Denver Newsroom, Oct 27, 2020 / 04:21 pm (CNA).- Voters in Louisiana will decide Nov. 3 on a constitutional amendment, authored by a pro-life Democrat, which would prevent Louisiana’s courts finding a “right to abortion,” or to public abortion funding, in the state’s constitution.
Under Amendment 1, also known as the “Love Life Amendment,” the Louisiana constitution would be updated to state that “nothing in this constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.”
State Senator Katrina Jackson, a pro-life Democrat, authored the amendment when she was a state representative, along with dozens of co-sponsors from both parties.
The purpose of the amendment, Jackson wrote in an op-ed last week, is to ensure that the state’s courts cannot circumvent the state’s existing pro-life laws by finding a right to abortion in the state’s constitution.
This situation has already occured in 13 other states, most recently in Kansas, despite the fact, Jackson notes, that “the word abortion can’t be found in the Kansas Constitution.”
“It’s important to understand that Amendment 1 is not a ban on abortion. It simply keeps abortion policy in the hands of our legislators rather than state judges,” Jackson wrote.
Louisiana already has a “trigger law” that would ban abortion in the state— with some exceptions to save the life of the mother— should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade.
“Our body of pro-life laws ensure that women are empowered with the truth about their pregnancy prior to an abortion, that minors seeking an abortion have parental consent, and that babies born alive following a botched abortion receive immediate medical care. Our law also makes sure that not a dollar of your state tax dollars fund abortion. Yet these laws and others are at risk unless we pass Amendment 1,” Jackson said.
Kristen Day, Executive Director of Democrats For Life of America, noted that over a dozen states have introduced proposals to write explicitly a “right to abortion” into their state constitutions.
In May 2019, Vermont’s legislature advanced Proposal 5, which would write a right to abortion into the state’s constitution. Before this can happen, it must be passed once again by the 2021-2022 legislature, and be approved by voters in the November 2022 election.
If the measure passes, Vermont would become the first state to list abortion as a constitutional right.
Louisiana’s proposal would do the opposite, and would prevent the state’s courts from finding a right to abortion or abortion funding in the future, Day said.
“Louisiana’s a very pro-life state— nobody wants public funding of abortion, so if the legislature flipped and somebody wanted to try to fund abortion with state money, it would be clear that that is not constitutional,” she told CNA.
“Large majorities of people oppose public funding of abortion. And so to have those protections in there is important,” she said.
“We’re very hopeful that it will pass, and send a strong message to the rest of the country.”
Sophie Trist, a recent college graduate and activist with Democrats for Life, wrote in an Oct. 22 op-ed in The Advocate, a Baton Rouge daily, that Amendment 1 is consistent with Democratic principles, and that it will protect the will of Louisianans, at least 63% of whom identify as pro-life.
“A so-called right gained at the expense of another living human being is no right at all. I’m voting yes because killing another human being, no matter their circumstances, is never social justice,” she wrote.
Trist, who is blind, wrote that an abortion supporter once told her that she should favor abortion because it prevents disabled people, like her, from being born into suffering. “Sadly, I’m all too aware of how society often views those of us who are less developed, physically weaker, or less able-bodied, as less human,” she wrote.
“I had always respected a pro-life ethic before, but this encounter made me even more passionately pro-life because I know that every human life, including mine and those of unborn children in the womb, is worth living and worth protecting. The fact of the matter is that I love my life and am grateful to have been born,” she wrote.
Jackson also authored a bipartisan Louisiana law requiring that abortion clinics be held to the same standards as surgical centers, which the Supreme Court threw out in June.
Four justices ruled in June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo that Louisiana’s requirement that abortion doctors have admitting privileges at a local hospital would have made it “impossible” for abortion clinics to comply, without offering a significant health benefit for women. Justice Stephen Breyer authored the opinion, and Chief Justice John Roberts concurred to tip the court’s balance 5-4 against Louisiana’s law.
The Unsafe Abortion Protection Act, as Jackson’s law was known, received widespread support from both parties in the state legislature and was signed into law by then-governor Bobby Jindal (R) in 2014.
In Kansas, an effort during February to place a referendum on the Kansas ballot clarifying that abortion is not a constitutional right fell four votes short of the support needed in the House of Representatives.
The push for the referendum was instigated in 2019 after the Kansas Supreme Court blocked a 2015 law banning dilation-and-evacuation abortions, which are the most common procedure for second-trimester abortions and use suction devices and other equipment to dismember the fetus and remove it from the mother’s womb.
As part of the ruling, the Kansas Supreme Court determined for the first time that provisions of the state constitution dating back to 1859 extends to a “natural right of personal autonomy” regarding abortion.
The federal Hyde Amendment bars federal funds for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment. Presidential candidate Joe Biden has said that he no longer supports the Hyde Amendment and would repeal it if he is elected.
At least 16 states currently use their own funds to pay for additional abortions outside of those conditions.
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Do Jewish organizations have some animosity towards Catholicism? Beyond the abortion divide?
This is extreme animus which seems disproportionate to the leaked memo about federal v state lawmaking?!
Apparently their [Ruth Sent Us] philosophy is that every pregnancy they suffer is due to rape. They want sexual pleasure without responsibility.
Without grace that brings us to respond to God’s goodness, purity, spousal faithfulness, the tenderness and selfless giving of motherhood and love of children, the inevitable result is disassociation of the divinely ordained gift of sensual pleasure from the purpose of the conjugal act.
They dress in long red hooded gowns with white headdress as eerie as their coven like behavior. Sensuality has become consonant with Justice A Kennedy’s golden calf of liberty. After all, if we insist on something as a human right, there must be some personal, interior reward. Fundamental. Venereal. Consequently and virtually our culture has become venereal minded, foisting a new morality of liberty to exercise and experiment sexually [from pansexuality {with humans} soon likely to omnisexuality {with any living creature}] on college campuses, in children’s classrooms.
Irrational. Of course, but only if you’re not morally deranged. Sin, repudiation of natural law is always irrational because reason, that is, right reason is rational and consistent with the ordained order of things.
What then for the Catholic? Despite ourselves, our widespread nominal practice, the priesthood abuse scandal, heretical Catholics in Congress, apparent abandonment from the highest hierarchy – we are in the forefront! Miracle of miracles it’s Catholics who bear the banner of Christ and Blessed Mary as did the Crusaders, as did Joan of Arc, as did Columbus when he landed on the Americas’ soil.
We’re in for a fight [I’m stupid and arrogant so I choose to fight] offered the chance to prove our mettle to Christ, that we truly love him, that we stand for truth and justice, for family and children, that we will stand and fight to the end and to the glory of his Holy Name.
So then, I choose to fight with the spiritual arms Christ has given me, to address the truths of the faith clearly and with confidence, to give example as Christ did when confronted, to pray and offer sacrifice, to desist from violence and harm to others, to demonstrate the true meaning of our humanness.
Thats a disappointing statement, Father. Do you imagine prayer will stop demonstrators who believe they can disrupt our worship services with no repercussions at all? And if they indeed set consecrated hosts on fire in front of you, do you imagine prayer will put the fire out? Would you really do NOTHING?? I personally am tired of the kid glove treatment given to the 2020 rioters,serial shoplifters who KNOW they will neither be arrested or prosecuted, and those who vandalize our churches while police say those acts will NOT be treated as hate crimes. Now we have threats not only to our secular judges but ( I saw the video) people threatening to set the Eucharist on fire. When evil people KNOW they will never pay ANY price for their deeds, they will not only continue the behaviors, but they will escalate them. I will never be anyone’s willing victim. I am a Catholic and I believe in prayer. I am also an American and will not stand by meekly if attacked, nor allow my civil right to worship, to be stolen by people who have the IQ of a potato.To telegraph the idea one will not fight back to defend what they believe is a grave mistake, and it actively invites further attacks.The suppression of religion touted by the left was one of the reasons this nation spent decades physically fighting Communism all around the world. Peace at any price is NOT peace. It is simply capitulation.
Additionally LJ I certainly agree we cannot roll over in the face of violence directed against the innocent. That I can assure you I’ve always held.
Thats good to hear, Father. When raising my sons I always told them I NEVER wanted to be told by a teacher or parent that they had ever attacked another child or struck the first blow in any situation. But I always told them, if someone hits YOU first, hit them back as hard as you can. Once when one of my children was about 5 years old I was chatting with an acquaintance at a local pool. Her son was big for his age and was aggressively physical with other children. As we chatted, this child several times, unprovoked,roughly pushed my son down into the water. The boy’s mother said nothing, but I was about to. Finally my son (also big but not confrontational by nature) , got up out of the water and punched the boy so hard that he loosened a tooth. Needless to say that boy never attacked my son again. Its a hard lesson to learn, but not every maladjusted or bullying personality can be coaxed into appropriate behavior by “niceness” or prayer. These types of people are frequently the ones who end up in jail as adults. Sometimes you are forced to defend yourself physically. Its surprising how often that sort of push-back resolves the issue.The bully always counts on making their opponent cower in the corner.They count on fear to prevent resistance. In the case of our freedom of religion, we dare not allow such a thing.
I’m pleased LJ. At first I misunderstood until I gave further thought that it wasn’t intended personally.
Do they really think that helps their cause to slaughter innocent human beings? Fools.
hmm…. 🙂 – here we thought it was the 4th Easter Sunday….silly us 🙂
This would not happen at a Mosque. Just sayin’
It was Catholics-In-Name-Only Biden and Pelosi who encouraged these disruptions. And yet they are not excommunicated for it. Do we have to wait before these pagans desecrate the Host itself that the Church authority do something about these wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Would it not be nice if just one prominent American prelate put Biden on notice that we expect him to expend all necessary resources to protect churches and the faithful from these demonic hooligans and vandals? Yet again, their silence convicts them. And from the Vatican, all we hear are more condemnations of the rigorists. With shepherds like these, they mind as well as put out a sign saying it’s open season on the flock. Just so long as the federal money keeps flowing to Catholic Charities, all is fine at the chanceries. One day, that will get pulled too.