Capitol police placed fencing in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 1, 2021, during oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in an attempt to separate rallies by abortion supports and pro-lifers. / Katie Yoder/CNA
Denver Newsroom, May 3, 2022 / 18:00 pm (CNA).
The Supreme Court’s previous abortion rulings were “egregiously wrong from the start” and on a “collision course with the Constitution.” These are among the colorful phrases of a 98-page preliminary draft of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that could return abortion law to the U.S. states and their voters.
The draft in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked on Monday evening. The Supreme Court stressed that the document “does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.” But the draft shows some insight into the thought of author Justice Samuel Alito on how the court might overturn the pro-abortion decisions Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Here are some choice thoughts, phrases, and arguments from Alito’s draft:
Mandatory legal abortion is overruled, the debate goes back to the states.
“Abortion presents a profound moral question,” the draft concludes. “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.”
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito said in his introduction. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion and no such right is explicitly 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.”
It’s about human life: Abortion ‘fundamentally different’ than related court decisions
“Roe’s defenders characterize the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage, but abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged, because it destroys what those decisions called ‘fetal life’ and what the law now before us describes as an ‘unborn human being’.” (p. 5)
“None of the other decisions cited by Roe and Casey involved the critical moral question posed by abortion.” (p. 32)
‘Egregiously wrong from the start’
“Stare decisis, the doctrine on which Casey’s controlling opinion was based, does not compel unending adherence to Roe’s abuse of judicial authority. Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have inflamed debate and deepened division.” (p. 6)
Women’s voices on abortion must be heard through the legislature and the ballot box, not the courts
“Our decision returns the issue of abortion to those legislative bodies, and it allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office. Women are not without electoral or political power. It is noteworthy that the percentage of women who register to vote and cast ballots is consistently higher than the percentage of men who do so.” (p. 61)
The states have ‘legitimate interests’ to regulate abortion.
“…procuring an abortion is not a fundamental constitutional right because such a right has no basis in the Constitution’s text or in our nation’s history.
“It follows that the States may regulate abortion for legitimate reasons, and when such regulations are challenged ‘under the Constitution, courts cannot ‘substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies’.
“…These legitimate interests include respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development, the protection of maternal health and safety; the elimination of particularly gruesome or barbaric medical procedures; the preservation of the integrity of the medical profession; the mitigation of fetal pain; and the prevention of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability.” (p. 65-66)
Roe v. Wade was ‘on a collision course with the Constitution’ from day one.
“…Roe’s constitutional analysis was far outside the bounds of any reasonable interpretation of the various constitutional provisions to which it vaguely pointed. Roe was on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided, and Casey perpetuated its errors, and the errors do not concern some arcane corner of the law of little importance to the American people.
“Rather, wielding nothing but ‘raw judicial power,’ the Court usurped the power to address a question of profound moral and social importance that the Constitution unequivocally leaves for the people.
“Casey described itself as calling both sides of the national controversy to resolve their debate, but in doing so, Casey necessarily declared a winning side. Those on the losing side—those who sought to advance the state’s interest in fetal life—could no longer seek to persuade their elected representatives to adopt policies consistent with their views. The Court short-circuited the democratic process by closing it to the large number of Americans who dissented in any respect from Roe.” (p. 40)
Abortion precedents relied on bad history and bad reasoning
“The weaknesses in Roe’s reasoning are well-known. Without any grounding in the constitutional text, history, or precedent, it imposed on the entire country a detailed set of rules much like those that one might expect to find in a statute or regulation.” (p. 42)
“What Roe did not provide was any cogent justification for the lines it drew.” (p. 46)
“The Constitution makes no express reference to a right to obtain an abortion, and therefore those who claim that it protects such a right must show that the right is somehow implicit in the constitutional text.
“Roe, however, was remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text. It held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned.” (p. 9)
“Roe either ignored or misstated this history, and Casey declined to reconsider Roe faulty historical analysis. It is therefore important to set the record straight.” (p. 16)
“Until the latter part of the 20th century, there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Zero. None. No state constitutional provision had recognized such a right. Until a few years before Roe was handed down, no federal or state court had recognized such a right…
“Not only was there no support for such a constitutional right until shortly before Roe, but abortion had long been a crime in every single State. At common law, abortion was criminal in at least some stages of pregnancy and was regarded as unlawful and could have very serious consequences at all stages. American law followed the common law until a wave of statutory restrictions in the 1800s expanded criminal liability for abortions.” (p. 15)
“By the end of the 1950s, according to the Roe Court’s own count, statutes in all but four states and the District of Columbia prohibited abortion ‘however and whenever performed, unless done to save or preserve the life of the mother’.
“This overwhelming consensus endured until the day Roe was decided. At that time, also by the Roe Court’s own count, a substantial majority—30 States—still prohibited abortion at all stages except to save the life of the mother…
“The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions. On the contrary, an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.” (p. 24)
The Supreme Court can’t settle the abortion debate
“This Court’s inability to end debate on the issue should not have been surprising. This Court cannot bring about the permanent resolution of a rancorous national controversy simply by dictating a settlement and telling the people to move on. Whatever influence the Court may have on public attitudes must stem from the strength of our opinions, not an attempt to exercise ‘raw judicial power’.” (p. 64)
[…]
One criticism of Gaudium et spes (“The Joys and Hopes”) has been its early-1960s and Teilhardian optimism, when subsequent history has shown all of us that this is a more complicated and conflicted age. As suggested in the balancing next few words of the same document’s title line: “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age…”
This big picture is forced toward “the temptation of polarization” only when the second half is still dismissed. So, yes to hope and joy, but also sober thought and governance, as in acting unambiguously on the obvious adulteration of joyful synodality.
Rescue the real Vatican II from the termites—the council’s Ratzinger over today’s Batzinger. (Also Marx, Hollerich, Grech, and the backstage Kasper).
As a 40 year street grunt in the pro-life movement, I do appreciate the strong definitive statement for defending life in GS. But in reading the complete document the overall bias is that of an optimism that seems to trivialize an awareness of original sin and the permanent imperfectability of the human condition. This could not help but provide impetus for validating the nefarious “spirit” of Vatican II.
Espléndida o Asquerosa. A Church espléndida, madly in love, free and freeing. Progressivism that lines up behind the world. Or Asquerosa. Traditionalism. Indietrism that longs for a bygone world not of love, but of infidelity.
Rarely has El Capo so clearly defined the divergent paths taken from the Council. And the one true path he, he alone has revealed. An epiphany. Rich with intoxicating freedom. Expansive. The other, stifling, mean, judgmental. His Holiness extols this “Church that is free and freeing. The path the council pointed out to the Church” [how could so many of us have missed this?].
New doctrine, paradigmatic that liberates us from repentance, the sacrament of marriage instituted for a man and woman. Free from remaining imprisoned in a body with which we’re disappointed. Love all. Love who you wish. Love as you wish.
Liberation at last. Free at last. After 2000 years of constricted infidelity worshiping a mistake, delusional martyrs spilling their blood for naught. Until the deliverance of El Gran Libertador.
Jorge Bergoglio’s apostasy was external and made public and notorious, when as a cardinal, he stated in his book, On Heaven and Earth, in regards to same-sex sexual relationships, and thus same-sex sexual acts, prior to his election as pope, on page 117, denying The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque)and demonstrating that he does not hold, keep, or teach The Catholic Faith, and he continues to act accordingly:
“If there is a union of a private nature, there is neither a third party, nor is society affected. Now, if the union is given the category of marriage, there could be children affected. Every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help shape their identity.”- Jorge Bergoglio, denying The Sanctity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and the fact that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque), Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, while denying sin done in private is sin. To deny The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, is to deny The Divinity Of The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, And Holy Ghost, which is Apostasy.
From The Catechism Of The Catholic Church:
II. THE DEFINITION OF SIN
“1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”121
1850 Sin is an offense against God: “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.”122 Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become “like gods,”123 knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus “love of oneself even to contempt of God.”124 In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.125
1851 It is precisely in the Passion, when the mercy of Christ is about to vanquish it, that sin most clearly manifests its violence and its many forms: unbelief, murderous hatred, shunning and mockery by the leaders and the people, Pilate’s cowardice and the cruelty of the soldiers, Judas’ betrayal – so bitter to Jesus, Peter’s denial and the disciples’ flight. However, at the very hour of darkness, the hour of the prince of this world,126 the sacrifice of Christ secretly becomes the source from which the forgiveness of our sins will pour forth inexhaustibly.”
It is a sin to accomodate an occasion of sin, and thus cooperate with evils.”
Pray for the safety of Pope Benedict XVI.
Dear Blessed Mother Mary, Mirror Of Justice And Destroyer Of All Heresy, Who Through Your Fiat, Affirmed The Filioque, and thus the fact that There Is Only One Son Of God, One Word Of God Made Flesh, One Lamb Of God Who Can Taketh Away The Sins Of The World, Our Only Savior, Jesus The Christ, thus there can only be, One Spirit Of Perfect Complementary Love Between The Father And The Son, Who Must Proceed From Both The Father And The Son, In The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Complementary Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity (Filioque), hear our Prayer that The True Pope, Pope Benedict XVI,and those Faithful Bishops In Communion With Christ and His Church, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, will do The Consecration Of Russia to your Immaculate Heart, exactly as you requested, visibly separating the counterfeit church from The True Church Of Christ, and affirming The Filioque. Although at the end of the Day, it is still a Great Mystery, It is no Mystery, that we exist, because God, The Communion Of Perfect Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Exists.
“Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”
“Come, Holy Ghost”.
Disposed apologetically having recognized [while watching Arroyo’s George Weigel interview] my error of misinterpreting Pope Francis on a “Progressivism that lines up behind the world” that he is actually criticizing not approving, emphasizing unity. My apology to Francis.
“Pope Francis noted that there is always the temptation to start from one’s self and one’s agenda, rather than from God and his Gospel.”
Take a long look in the mirror, Pope Francis.
A mind with as little self-awareness as his, as Orwellian as his, is very far gone. It seems the only hope would be for someone, acting with the instrumentality of God’s grace were to get in his face, behind closed doors, and read him the riot act, and not stop until the Swiss Guards dragged him out.
Joy was in my heart when I heard them sing, let’s go to God’s House. Saint John XXIII – Pray for us.
Our Lady at the Annunciation was NOT first moved on or with joy. She was moved in prudence. Joy is always a fruit and we have it as a set lesson from the BVM in the way of being immaculate.
The Holy Father needs to be careful. The problems he here distills, do not define VATICAN II, on the one hand; and on the other, do not address differing realities in specific situations.
Wrong prescriptions would sustain wrongs and make them worse. And meantime his supplying over-riding spiritual direction -as for eg., he is now doing with “desire”- would root them in deeper.
More generally, I feel the Holy Father has lost sight of the fact that he is not the only one who can raise a valid criticism. He points fingers at partisans, then protects particular erring sides.
This word indietrism is not helpful. People will understand “indoctrination” easier. Indietrism is allowing things to pass as “not indoctrinating” that in fact push irreligion and anti-faith.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252522/pope-francis-on-vatican-ii-anniversary-may-the-church-be-overcome-with-joy
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252527/pope-francis-desire-points-our-discernment-in-the-right-direction