RIGHT TO LIFE
“Simple morality dictates that unless and until someone can prove the unborn human is not alive, we must give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it is (alive). And, thus, it should be entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” – Ronald Reagan
The United States Declaration of Independence ensures that all Americans are entitled to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Does that right to life extend to unborn children? At Advocates, we believe that it does, and we lament the way our nation has treated this issue since an infamous decision was made in 1973.
It was that year that Roe v. Wade was decided in the U.S. Supreme Court. The case asked the question of the right to life and the legality of abortion and, in the end, the Court decided that the right to privacy provided by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment extends to a woman’s right to have an abortion.
The Court added a stipulation that abortion is legal until the fetus is viable, which they defined as “potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid”. They declared that viability “is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.”
Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White wrote a passionate dissent to the Court’s decision, which included the following statement:
“I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court’s judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant women and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the woman, on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.”
Since the Roe v. Wade decision, more than 50 million babies have been aborted…and denied a right to life. This is a supreme injustice, and we at Advocates are committed to standing up for those who do not yet have a voice. We defend the right to life!