Pro-lifers are so well-intentioned, their commitment to protecting innocent human life at all stages so absolute, that they sometimes give their hearts too much control over their brains, tactics, and strategies.
Take the recent bill passed by the Oklahoma Legislature that would make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion. Talk about a profoundly misguided effort! Thank goodness, the governor has vetoed. From the Huffington Post story:
Oklahoma’s Republican Governor Mary Fallin vetoed a bill calling for prison terms of up to three years for doctors who performed abortions, saying the legislation would not withstand a criminal constitutional legal challenge, her office said on Friday.
Fallin is exactly right.
Given the Supreme Court’s refusal on several occasions to overturn Roe, the fact that it is less pro-life now than it was at those times, and the likelihood that the replacement for the late Justice Scalia will be less conservative than he was–the chances that the Court would uphold such a law are exactly nil.
But the foolishness of the attempt goes far beyond its futility. The outcome of a Supreme Court ruling on the law could easily leave things far worse from the pro-life perspective than they are now.
As I have repeatedly warned, pro-abortion forces also wish to do away with Roe. They think the current law allows too many restrictions. They want the right to be made absolute.
They have the means to achieve that goal by shifting the constitutional basis for the right to abortion from privacy to equal protection.
If they succeed, the right to abortion through the ninth month would become absolute,and in one fell swoop, all the inroads the pro-life movement has made in the last decades would be wiped out.
I believe there are currently four votes to make that epochal shift. If Hillary Clinton replaces Scalia, there will be five.
If Trump does, there will still not be the votes there to overturn Roe and return the issue of abortion to the states.
Making this effort even more foolish, a law outlawing abortion altogether would be the perfect vehicle for such a “reverse” reversal because it would put the entire issue before the Court, not just whether a state regulation did or did not constitute an undue burden.
And then, the pro-life movement could see every one of its successes destroyed.
Pro-lifers are swimming against an intense cultural tide. Their goal is to save lives. They have succeeded tremendously toward that end by using their brains more than their hearts.
That approach needs to continue. A statute outlawing abortion altogether would not only be in vain, but potentially worse, handing pro-abortion activists the knife with which to slay the pro-life movement.
Let the veto stand.