Opinion: Lawmaking returned to the Legislature

In their landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court took into its own hands the power to make abortion-on-demand the law of the land. This is not how our Constitutional Republic was ever designed to operate.

State Legislatures and the U.S. Congress have the responsibility for making law. This is why we elect our state and federal Representatives and Senators; to act in our stead to establish laws rooted in the Constitution and inspired by the popular will.

The president and state governors have increasingly intruded on this prerogative through Executive Orders and bureaucratic regulations. Activist state and federal Judges have also stepped beyond their legitimate judicial role in making law from the bench.

In 1973, the Burger Court asserted a nonexistent "right to privacy" as the basis of their decision which legalized abortion-on-demand in all fifty states. This short-circuited the Constitutional legislative process.

The intensive politicization of our Supreme Court has been a direct result of the Roe v Wade decision. Pro-Choice advocates have seen this single Supreme Court decision as the indispensable foundation of what they call Reproductive Rights.

This is why Senators Joe Biden and Teddy Kennedy engaged in an unprecedented demagoguery to torpedo the nomination of Robert Bork in 1986. This is why Senator Biden engaged in a 1991 media circus which nominee Clarence Thomas called the, "… high-tech lynching of uppity blacks who deign to think for themselves." This is why in 2019, Brett Kavanaugh was smeared as a rapist, and why in 2020 Amy Coney-Barrett was libeled as a religious fanatic.

As we also see in the leaked Alito decision today, any crime or travesty is justified by Pro-Choice advocates if it serves to defend Roe v Wade. What should be our most deliberative and least political branch of government has been dragged into the no-holds-barred street fight that is contemporary partisan politics.

Abortion-on-demand should never have been unleashed by unelected Supreme Court Justices who are appointed for life. It is an issue that deals with the most intimate elements of what we believe life and liberty to be.

Some believe that since 1973, Roe v Wade has caused the murder of more innocent human beings than were killed by Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler combined. This would make the post-Roe United States only outdone by Mao Zedong in the catalogue of history's top mass-murderers. I hold this conviction.

Others believe that the unborn baby is a subset of the mother up to a certain moment before birth, and therefore is not worthy of the independent human rights accorded to those who live in the United States. This qualifies abortion as a mere discretionary surgery, akin to removing a growth. Those who assert this view say that choice of the would-be mother is the only priority in such a case.

Many accept that abortion is a horror-show for everybody involved. It is a tragedy under the best of circumstances. However, if the life of the mother is at risk, or if the child is the issue of incest or rape, many can understand why abortion might be chosen; especially within the first trimester of the pregnancy. In such cases, what might be done is a matter of gravest consideration between a doctor and all concerned. I also hold this view.

Now we will each have the opportunity to advocate within our state for what we believe is right, true, and best. Different state legislatures will arrive at diverse conclusions. People will then vote with their feet, traveling to jurisdictions which align with their convictions. This is as it should be.

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In Maine and then Idaho, Ralph K. Ginorio has taught the history of Western civilization to high school students for nearly a quarter century. He is an “out-of-the-closet” Conservative educator with experience in special education, public schools and charter schools, grades 6-12. He has lived in Coeur d’Alene since 2014. Email: rginorio@cdapress.com