The Supreme Court’s Insidious History of Approving Injustice

The Supreme Court of the United States has an impressive record of condoning injustice. It was the Supreme Court that claimed that African Americans were not “persons”. It was the Supreme Court that affirmed the “separate but equal” facilities to keep blacks and whites separate. It was this court that declared that unborn human beings were not “persons” under the law, condemning millions of little humans to death by poison, crushing, burning, or dismembering.

If you read the legal texts of Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, etc., the reasons given for legalizing and justifying abortion hinge on an assumption that the unborn are not human like us and, therefore, warrant no protection under Constitutional law. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court used language to denigrate the unborn to a subhuman, “other” status. The legal opinions of these cases rendered by the justices support a worldview that holds that all human beings are not equal. In effect, the Court opinions say killing some people to achieve a selfish benefit is not always morally problematic. One of the justifications for this was that because some people disagree about when human life begins, the Court could not take a side regarding the “mystery of human life”. This “mystery of human life” is really not so much a mystery. The science of embryology is clear that the unborn are living, distinct, and whole human beings from the moment of conception. As Scott Klusendforf says, the absence of consensus does not mean that there is an absence of truth.

Imagine if these cases were decided to allow women to murder their inconvenient toddlers using the language of “potential life” and “mystery of human life” to relegate three year olds to a class of humans with no rights. Comparing the toddler to the unborn is a very useful tactic because it reveals a begging of the question. The immediate reaction from the pro-choice person is to say how the toddler is very different from the unborn human being. In response to that, ask the person what the relevant differences are between the unborn and the toddler that justifies killing one but not the other. The typical response is to point to the size, level of development, environment, or the degree of dependency of the unborn baby. If human beings have equal value, that worth must be grounded in something we all share equally. The value human beings possess comes from the fact that we are made in God’s image. We have been given a rational and relational nature that grounds our existence throughout time. Though many changes occur throughout human development, none of those developmental modifications increase the right to life. The basic human right to live cannot be contingent upon alterable characteristics for that would mean that the human right to live would vary from person to person. Our moral intuitions reject that.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey acknowledged that some people find abortion offensive to their morality but the Court concluded that that could not control their decision because that view should not mandate moral code. But they did in fact mandate a moral code-the very thing they claimed to avoid. The moral code they endorsed was that it was permissible to kill little human beings in the womb if they are unwanted.

Our laws in this country condemn and prevent people from harming and killing their animals in horrible ways. While you cannot torture your dog just because you don’t want him anymore nor can you kill an endangered species without facing jail time, you can walk into an abortion clinic and have your unborn baby torn apart in the name of “reproductive freedom”. Taking the life of an innocent human is granted under our laws in this country. This evil is so difficult to fight because you don’t see the dead babies and their body parts when you walk out your front door. The apathy that surrounds this injustice is appalling. Do not sit idly by while your unborn neighbor is being taken to the slaughter. We have all been made for such a time as this. The battle we face is one of life and death. Be on the side that chooses life.