Note: Third in a series
If you are a fetus, it is "legal" for your mother to kill you. But is it "moral?" That is what this battle between President Obama and the Catholic bishops is all about.
The bishops contend that it remains "immoral" for a woman to kill her fetus, even if the government says, "it's legal." For the bishops, "legal" does not equal "moral." So, does something become "moral" when it is declared "legal?"
In 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney penned the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case. He framed the issue as follows: "The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution."
His answer was as follows: "It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate (black) race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They (blacks) had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.
"The words 'people of the United States' and 'citizens' are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the government through their representatives. ... The question before us is, whether the class of persons (blacks) described in the ... (pleading) ... compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they (blacks) are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they (blacks) were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."
Abe Lincoln, both before and after the Dred Scott decision, rejected the premise "that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery." For Lincoln, slavery -- regardless of the "legality" -- was "immoral. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that 'all men are created equal;' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another. Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature -- opposition to it, is (in) his love of justice. I object to it (slavery) because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another." -- Abe Lincoln, Peoria Speech. October 16, 1854
"Judge Douglas declares that if any community want slavery they have a (legal) right to have it. He can say that logically, if he says that there is no (moral) wrong in slavery; but if you admit that there is a (moral) wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has a (legal) right to do (a moral) wrong." -- Abe Lincoln, Galesburg Debate, October 7, 1858
Now, 155 years after Dred Scott, we have Roe v. Wade. The Catholic bishops and those who agree with them, now stand in Lincoln's shoes. But instead arguing that it is "morally wrong" to enslave blacks, they teach that it is "morally wrong" to kill fetuses. They reject the notion, that because abortion has be made a "legal right," that is has now become "morally right." And they are treated by their fellow citizens with the same scorn as abolitionist were treated by many of the fellow citizens, and a significant portion of the press.
If you are reading this op ed, you are undoubtedly a "person," and a "human being." The fact that you are a "human being" is an incontrovertible medical and scientific truth. But are you a "person" in a "Constitutional sense?"
If you were a "person" "born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," you are a "citizen of the United States and of the State wherein you reside." And if that's the case, no state shall "deprive" you of life "without due process of law. -- 14th Amendment, U. S. Constitution.
But if you are merely a fetus, under the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade, while you may be a "person" or a "human being" in a "medical or scientific sense," you are not a person in a "Constitutional sense." As such, you have no Constitutional protections, and under Roe v Wade, your mother -- at her whim -- can kill you.
Under Roe v. Wade, you are not a "person" from the moment of conception. You are not a "person" from the point when you could live independently outside the womb. You are not a "person" even after 9 month in the womb -- even though you will be a naturally born healthy child within the next five minutes.
In Roe, the U. S. Supreme Court defined the word "person" for us to exclude "unborn [human] persons."
The Obama Administration now seeks to redefine "contraception" (preventing conception) to include "abortion" (killing a conceived fetus). And still not satisfied, the same Obama Administration is not redefining the term "religious employer" to exclude Catholic hospitals and Catholic Colleges, because the employ non-Catholics. And still not content, the Administration redefines killing fetuses as a "women's health issue -- as a "woman's right."
There is something intentionally intellectually deceptive in the word games and redefinitions of this administration. When a government redefines moral issues as "women's rights" and "women's health" issues, it obliterates "moral issue."
What then stops the government from ordering abortion of mentally impaired fetuses, or limiting the size of families in the name of "maternal health?" The power to define is the power to destroy.
Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2012, 6:10 am - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea
Copyright 2012, John Donald O'Shea
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