A real pro-life Democrat!
Today Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, a pro-life Democrat, signed into law a bill limiting abortion after 15 weeks. SB181, which was sponsored by another pro-life Democrat, State Senator John Milkovich, will go into effect if a similar Mississippi law is upheld by the courts. The legislation passed overwhelmingly in both chambers of the legislature: 70-9 in the House, 24-1 in the Senate.
Go here to read the rest. Bravo Governor!
Good though it may have been a cynical move. A similar bill passed in Mississipi has been put on hold by a Federal judge and I wonder if it will hold given Roe v. Wade. Edwards knows this and I wouldn’t put it past him that this is a move to show he’s pro-life while expecting a reversal in court.
Edwards also removed protections for businesses who discriminate against homosexuals based on religious beliefs.
We’ll see.
There are a few other pro-life Democrats, whom the Left is trying or has tried to replace: Joe Manchin, Senate, W.Va; Dan Lipinski, House, Chicago; Henry Cuellar, House, Texas; Collin Petersen, House, Minnesota. Sad to say, my own Democratic Senator, Bob Casey, seems to be very much pro-abortion according to his votes, although he professes to be pro-life. Problem is many PA voters confuse him with his father, the former Governor Bob Casey, who was a stalwart spokesman for the unborn and shunted aside by the party.
Don, from a legal point of view, can’t a State or Federal Government simply pass a law recognizing a human life beginning at conception? Therefore recognizing that they have Constitutional rights (to life) and therefore due process?
“Don, from a legal point of view, can’t a State or Federal Government simply pass a law recognizing a human life beginning at conception? Therefore recognizing that they have Constitutional rights (to life) and therefore due process?”
You may have found a solution for Roe. v. Wade
John F Kennedy wrote, “[C]an’t a State or Federal Government simply pass a law recognizing a human life beginning at conception?”
French law explicitly recognises the personhood of the unborn and the right to life. Art 16 of the Code Civil declares, “Legislation ensures the primacy of the person [la personne], prohibits any infringement of the latter’s dignity and guarantees respect for the human being [l’être humain] from the outset of life.” According to most jurists, “person” and “human being” are here synonymous.
This principle is repeated in Art 1 of the Veil Law (Loi n° 75-17 du 17 janvier 1975, concerning the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy), “The law guarantees respect for every human being from the outset of life. There shall be no derogation from this principle except in cases of necessity and under the conditions laid down by this Law.”
Despite this rhetorical flourish, the Veil Law allows an abortion to be performed before the end of the tenth week of pregnancy by a physician in an approved hospital when a woman who is “in a situation of distress” because of her pregnancy requests the abortion. If two physicians certify, after an examination, that the pregnancy poses a grave danger to the woman’s health or if a strong probability exists that the expected child will suffer from a particularly severe illness recognized as incurable, an abortion may be performed at any time.
The problem is that the Federal government, through the action of the Supreme Court, has preempted this area from the States. Now this preemption was completely lawless in my opinion, but that is the argument that the pro-aborts would make. Of course the law and constitutional theory has little to do with it. What this all comes down to is who makes the next one or two appointments to the Supreme Court, and that fact is a devastating indictment of how the Supreme Court has become a ruling oligarchy, a super unelected combination of the other two branches, an abomination of the desolation in a constitutional republic.
[…] – Emmett Hare, City Journal That You May Bear Much Fruit – Peter Darcy, Catholic Stand I Have Seen a Unicorn, a Pro-Life Democrat! – Donald R. McClarey J.D., TACatholic A Quiet Place – Nicholas Lye, Ignitum Today Your […]
The problem is not really a preemption problem, as that term is used in Constitutional law. The problem is not that federal legislation has preempted the field. The problem is that the Justices illegally deciided that the Constitution says something that it does not say. To wit, that there is some magical right hidden in the constitution that no one but them can see, that guarantees a right to kill your unborn baby. To answer his question, however, the problem is that the rights guraranteed by the bill of rights usually apply to “persons”. The only serious way to interpret the constitution is to interpret it according to what the founders intended. It is clear that by the term “persons” they intended to cover only people who were born, “walking around persons” as Justice Scalia said. It is very clear they never thought the Constitution would apply to anything else. So we are bound by that definition of “person”. To change that and just say “well from now on, we are going to pretend that the founders meant unborn babies, too” would be a disaster, because that is the type of shenanigans that liiberals pull to distort the Constitution. That is how Roe v Wade was arrived at. We do not want more of that. Look 0 culture precedes and underlies law and politicas. If you want to do away with abortion, you cannot merely use word games to magically make something illegal. You have to do the hard work of showing everyone how vicious, cruel, stupid and savage abortion really is. You have to tell them that women should put their babies up for adoption, but never kil them.
Penumbra…
Don, it seems that a simple Federal law could solve the problem.
In the Constitution, Article III, Section 2 it states, “In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
The Congress could simply state in that law that the the Supreme Court doesn’t have jurisdiction, an exception, in the matter of defining Life, abortion, death or any other issue.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I would like to know why this couldn’t be applied.
It has long been a hotly contested question among lawyers and judges as to how far Congress can go in stripping the Supreme Court, and the lower federal courts, of jurisdiction in particular cases. Even if the Supreme Court ruled that such jurisdiction stripping legislation was constitutional, something I doubt they would do, Roe would still remain the law of the land. The state courts would almost certainly still rule that Roe established a right, under the US Constitution, to an abortion. Now, if the highest court in a state ruled otherwise, than that would effectively overrule Roe in that state, since no appeal would then be available to the US Supreme Court if that tribunal had previously ruled constitutional the jurisdiction stripping legislation.