CC#23--One Year Later: The Impact of the Dobbs Decision and the Fight for a Pro-Life Culture

One year later, after the overturning of Roe v Wade, let's take stock of the impact of that decision on this Catholic Corner. Hello, i am David and welcome back to this Catholic Corner. On June 24, 2022, roughly one year ago, the US Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision in the Dobs vs Jackson health case, which overturned Roe v Wade after 49 years In fact. Let's pull that audio from our podcast last year Catholic Corner number 11. We end this opinion where we began. Abortion presents a profound moral question. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each state from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey aggregated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives. The judgment of the Fifth Circuit is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. End of quote. And with those words from the Supreme Court on Friday, with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the majority in the Dobs case, roe vs Wade was overturned. This is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. And there we go, the audio from last year celebrating the overturning of Roe versus Wade. So, one year later, how has that historic decision for liberty for babies, for mothers. How has the overturning of Roe versus Wade one of the worst judicial decisions in the history of the court, roe versus Wade was how has that historic decision to overturn it been received by our culture and our country? And let's in fact ask the question was that decision right to very interesting questions. Well, first let's take the last question. First, was the Dobbs decision by the court last year the right decision to make? Without question, absolutely. Abortion, or the right to kill a baby in the womb, as it should properly be called, is absolutely, without question, a negative, demonic evil. The court was right to stop its practice And, as I said last year, the Roe versus Wade decision. For more than 49 years the culture of death celebrated this lethal mistake. This mistake harmed and wounded the nation and the Supreme Court. It was so severe that it ranks up there with other horrific decisions that the court had made in its past, namely Dred Scott in 1857, plus CV Ferguson in 1896, respectively the constitutionality of slavery and racial segregated public facilities. So this past Friday, one year ago actually one year and two days ended that bloody and evil chapter in our nation's history, and praise be Jesus Christ for that. Now the democratic process will start again after being paused in 1973, and Americans and their elected representatives in each of the 50 states will debate what policies and laws they want to live under in their respective states. And, as I said last year, that is how it should be. Now, to give you an idea of what has happened in the last year, let us turn to the National Catholic Register, who actually is a very good paper, very good website. They actually do their best to report the truth on such matters. So let's pick up this article by Loretta Brown, published on June 21st 2023. Marking the one year anniversary of the historic Dobs vs Jackson women's health decision that overturned Rovers' Wade, pro-lifers are celebrating the reality that 14 states in the country have barred almost all abortions, and half of those states have enacted strong pro-life protection, something that would have seemed impossible to groups on both sides of the abortion debate only a few years ago. Currently, abortion is not permitted, with some exception, in 14 states Alabama, arkansas, idaho, kentucky, louisiana, mississippi, missouri, north Carolina I'm sorry North Dakota, oklahoma, south Dakota, tennessee, texas, west Virginia, wisconsin. It is limited to six weeks when a heartbeat can be detected in Georgia, 12 weeks in Nebraska, 15 weeks in Arizona and Florida, and limited to 18 weeks and 20 weeks in Utah and North Carolina respectively. Florida's heartbeat law has been signed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and is currently under review by the state Supreme Court. North Carolina's measure to limit abortion to 12 weeks will go into effect in July. Six other states Indiana, iowa, montana, ohio, south Carolina, wyoming have enacted pro-life protections that are facing legal challenges. And later on in the article, stephen Aiden, chief legal officer in general counsel at Americans United for Life, said that the pro-life movement has made quote amazing progress since the Dobs decision came down. Quote a year ago, the pro-life half of the country was banned from expressing its commitment to protecting human life by an array of federal courts, including the US Supreme Court, he said. In contrast, 14 states have, quote protected almost all life in law and another half dozen protected from a specific gestational age. Those protections were unenforceable a year ago. Now you might say what difference does it make? I mean, what impact can those decisions make? Well, let's answer both of those questions from the article we have. These laws have had a real impact on the number of abortions in the country, as indicated by an April report from the pro-abortion nonprofit society of family planning, which noted a more than 6% decrease in the number of abortions nationwide in the six months following the Dobs decision. The report found that there were roughly listen 32,260 fewer abortions over six months compared to pre-Dobb's numbers. The group compiled data from 83% of legal abortion providers in the United States and provided estimates for the remaining 17%. Tessa Logbund's, senior research associate at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research and education arm of SBA Pro Life America, told the register that the pro life group estimates that 60,000 lives have been saved in the years since Dobs 60,000 based on taking the data released by the Society of Family Planning and extrapolating that out over the next six months. There may have been more data that becomes available that will give us a better view, she said, but for right now, just using the latest that we can see from the abortion industry to include states that normally don't report abortions, like California, maryland, new Hampshire. It gives us a good glimpse of what is happening in the United States as a whole. Here's another important stat. Another estimate of the impact after Dobs is SBA's life saving laws in the state's tracker, which is a measurement of the estimated impact of a state law on the abortions happening in that state. Currently the group lists 181,178 abortions that have been or would be impacted annually by being prohibited in the 25 states with significant pro life protections in effect or pending. Quote. We know that many people will go out of state. We know that many people will order abortion pills online, log buns said She explained that the tracker is not necessarily seeing those abortions are not happening, given the abortion pill and abortion travel, but it is measuring the legal protection to the unborn babies in the state and the scope of those state laws. She added that the tracker estimate projects what the impact would be if all state pro-life laws were in effect and sadly, some are blocked. So the impact is dramatic 16,000 in one report, 181,000 plus babies lives perhaps saved. That's a lot of babies that are not being aborted, not being murdered. Now what is interesting is now we're seeing a dramatic uptick in violence against these pro-life agencies trying to do the good thing, trying to help pregnant mothers And if you've seen the movie Nefarious, you will know that there are no coincidences in respect to evil. As an example, let's go back to the article Quote. That's something that we saw immediately after the fall of Rose. She said she being um wait for it. Here we go President Kristen Hawkins for Students for Life of America. She went on to say we had over 100 instances of free speech violations. There have been increased safety concerns with threats, instances of vandalism and even assault. A violent mob shut down one of Hawkins speaking events in March at the Virginia Commonwealth University. Osmet also noted violence and targeting that the pro-life community has faced since the Dobbs decision. Listen to this Over the last year nationwide there have been nearly 90 attacks on pregnancy centers and pro-life groups. Since Dobbs we've seen firebombing and vandalizing of pregnancy centers across the country. Catholic churches have also faced more than 100 instances of vandalism and attacks in the year since the decision was made. Now mentioned in this article as the upcoming ballot initiatives in the states of Ohio, south Dakota, missouri. As an example, we are seeing here in Ohio abortion advocates putting very ambiguous wording as possible for these ballot initiatives. For the constitutional amendment coming up, it leads with mentions of birth control and miscarriage, while camouflaging the word abortion among the actual ballot or constitutional amendment language. Even this article talks about it in detail. Let's go back to the article. Ohio's proposed amendment states that quote every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including, but not limited to, decisions on contraception for fertility treatment, continuing one's own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion. Unquote. Pro-lifers have raised concerns that the amendment would undermine parental consent laws due to its broad wording. Republican state lawmakers are pushing a measure that will appear on the August 8th ballot that would make it more difficult to amend the state's constitution, thereby making the pro-abortion amendment more difficult to pass. So what is happening is there? abortion advocates are proposing an amendment to Ohio's constitution with the claim that it recognizes reproductive freedoms in their words, but in actuality it just furthers this culture of death that we have seen rise in the last 50 years and it removes current safeguards for women. We have three major concerns that we're battling here in Ohio that this amendment is influencing It puts women at risk, it endangers pre-born children and it enables those to pressure women All bad things, we believe to further the culture of life. Back to our two opening questions How has the historic decision of pushing Roe v Wade overturning Roe v Wade, rather, and pushing that decision back to the 50 States been received by our culture and our country, and was that decision right? We have already answered that the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe with Dobbs was absolutely right. Abortion has always been a state rights issue. As far as the legal purposes go, it was never a federal issue. It's not found in the Constitution. Now one can make the case that it is a federal issue because it's a moral issue. And for those people who say you can't legislate morality, listen. Almost everything a legislature does in terms of enacting laws ultimately comes down to a moral question Outside of the dumb stuff like renaming post offices or streets for him or her but financial decisions can be moral, foreign policy decisions can be moral. To outlaw murder or not is a moral question. Whether abortion is murder or not is therefore a moral question And our representatives have to debate that. We cannot shrink from the moral questions. We should confront those moral questions as a people, through our elected representatives. When we confront those moral questions as a country, then we will provide the clarity of what is right and what is wrong. Now abortion is very similar to the vexing question of slavery in the 19th century for this country. We should confront it, we have to confront it. We ask how do we as a country, through our elected representatives, want to decide this question? for me, abortion is murder. It's clear From the ultrasound you can see it as a baby in the womb. So, for me, i would discourage anyone from committing murder. If I were a doctor, i would discourage anyone from having an abortion. We have pregnancy centers. We have plenty of ways to help. The pro-life community simply wants to save lives. So, to answer the remaining question, how has this historic decision, one year later, been received by our culture and our country? Well, it has been received positively for half the country, and the other half received it as an infringement on their rights to do what they please, when they want, how they want, with their body, with no reference to God. So we have more work to do on the pro-life side to change the culture and, frankly, to change hearts, hearts that are imbued in a world of darkness, and to change a culture of death into a culture of life. So in today's Catholic Corner, one year later, the Dobs decision was right and the country is confronting the culture of death and this world of darkness all around it. And so, for all that, i say keep fighting the good fight We are winning. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.