Fulfilling the hopes of so many, the U.S. Supreme Court has finally overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in its Dobbs decision. The ruling came down last week just prior to our planned traveled to Europe for the summer. It could not have been a better parting gift.
We’re in Rome this week, and I’m in a state of amazement and thanksgiving for the bravery and courage of a Supreme Court that had every practical incentive to simply continue with the lie that it first perpetuated nearly 50 years ago. After the decision was released on Friday morning, I took the Metro to Union Station to speak to American Moment’s Summer Fellows at the Monocle about the opportunities of a post-Roe America. Afterwards I walked two or so blocks to the Supreme Court to take in the scene—I took the photo I’m sharing with this post during my hour or so there.
In the immediate aftermath of Roe, all Americans of good will must work together to ensure that everyone will truly be welcomed throughout life and protected in law. In practice, the fall of Roe will mean that states dominated by pro-abortion politicians will not only continue to kill, but will adopt the attitude that John C. Calhoun maintained toward the scourge of his time. We will be told by pro-abortion activists, in other words, that abortion represents a positive good that deserves not only tolerance but the endorsement of the state.
In the longer run, over the course of the next generation or longer, we must secure constitutional personhood for preborn children. We must end the scourge of abortion for all time to come. We must end this social ill that warps the very commonweal, our very basis for relating as a free people, upon which any social order rests.
We released a statement at Americans United for Life that I’m excerpting:
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court announced the reversal of Roe v. Wadein its 6-3 decision in the Mississippi case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Dobbs involved Mississippi’s “Gestational Age Act” (HB 1510), a prohibition on elective abortion after 15 weeks of gestational age. In taking the case, the Supreme Court announced its intention to resolve the question, “Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional?” Mississippi asked the Court to go further, however, and answer that question in the negative by overturning Roe, arguing that “nothing in constitutional text, structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion.” With today’s decision, the Supreme Court has righted its historic wrongs in Roe, Casey, and subsequent jurisprudence, and made it possible once more for American lawmakers to uphold the human right to life.
“Today, the U.S. Supreme Court has correctly and courageously reversed Roe v. Wade and restored a future full of hope for Americans of all ages, backgrounds, and beliefs. No more will the national fiction of abortion violence be perpetuated as if it could be a constitutional right. After nearly fifty years and the loss of more than sixty-two million American lives, Americans can once more choose to protect human life through their elected lawmakers,” said Catherine Glenn Foster, President & CEO of Americans United for Life.
“Today is a promise of hope for all members in the human family, but especially for women and those millions who will now be protected from prenatal violence,” said Catherine Glenn Foster. “The work of Americans United for Life and the Pro-Life Movement has truly just begun. We invite all Americans to walk alongside us in the days, months, and years to come to enshrine pro-life laws in every state to uphold the human right to life, and to work toward the urgent and still necessary goal of abolishing abortion in American culture. We must clarify, as a constitutional matter as much as a matter of fundamental justice, that abortion shall not exist in the United States of America. And we must simultaneously strengthen American programs ensuring every person, born and not yet born, is equipped and empowered to thrive.”
We must also continue to win elections and to ensure those holding public office at all levels affirm the fundamental humanity of every member of the human family.