Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Fox News, Personhood, and the Supreme Court

Last night, Fox News aired a report on Personhood USA and Personhood Colorado. In the report, someone named Scott Moss of the University of Colorado Law School made the claim that the Personhood amendment on the 2010 Colorado ballot would "be almost certainly completely ineffectual at reigning in abortion because the State can't trump the U.S. Supreme Court." It is unfortunate that most of today's "pro-life" organizations have taken that same attitude, which is why, 37 years after Roe v. Wade, we still have legalized abortion nationwide.

The last time I checked, the judicial branch of government was only one of three supposedly equal branches of government, and yet so many people, like this law professor from Colorado, take the position that anything the court does is somehow above anything that the legislative or executive branches can do. Article 3 of the United States Constitution lists the very limited types of cases in which the Supreme Court is to have original jurisdiction. "In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." Congress seems to have abdicated the making of such Regulations since today's Supreme Court seems to have any power it wants. In fact, the power to interpret the Constitution and to determine that any legislation enacted by Congress or by the State legislatures is unconstitutional does not come from the Constitution. The power of the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional came from the Court itself (Marbury v. Madison, 1803).

The specific law that was declared unconstitutional in the Roe v. Wade case was Articles 1191-1194 and 1196 of the Texas Penal Code. To "procure an abortion" was a crime punishable by up to five years in the penitentiary. The term "abortion" was then given a definition: "the life of the fetus or embryo shall be destroyed in the woman's womb or that a premature birth thereof be caused."

Our Texas legislators need to stand up to the Supreme Court by declaring that children in the womb are persons with full rights. Current law already does this as we have demonstrated in our letter to our state senators. The Court itself said that "if this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment." The Texas Legislature has already established this suggestion of person by law in its definition of individual. Or by establishing this "suggestion of personhood," did the Court, in its arrogance, mean that only IT could establish this suggestion? If so, they forgot to take into account the fact that there are two other branches of government.

Our legislators need to have courage and conviction and do what they know is right, by taking that definition of "individual" already in law and applying the protections of the right to life to everyone who falls under that definition. And we the people MUST hold them accountable for this.

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