destroy, whether it is people, traditions, culture or institutions. This is just the latest in a long history of destruction wrought by the militant Marxists who infest the weight-bearing walls of our American home.

It has done great damage to the institution of an impartial judiciary. “Davis, who now works with the Article III Project told me on KTTH Radio that the leak was ‘shocking, shameful, and likely illegal. I think this is unprecedented. It’s very clear that someone is leaking this opinion to try to influence justices’ votes on this Dobbs case to overturn Roe and Casey. And in that case, we’re looking at potential obstruction of justice charges against whoever did this.'”

“Midterm voters care about affordability first and foremost, and they are not people who are worried every single day about losing access to abortion,” says Roginsky. “My fear continues to be that sometimes we as Democrats run on things that we wish the voters cared about, rather than what the voters do care about.” This is a good sign that even one of their own recognizes their overreach on this issue.

“Additionally, the timing is off for Democrats. I predicted that the Dobbs decision would be old news by November, and some Democrat strategists think so, too. Politico notes, ‘Even before the [leaked] draft was reported, Democrats bullish on the political effects of Roe being overturned feared a June release of the decision might come too soon to help them in November. The disclosure pushed the Democratic outrage earlier in the calendar, with six months before the elections.'”

“All the states in the union are aware of the impending court decision and have already or are currently preparing their own laws regarding the practice of abortion. As these laws will be crafted at a more local level, they will better reflect the preferences of each state’s citizens. By the time November rolls around, there may even be less discord and strife regarding abortion than there is now. At any rate, the Worst Thing Ever! will have come to pass, the world will have continued to turn, and people will have gone back to being more concerned about inflation, the Biden Recession, and looming war.”

Exactly. The anti-life anarchists are all amped up now, but in November, Dobbs will be a speck in the review mirror. Good luck restarting the rage machine then.

On the decision itself. “That is particularly true when it comes to abortion, the most vital Leftist sacrament, an action of holy import. For the Left, abortion represents the power to deny the objective value of human life; it represents willingness to engage in the highest form of self-serving moral relativism. Absence of abortion presents the possibility that actions have moral consequence, that the value of life is not an arbitrary and subjective one, that women and men have duties to their children. All of which challenges their basic worldview.”

“Old Joe Biden said Tuesday that Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was ‘really quite a radical decision’ and ‘a fundamental shift in American jurisprudence,’ but as usual, he was lying. Alito’s decision appears to be carefully reasoned, firmly based on what the Constitution actually says, and written with a full recognition of the nature and importance of judicial precedent. What is unprecedented is the leak that has allowed us to evaluate this decision before the Court has actually ruled on the case at hand, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.“

“Samuel Alito’s crafted opinion strikes at a vast body of evil—a lethal evil, massive in its scale—but at the same time it holds out an assurance that this ‘right,’ which some people see as bound up with nothing less than their personal freedom, will remain secure for them, at least in the States where they wish to live. But when people came out in pro-life marches in the worst weather in Washington, they were registering their opposition to the poisoning or dismembering of babies in the womb. They never thought that they were arguing for a license to keep engaging in that killing on a massive scale, so long as it was done in Blue States.”

“The opinion’s careful analysis of text therefore represents not only the overruling of Roe but also a sea change in the appropriate method of reasoning about the Constitution. What was notable about Roe was that it failed to locate the abortion right in the text of the Constitution or even in previous precedent. As law professor John Hart Ely said about Roe, ‘it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.’ (Not surprisingly, Alito quotes Ely.) But Roe was also the culmination of decades of loose thinking about constitutional interpretation, as expressed in cases that ignored the original meaning of text and were driven by what the justices thought of as good policy. If the Dobbs decision follows this draft opinion, then its most important legacy will be the restoration of a more rigorous method of reasoning to the heart of constitutional law. And it represents a triumph for the conservative legal movement in its decades-long fight to restore the original meaning as the centerpiece of constitutional interpretation.”

“Even so, Alito’s draft is consequential. It not only represents a potential preview of one of the most significant Court decisions in a generation, but also articulates a compelling understanding of the nature of liberty and the role of the judiciary in American constitutional law.

“First, it’s important to understand the question before the Supreme Court. It is not ‘Should American women possess a right to abortion?’ but ‘Does the American Constitution protect abortion rights?’ The distinction is of paramount importance. The Court’s job is not to determine which rights we should possess but rather the rights we do possess.”

Abortion as a Constitutional right was created by SCOTUS in 1973. For those wailing about SCOTUS “taking away” that “right,” remember that you will still have that “right” in states which have provided for abortion. In those states that don’t provide for abortion or severely limit abortion, you can elect representatives who will legislate such a right.

Not that you should. But you could.

What SCOTUS gives, SCOTUS can take. Especially when the original opinion was so wrongly decided.

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Daily Broadside | The Freak Out Over Leak On Roe

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 20:12b
“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.”

Wednesday’s Reading: 2 Chronicles 21-23

In the wake of the leaked SCOTUS ruling in which they overturn Roe v. Wade, the godless anti-American morally vacuous progressive Marxists are seizing up and melting down over the threat to their Precious, starting with shrieking harridan and fake Indian princess Lie-Awatha Warren.

So much kabuki theater, so much performance art. Much like noted Resident Brandon, who was asked to provide his opinion on whether the Senate should kill the filibuster to codify Roe.

Wut?

The Left has even gone after Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)

Liberals on Twitter are enraged after the Monday night leak of an alleged SCOTUS draft opinion, which indicated that the conservative-majority Court will rule to strike Roe v Wade down. As such, they’ve gone after Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, for her decisive vote in confirming Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the bench in 2018.

At the time, Collins tried to assuage critics of her vote by saying, “I do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh will overturn Roe v. Wade,” but now that it appears that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court are poised to dismantle Roe v Wade and abortion rights, leftists are attacking the senator, calling her a liar and viciously insulting her.

As I wrote yesterday, the leak is shocking and unprecedented, meant to pressure the Court’s conservatives into switching their vote. The fact that it came from within the Court itself is alarming and has observers asking, why?

I called up one of the smartest professors I know at one of the top law schools in the country, and he echoed that: “To my knowledge, it’s never happened before in the modern history of the court. It is the most serious possible breach.”

Serious, severe, shocking, he said. But in the end, not surprising. Why not? Here’s how he put it: “To me, the leak is not surprising because many of the people we’ve been graduating from schools like Yale are the kind of people who would do such a thing.”

What did he mean by that? “They think that everything is violence. And so everything is permitted.”

He went on: “I’m sure this person sees themselves as a whistleblower. What they don’t understand is that, by leaking this, they violate the trust that is necessary to maintain the institution.”

Exactly the problem. The institution is expendable in the pursuit of political and cultural hegemony. I don’t know where this breach of ethics and tradition will take us, but it’s not anywhere good.

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Daily Broadside | Roe v. Wade to be Overturned According to Leaked Draft Opinion

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 16:9
“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”

Tuesday’s Reading: 2 Chronicles 17-20

Tuesday and yesterday, for the first time in the modern history of the Supreme Court, a draft opinion was leaked to the press.

The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court and obtained by POLITICO.

The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.

This is fantastic news to those of us who believe abortion is an evil that must be purged from our nation. Abortion has been a deeply divisive issue from the start and has only grown more grotesque and extreme over the last 50-years, culminating in a flurry of state laws granting the right to have an abortion up to the moment of birth.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

Of course, the usual suspects were primed to denounce the news.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer torched Supreme Court justices on Monday night after Politico published what appears to be a leaked draft of a ruling overturning the right to an abortion.

“If the report is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past fifty years – not just on women but on all Americans,” the top two Congressional Democrats said in a joint statement. “The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.”

If you ever wanted evidence that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are two of the worst politicians to be inflicted on the American people in the last 50 years, there you have it. To call the roll-back of abortion “an abomination” and “one of the worst and most damaging decisions” is completely the opposite of what it is. It also shows you how completely immoral our leaders have become.

I would not be surprised to know that Pelosi and Schumer were both notified that the leak was coming. The leak is very damaging to this ruling in particular and to the court in general. The leak is obviously intended to produce pressure on the justices to vote to keep Roe v. Wade in place. Gin up the anger and hostility to eleven across the country.

Further, who leaked the draft opinion? That person should be identified and punished. How can the Justices of the Supreme Court trust each other?

Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law, swiftly called on the chief justice to launch an investigation into the leak.

“Roberts has an absolute obligation to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation. And at the end of that investigation, Roberts must publicly identify the persons who are responsible for this leak–that includes Justices and clerks. Heads must roll,” Blackman wrote in a blog post on Monday night.

Most agree that the draft opinion is written in the style of Samuel Alito and that he would be writing for the majority.

Ruling on Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Alito wrote, “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.’”

“The right to abortion does not fall within this category,” Alito continued. “Until the latter part of the 20th century, such a right was entirely unknown in American law. Indeed, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, three-quarters of the States made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy.”

“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” the justice insisted. He quoted Justice Antonin Scalia: “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.”

[…]

“We end this opinion where we began,” Alito concluded. “Abortion presents a profound moral question. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives. The judgment in the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.” [Emphasis added]

I’m praying that it’s an authentic draft and that the egregious leak does nothing to sway the majority opinion.

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Daily Broadside | Justice Sotomayor, Not the Fetus, is Braindead

Daily Verse | Galatians 5:14
The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Friday’s Reading: Ephesians 1-6

Happy Friday, Broadsiders. I’m learning to say “crochet” in 35 other languages because you never know when you might need it.

A short post this morning as we head into the weekend in follow up to the arguments yesterday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. In particular, I want to point out that Justice Sonia Sotomayor was not only hostile to Mississippi Attorney General Scott Stewart, who challenged Roe’s standard of viability; she was illogical in her responses.

I mentioned yesterday that Sotomayor questioned the State of Mississippi’s compelling interest in the viability of an unborn baby by asking, “How is your interest anything but a religious view … that’s a religious view … because it assumes that a fetus is life.”

First, no where does our Constitution say that religious motivations or views are not permitted when considering a decision. Second, her accusation that “a religious view … assumes that a fetus is a life” can be applied to her secular view that assumes a fetus is not a life.

That wasn’t the only thing Sotomayor said that got a strong reaction. She compared a fetus feeling pain to a braindead person responding to stimuli.

Mississippi Attorney General Scott Stewart challenged Roe’s standard of viability: that the state does not have an interest in protecting the life of a child until 24 weeks (six months) into pregnancy. Stewart argued that babies’ ability to feel pain before viability should play a role in determining whether the state should protect their lives.

“I don’t see how that really adds anything to the discussion, that a small fringe of doctors believe that pain could be experienced before a cortex is formed,” Sotomayor said while interrupting Stewart repeatedly.

In response to Stewart’s assertion that babies recoil from surgical instruments at as young as 15 weeks, Sotomayor argued that braindead people, who are considered officially dead in most states, can still sometimes respond to stimuli such as being touched on the feet.

“I don’t think that a response by a fetus necessarily proves there’s a sensation of pain or that there’s consciousness,” she said.

Her full comment comparing a live baby in utero and a braindead person in a hospital bed was, “Yet, the literature is filled with episodes of people who are completely and utterly brain dead responding to stimuli. There’s about 40 percent of dead people who, if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. There are spontaneous acts by dead brain people. So I don’t think that a response to — by a fetus necessarily proves that there’s a sensation of pain or that there’s consciousness.”

Is that your opinion, Judge? This woman is showing how weak the arguments are for Roe.

It isn’t a “small fringe of doctors” who believe a fetus can feel pain. Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted, “It is well-established medical practice to provide anesthesia to the unborn child regarding medical procedures performed before 24 weeks because the nerve endings, which generate pain, are well-developed.”

Sotomayor is uninformed and biased, allowing her political views to color how she views this case. Not very smart for “a wise Latina woman.” In fact, sort of “braindead” if you ask me.

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | The End of ‘Roe’ May Be Approaching

Daily Verse | 2 Corinthians 12:10
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Thursday’s Reading: Galatians 1-6

Welcome to the Daily Broadside, my friends.

If there’s one thing that deserves a ferocious broadside, it’s the scourge of abortion in our country. There’s a few things in my life from which I cannot be moved, and one of them is that abortion is not just wrong, it is a barbaric evil that is symptomatic of just how far into the gutter our culture has sunk.

But arguments at the Supreme Court began yesterday that may determine whether the court will reverse its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision declaring that women have a constitutional right to end a pregnancy and send that determination back to the states where it belongs. The case is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which involves a Mississippi ban on almost all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. It’s been called the “biggest abortion case in decades.” The question is “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”

While I have not listened to the first day of arguments, reports and analysis suggest that SCOTUS may be leaning toward a reversal, which is sure to cheer pro-life forces and to set progressive’s hair on fire.

As for Kavanaugh, he “gave abortion rights supporters little to cheer in his comments and questions.”

He presented a list of cases in which the court had overturned long-held precedents and said that perhaps the best solution for the court was to be “scrupulously neutral” on an issue about which he said the Constitution is silent.

That sounds like a good idea. And if Kavanaugh adopts this “solution,” it likely means Roe v. Wade will be overturned regardless of what the Chief Justice decides.

Some believe the key votes are those of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh (true), but Michael Walsh makes the case that “this is the case that Justice Clarence Thomas, now the Court’s senior justice, has been waiting for since he was appointed in 1991.”

Thomas, the liberals’ bête noire, has long been an outspoken opponent of Roe: “Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled,” he wrote in a dissent in a different case just last year. “The Constitution does not constrain the States’ ability to regulate or even prohibit abortion.”

Further, Thomas is no fan of stare decisis, the absurd notion that once the Court has decided something, however incorrectly, that precedent should heavily influence later cases. Were that true, Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson would still be on the books, respectively barring blacks from U.S. citizenship and upholding state-imposed segregation.

“In my view, if the Court encounters a decision that is demonstrably erroneous — i.e., one that is not a permissible interpretation of the text—the Court should correct the error, regardless of whether other factors support overruling the precedent,” wrote Thomas in Gamble v. United States¸ a double-jeopardy case.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council seemed upbeat in his post:

Many are hopeful after this morning’s argument. The justices were mostly quiet when Mississippi’s Solicitor General Scott Stewart defended his state’s law outlawing abortion after 15 weeks. Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor showed serious antagonism to Stewart, and at one point was downright hostile with her abortion apologetic, absurdly asking him: “how is your interest anything but a religious view?” Stewart ably argued the state’s case, however, pointing out that Roe and Casey are without solid footing and do injustice to what the Constitution says about a right to abortion, which is nothing.

Next up was the abortion advocates’ attorney Julie Rikelman, joined by the Biden administration’s Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar. At this point the justices turned up the heat a bit. When Justice Samuel Alito quizzed Prelogar about whether Plessy v. Ferguson (an 1896 case that upheld racial segregation laws) was an erroneous ruling, Prelogar agreed it was “egregiously wrong.” The abortion advocates were also forced to acknowledge that they don’t want to settle on any middle ground; they not only want to retain the undue burden standard from Casey, but admitted they want to keep Roe’s viability standard too. But as Chief Justice John Roberts observed, “we share [the viability] standard with the People’s Republic of China and North Korea” – hardly countries we should be comparing ourselves to, a point made in a newly released FRC report on abortion around the world.

Apart from Justice Sotomayor’s snarky and absurd question, Psalm 139 affirms that you and I and every human being is made by God:

13 For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

These are hopeful signs, although don’t underestimate Roberts’s ability to be a squish. If you’re a praying man or woman, keep the court in your prayers now and in the next few months. The decision won’t be announced until mid-2022.