The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today on Gonzales v. Carhart, 05-380 and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 05-1382, upholding a nationwide ban on partial-birth abortion. The Justices voted 5-4 to retain the ban. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter dissented.
Bloomberg: “The law, which has never taken effect, is the first federal abortion restriction since the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established the constitutional right to end a pregnancy.”
Think about this… you are witnessing history! We have prayed for God’s mercy in this area for years and we are now enjoying His grace on a national scale.
HT: Stand To Reason
God is good!!!
I have to say I have mixed feeling about this. On the one hand, its certainly good that ‘doctors’ (I use the term loosely) will no longer be able to pull a live baby partially out of the womb and then kill it. However, the act has loop holes in it big enough to drive a truck through.
This act does not address the issue of abortion itself, the humanity of the baby, or the term of the pregnancy being terminated. It applies specifically and only to killing the baby after partial removal from the womb. Now, all these ‘doctors’ will have to do is kill the child while still in the womb and extract its corpse, an inconvenience to be sure but something I doubt they’re above doing given their willingness to engage in the partial birth variety of killing.
I seriously doubt this ‘victory’ will mean less murdered babies. It may in fact mean more if abortion opponents drop their guard thinking a victory has been won.
All we’ve really said as a culture with this act is ‘you can’t kill babies THAT WAY.’ I’m not sure that’s something to crow about.
Larry, to be sure, there’s more work to do. But if we can’t crow about this, I don’t know what we can crow about. I dread the thought of going down the road of complete, unmitigated victory “or bust.” It makes the “or bust” part a lot more certain.
As C.S. Lewis said,
Hugh,
I guess I could see that point if we were ‘down the road’ on this but I’m skeptical that even one abortion will be stopped by this. Even if we were, I’m not sure incrementalism is the aproach to take with mass murder.
To reference Lewis’ quote above, he’s talking about not seeking universal justice all in one fell swoop, he doesn’t seem to advocate incrementalism for individual issues when he says, for example ‘abolition of the slave trade.’ That sounds pretty comprehensive to me where slavery is concerned. He doesn’t suggest ‘improving the conditions on slave ships’ as a starter.
The truth is we could have ‘victory’ on this if the people in government who call themselves pro-life really were. The Constitution in Article III gives congress the right to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme court on matters where the court does not have original jurisdiction. The issue of abortion could simply be removed from the Court’s jurisdiction and then handled appropriately. A measure was introduced in the House to do just that several years back. The person who put it forth received zero support from a Republican majority congress and a “pro-life” president.
Pro-life simply describes a voting block to most politicians and as long as they can placate the pro-lifers enough to keep their votes, they don’t really care if aborion ever ends in my opinion. I think this is just another attempt to do that. All hat and no cattle as they say in Texas.
OK, but am I to be faulted for thinking this ruling is a good thing?
Hugh, while there certainly still is a long way to go, I agree that there also is reason to rejoice in and give thanks to God for this decision. See Dr. Albert Mohler’s take on the matter.
Perhaps I’m being too cynical. I too rejoice if this will prevent the killing of children but as I say, I’m skeptical.
News like this is good and lets give God the praise. Every good and perfect thing comes from Him right? Not sure how “perfect” this is though.
I am a firm believer that in this fallen world we should focus more on winning the hearts and minds of people for Jesus instead of fighting back at a seemingly futile attempt to “legislate morality”. The former will take care of the latter, but never completely. Never.
There is a balance in there somewhere as we should not just let things “take their course” either! Believers in government is a good thing. Even with that said I would never want a country that forced our faith on everyone, would you? Forcing everyone to respect all life legally at conception is another story and I would be all for that, though there is an element of forcing our beliefs on others too, but this is should be so cut and dry to any reasonable thinking person, but again the fallen world comes back into play.
The prince of this world rules the majority of people and the governments….for now.
A problem for me is that many on the side of life in the public eye are not always salt and light and turn people off and away from the things of God with their sharp tongues and judgmental high and mighty attitudes.
Then there are those who take a terrorist stance and murder some of the abortion doctors, making us on the same level with Muslim extremists.
Our unwavering stance on what is good and what is right along with our demonstrated love for one another as the Body of Christ, and love for others is so much more powerful than any law will ever be.