Lots of pro-life stories in the news: The Supreme Court in a 9-0 ruling sided with the good guys in the New Hampshire parental notification bill found unconstitutional by the appellate court. In a 9-page ruling by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the high court showed a reluctance to infringe on the decision by the New Hampshire Legislature.
New Restraint from High Court?
Here are some excepts from O’Connor’s ruling. See if you don’t detect a new deference to a state anti-abortion law:
- “We hold that invalidating the statute entirely is not always necessary or justified.”
- “States unquestionably have the right to require parental involvement when a minor considers terminating her pregnancy, because of their strong and legitimate interest in the welfare of their young citizens. . .”
- “We try not to nullify more of a legislature’s work than in necessary, for we know that a ruling of unconstitutionality frustrates the intent of the elected representatives of the people.”
- “We restrain ourselves from rewriting state law to conform it to constitutional requirements, even as we strive to salvage it.”
- “A court cannot use its remedial powers to circumvent the intent of the legislature.”
The ruling also says the high court agrees with New Hampshire that the lower courts need not have invalidated the law wholesale, and that the law as written would in only a few applications present a constitutional problem.
Does this sound like the same court that struck down Webster, Carhart and Casey? It is, but something seems to be going on. Sort of like the Imperial Judiciary is beginning to see some strange handwriting on the wall . . . perhaps that Roe may be on its last legs, and abortion decisions will go back to the states in the not too distant future.
We did an interview for ABC News based on that observation. The pro-abort opponent didn’t like the idea.
With Ayotte coming out today we don’t expect the Scheidler v. NOW ruling to come down until February at the earliest.
Court Still Pro-Death
Another decision that assures us that the Court is still pro-death is its ruling Tuesday on the Oregon assisted suicide law. By a vote of 6 to 3 the court blocked the Bush Administration’s effort to punish doctors who give prescribe lethal drugs for assisting in suicides. Some 200 Oregonians have already been given pills doctors used to kill them.
The unhappy author of this deadly ruling is good old Catholic Anthony M. Kennedy. The high court dealt harshly with the Bush administration for trying to say doctors had no right to distribute this so-called medication to produce a death, and not to help heal his patient.
Ruling for assisted suicide besides Kennedy were Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. The good guys are Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. It was Roberts’ first defeat.
While the media says this ruling may encourage other states to go the way of Oregon, we believe it will do the opposite and encourage sensible legislatures to pass state laws making assisted suicide a crime.
Troy Continues Battle against Tiller
Troy Newman reports from Wichita, KS that two more women have come forward to tell of their nightmare abortions at George R. Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services where teenager Christin Gilbert was killed in a third-trimester abortion at his abortuary. Troy is leading an effort to convene a Grand Jury to investigate this killing. We cannot describes the horror stories here, but you can find them here.
Abortion Facts from IFI
Finally, the Illinois Family Institute lists some abortion facts every American should know about the high cost of legal abortion. Here are a few:
- 43-46 million abortions so far since 1973,
- 4,000 a day,
- 14 % paid for by your tax dollars,
- 52% performed on women under 25,
- more than half of minors don’t tell their forks,
- 40% are on Black women,
- more than 40,000 babies killed annually in Illinois.
More statistics, here.
