LowlyPion said:
What's curious to me is why it seems that so many middle aged men seem so stuck on sticking their nose into the debate and want to decide it in the first place, by whatever means, legal or illegal. (e.g. Scott Roeder and Randall Terry as a for instance)
The problem with the pro-life versus pro-choice issue is it can go both ways. On the one hand, once conception starts, it is human life. That's not religious belief, it's science. Now whether or not it's a person or not is all very debatable, as there is no real way to determine when the embryo turns into a fetus and so forth. But it is human life. It's like a child versus a teenager versus an adult. There are clear differences between each but no one knows exactly
when a child turns into a teenager and then
when a teen becomes an adult.
No one knows when the embryo becomes a fetus either. And different people have differing opinions. Many believe since it is human life, it is human life, and you do not abort it. But it is not necessarily a human being.
Others believe that it is fine to abort an embryo, but once it becomes a fetus, you do not abort it. And some believe it is okay to abort the fetus too.
Because the pro-choice side can't figure out when the embryo becomes a fetus, they just decide to say the fetus isn't a child until it is born, and then it's a baby. Because otherwise, they'd have to regard all human life, from embryo to fetus to baby, as the same.
The Left tend to brainwash their constituency into thinking all pro-life people are trying to ram religion down people's throats, tha is nothing of the sort. Sure some are, but that's no different than how some on the Left want to ram socialism down people's throats, both sides have bad apples.
The history of the abortion movement is darker than many realize, as it is tied into the eugenics movement.
Many with evil intentions to this day hide behind the abortion "pro-choice" point-of-view who are really eugenicists, or quasi-eugenicist, but can't say it publicly.
This is also why pro-life people are against embryonic stem cell research, or claim it needs to be watched very closely if we pursue it, because it can be a very dangerous road to go down.
Remember, eugenics theory, which started off as a way to engineer more perfect humans, but turned into a huge boondoggle of junk science which claimed that Jews, blacks, etc...anyone who wasn't white essentially, were "feeble-minded" and weakening the gene pool and would kill off the whole human race.
It was supported by all major politicians, celebrities, universities, research institutions, etc...at the time. America led the research at first, although eventually Germany took the lead (you can see where this is going).
This of course led to the Holocaust.
People at the time who dared criticize the movement were lambasted and called idiots and all sorts of harsh language.
The only major institution that stood against the whole idea was the Catholic Church.
Many on the Left love to call Republicans quasi-Nazis, but in fact your Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannity's, Ann Coulter's, Laura Ingraham's, etc...would have been the very "quacks" at the time calling the whole eugenics movement a crock, saying the State has no right to forcibly sterilize people or say one group is superior or inferior to others, etc...it was the Progressives who were the racists and staunch eugenics proponents in America at the time.
One has to thus be very careful when giving the State the right to determine the intrinsic value of human life and to experiment on it or with it.
As I said, some of the abortion rights movements biggest people, such as Margaret Sanger, were noted eugenics supporters.
Another guy who ran Planned Parenthood during the 1960s also was a eugenicist, although I forget his name (the government was aware of it though I believe).
Being against embryonic stem cell research is not about infringing on science because of wanting to ram religion down people's throats, no more than being pro-choice means being a eugenicist. It is about adherence to science but also morality.
This is not to say that there aren't extremists, on both sides, folks who do want to ram religion down people's throats on the right, and the folks who are eugenicists on the Left who hate humanity (they in particular can be found among the ultra-environmentalist types who worship trees on the Left--extreme environmentalism is essentially to the Left what ultra-self-righteous evagelicals are to the Right).
Women are the ones with the most skin in the game, so what better choice than securing a woman's perspective on the issue than another woman on the Court, who also happens to be a Catholic?
Because no one has any right to bring their "perspective" to the issues when on the Supreme Court. You leave your perspective out of it and just interpret the law as it is written.
Regardless of whether she is a woman or not should mean nothing, nor her religion, nor her upbringing. An appointment to the Supreme Court is for life. It influences the lives of millions of people for decades to come.
Many in the media have made a big deal about the fact that she had to struggle in her career because she came from poverty, as if this should mean anything regarding whether she's qualified for the job.
If you were going to go under the knive of a surgeon, would you care whether the surgeon rose up from poverty or whether they had been born with a silver spoon in their mouth?
NOPE, all you'd care about is whether they are a good surgeon!
Anyone who cannot keep their own personal views out of it has no business being on the Supreme Court. It is outright dangerous to have people on the Supreme Court who will bring their personal views and perspective into making decisions.
The political Left love to spin this and trick their constituency by saying, "But the Constitution is a living document, it has to change with the times, it is not supposed to be rigid, unchanging, and inflexible..." in order to justify their placing of justices on the Supreme Court that have "empathy" and bring their personal views and perspectives to their decisions.
In other words, implying that Constructionists want the Constitution to be rigid and unchanging. This is completely wrong.
The Constitution is very much meant to be a flexible document that changes with the times. But it is NOT supposed to be changed by justices on the Court because they want to interpret the law according to how they feel it should be written, instead of how it actually IS written. The process to change it is via formal amendment, which requires two-thirds of the Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures.
You might remember how on his appearance on "The View" during the campaign, when John McCain said he wanted to appoint strict Constructionist justices to the Supreme Court, and Whoopie Goldberg said to him, "Do you want me to become a slave?" or something like that.
No, the whole reason to appoint Constructionists to the Court is so that she never could be made into a slave.
A Constructionist interprets the words of the Constitution in their strict, ordinary, and regular meaning, and this includes all amendments (remember the Founders themselves would not sign the Constitution without the first ten amendments, which became known as the Bill of Rights). They do not read
into the words of the Constitution and try to amend it via judicial interpretation. Amendment,
under the Constitution, is the role of the
legislative branch of the government. Not the judiciary.
If you find that the Founders got something wrong, or flat-out forgot something in the Constitution, or in the case of slavery, messed it up in the first place, the process to change it is via formal amendment, NOT judicial activism.
If slavery had been overturned by the Supreme Court, then whether or not blacks could be made into slaves again would literally reside with five justices on the Court instead of with two-thirds of the Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures.
And since it's seen by many as an EXTRAconstitutional practice, many refuse to respect such judicial "amendments" no matter how just their cause. The weakness of judicial fiat is that it never
really gets set in stone and it always LACKS a real sense of legitimacy.
But because the Constitution was formally amended, with the 13th Amendment, under ANY reading of the Constitution, slavery is illegal. It is set in stone.
But getting a formal amendment can take years, or even decades, and thus the pro-choice movement decided to take it to the Supreme Court to try to get them to secure a woman's "right to choose."
Because Roe v. Wade was blatant judicial activism, whether or not a woman's right to choose (if you're a pro-choice person) can be overturned rests with five on the Court, rather than with two-thirds of the Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures.
This thus always has the pro-choice side panicked that a Republican President will appoint Constructionists to the Court, as Constructionists could overturn Roe. v. Wade.
Now, let's pretend that the pro-choice movement was to succeed in getting a formal amendment to the Constitution, saying that a woman has a right to choose.
In this instance, it behooves every pro-choice person to have strict constructionist justices on the Court, who will interpret the law as it is written, rather than how they "think" it should be written.
In such an instance, would you want a Republican President saying he would assign a judge to the Court who would bring her "life experience" to her decision-making, who would bring "empathy" to her decisions?
If a formal amendment says a woman has a right to choose, do you want a justice who will have empathy for the embryo and/or fetus in such a decision, who could then infringe on what you see as a woman's right to choose?
Because such court cases would eventually result. You'd just see the opposite of what we see with the Second Amendment. The Left say, "Well, the Constitution may say citizens have a right to bear arms, but we can create 'responsible gun control laws and regulations.'" This of course results in clashes between the right and left and there have been multiple Supreme Court decisions on the Second Amendment.
Well if it was the reverse, and it was Republican legislators saying, "The Constitution may say a woman has a right to choose, but we can create 'responsible abortion control laws and regulations,' " WELL IN THIS INSTANCE, the pro-choicers will want Constructionists.
Would you want, as a pro-choice person, a Republican President appointing say a Sarah Palin to the Supreme Court, saying, "She will bring her perspective from being a woman and a mom, and bring empathy to the Court..."?
NO, you'd want someone who would just interpret the law as it is written, their personal views aside, regardless of if it was a Sarah Palin or not.
In such an instance, if you are a pro-life justice, YOU KEEP YOUR PRO-LIFE VIEWS OUT OF IT. If you don't like that the Constitution has an amendment saying a woman has a right to choose, TOO BAD, you interpret the law as it is written. If you want to MAKE law, then you should be in Congress.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that he "loathed" many of the people in whose favor he voted on the Supreme Court. This is because he had the integrity to put aside his personal views and just interpret the law as it was written, not as he felt it should be written.
The Left love to claim George W. Bush made a mockery of the Constitution, but they have no problem bending it and/or essentially re-writing it when they don't like it themselves.
So from a strict LEGAL standpoint, a woman really has no "right to choose" right now, that is if the justices in Roe v. Wade had been Constructionists. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. If you want to change it, that's for the legislature.
But since they essentially made law from the bench, they decided a woman does have a right to choose.
And this is why judicial activism is so incredibly dangerous. Because it:
1) Let's the Judicial, people with LIFETIME APPOINTMENTS, legislate from the bench essentially, and
2) If their legislation is morally just, it is NOT SET IN STONE, WHICH MEANS IN THE FUTURE OTHERS ON THE COURT COULD OVERTURN IT.
President Barack Obama knows all this. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and is a CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR.
The ONLY reason he wants justices with "empathy" on the court is because he is an ideologue. And he wants people with his similar ideology on the Supreme Court who will re-write the law according to this ideology, instead of putting their ideology aside and just interpret the law as is.
He is also a man with very sharp, almost pro-abortion (as opposed to just pro-choice) views who wants to undo every law making restrictions on abortion that have been made since Roe v. Wade.
Justice Sonia Sotomayer in a video was saying, "I know we're not supposed to 'legislate from the bench,' " and the whole room chuckles, essentially making a mockery of the Constitution and the judiciary.
She made clearly racist comments on the Berkeley campus in 2001.
And she just recently voted to dismiss the appeal of those white firefighters who were denied their promotions because they passed an exam that too many other minorities did not pass, thus failing to create "diversity."
She has absolutely no business being put onto the Supreme Court.
