Defending the Right to Life: South Dakota and Beyond
In 1973 the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade. In a breathtaking act of judicial activism, the court rewrote the Constitution and, by pure judicial fiat, declared that an implicit "right to privacy" emanating from the "penumbras" of that revered document meant that women have the right to destroy their unborn children by abortion.
In 2006 the state of South Dakota, in a breathtaking act of democratic self-governance, decided to vote on a law which would seriously limit abortions in that state. This bold attempt by the people to govern themselves must send a cold chill up the spines of activist judges everywhere. The men and women of South Dakota are standing up to the Supreme Court and saying, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident..."
Perhaps the people in South Dakota have been motivated, in part, by the depressing statistics on abortion. Since 1973, over 47 million children have been aborted. That's over 3,900 a day, which is about one baby every 22 seconds. Statistically, a woman's womb has become the most dangerous place in America.
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Who is having all these abortions? According to the Center for Disease Control, 81% of the women who have abortions are single, and another study indicates that about 48% of women who have an abortion had had a previous abortion. One cannot overlook the astounding recklessness of the fathers in most of these cases as well. It seems that many men and women employ abortion as a form of birth control.
From the Atlantic to the Pacific, since the Supreme Court imposed Roe on the American people, a culture war has raged. With prayer groups in front of clinics, marches in Washington, DC, and grassroots activism in small towns and big cities, people who cherish innocent life have confronted the culture of death in many ways. Why should so many people expend so much energy defending the right to life? Very simply, because the right to life is the foundation of all other rights. Unless we first preserve the right to life, no other right can exist. The rights to speak freely, worship according to one's conscience, and assemble with whom one chooses—all of these are rights reserved to the living. If we fail to protect the right to life, all other rights become meaningless. The much vaunted right to privacy means nothing to a corpse.
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court stripped states of the authority to protect unborn children by declaring that abortion was a constitutional right which trumped existing state laws. Now South Dakota, in an attempt to reclaim lost ground, has passed a law that allows abortion only in cases where the mother's life is in danger. The law is now facing a statewide referendum, where voters are hearing both sides of the argument and deciding how they will vote.
Some pro-life people believe that the abortion issue is one that should be decided by state legislatures. Advocates of that position acknowledge that, given the chance, some states would outlaw abortion, others would limit it, and still others would allow it without restriction. If the matter were left to state legislatures, pro-life men and women would remain free to campaign in "abortion friendly" states in favor of laws that respect the right to life, but ultimately the citizens of that state would set their own abortion laws.
This proposal is very appealing, and it is certainly an improvement over what we have now (judicially imposed unrestricted abortion). Even so, is that approach sufficient? What should our course be if we as a nation take seriously the words of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident: that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"?
If the right to life really is endowed by the Creator, self-evident and unalienable, then does any state legislature have the authority to emasculate it? Should the United States Congress be able to abridge it? Indeed, would any Court, any President, or any human authority have the right to strip an innocent person of the unalienable right to life conferred by the Creator? The reason we rebelled against the King of England was because he thought he could take away rights that are granted by God himself. Anybody who thinks they can take away an innocent human being's right to life is making the same mistake George III did. If we hope to maintain the principles that grounded our nation's founding, we must be willing to protect human life at every stage of development.
The Declaration of Independence also declares that governments are instituted to secure the rights endowed by the Creator. If that is true, then government has the obligation to protect innocent human life from conception to natural death. When the government fails in its primary obligation to protect life, it has failed in its duty.
What is happening in South Dakota is a welcome shift in the right direction, but the pro-life movement should not fail to remember that God given rights cannot be bargained away in the democratic process. We must not rest until the lives of every person, born and unborn, are respected and protected under the law. In protecting the right to life, we join the Founders in their revolution against injustice.
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Ken Connor is Chairman of the Center for a Just Society in Washington, DC and a nationally recognized trial lawyer who represented Governor Jeb Bush in the Terri Schiavo case. Connor was formally President of the Family Research Council, Chairman of the Board of CareNet, and Vice Chairman of Americans United for Life. For more articles and resources from Mr. Connor and the Center for a Just Society, go to www.ajustsociety.org. Your feedback is welcome; please email info@ajustsociety.org.
