Capped off by the overturn of Roe V. Wade on Friday, it has been a monumental week for the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued several crucial rulings that demonstrate respect for the constitution and recognition of the limits of federal power.
In a 6-3 ruling on June 21, SCOTUS declared that Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a tuition assistance program that allows parents to use vouchers to send their children to public or private schools.
Maine had a "nonsectarian" clause in its tuition program that prohibited tax dollars from funding tuition at religious schools, but SCOTUS ruled this violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise.”
This is a bitter pill for the teachers' unions, but a well deserved slap in their face. Millions of parents are clamoring for school choice in light of K-12 public schools' massive failures and leftist indoctrination. Often, it is Catholic and other religious schools that offer solid alternatives to parents who want to keep their children out of crime-ridden, drug-infested and Marxist government schools. This ruling will open up more educational opportunities and alternatives for those of modest incomes -- alternatives the wealthy have had all along but which are often denied to poor minorities in urban areas.
SCOTUS ruled June 23 -- also by a 6-3 margin -- that Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. The decision struck down a New York law requiring people to demonstrate a particular need for carrying a firearm in order to obtain a license to carry a concealed gun in public.
On Friday came the court's most important ruling in decades, this one decided by a 5-4 ruling and overturning the 1973 Roe V. Wade decision plus the 1992 Planned Parenthood V. Casey ruling. Now, just as it was pre-1973, state legislatures will determine what their abortion laws will be. Some states may not allow any abortions at all; others will permit even extremely late-term abortion.
While the raging left is indignant about this ruling not respecting precedent (Stare Decisis in Latin), the premise of the 1973 ruling was flimsy from the start. Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted in his concurrence that abortion can be found nowhere in the Constitution. If anyone disrespected precedent, it was Justice Harry Blackmun and the six other justices who created a right to abortion out of whole cloth some 49 years ago.
The Roe V. Wade ruling, like so much legislation and so many regulations over the years, utterly disregarded and disrespected the U.S. Constitution. People often begin to take for granted rights and programs that have no constitutional basis whasoever.
Many of the pro-abortion protesters who rage about their "constitutional right" being revoked are ignorant of the fact there really is no constitutional right to abortion. They do not realize that the framers set up our nation to let the people, through their elected representatives, decide laws appropriate for their own states. The "one-size-fits-all" philosophy was not a part of their thinking.
Additionally, science is far more advanced than it was in 1973. We now have sophisticated ultrasounds that show the intricate development of a fetus. The heartbeat begins after just 5-6 weeks. Fingers and eyelids are formed by 8 weeks. Around 15 to 20 weeks, a baby can feel pain from the abortion procedure, and observers have noticed the heartbreaking sight of a fetus swimming around trying to avoid the abortionists' instruments.
Viability can be as early as 21 weeks, yet some states including New York allow abortions up until birth (a shocking reflection upon the reprobate politicians who voted for this barbarity as well as the nihilistic voters who put them in office). Nurses who refuse to perform abortions can be fired, and regrettably, many medical schools seem to be all-in for this modern day genocide.
The coming months will see a clash for the ages between supporters of the right to terminate life in the womb, and those who want to defend the most vulnerable among us. I pray that no lives are lost and that our nation will not be further ripped apart. But most of all, I pray for a change in heart among those who support abortion. It has happened, and it can continue to happen. Christians fully understand that jurisprudence alone won't put a stop to this grave atrocity that has become so commonplace in 21st century America.
But in the meantime, my thanks and appreciation go out to the brave, principled justices of SCOTUS, who realize that their votes can literally jeopardize their lives and the lives of their family members. Kudos to them for their courage.
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