Roe is dying

May the church arise

The news this week has been full of one story. If you’ve been consumed in other things and haven’t been able to keep up, here it is in a nutshell: left-wing website Politico released a draft majority opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court that overturns the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. Here’s how I would sum up the responses I’ve witnessed.

• Conservative Christians: excited anticipation and expressions of gratitude to God

• MAGA Trumpists: elation over the fact that Trump’s 3 appointees have delivered a devastating blow to liberals and feminists

• Progressive Christians: near total silence over the justice for the unborn

• Independents/Moderates: desperately wanting to talk about something, anything else…maybe like gas prices and inflation

• Liberals: apoplectic rage

If I can be completely straightforward, that full range of emotion is precisely the reason why opponents of Roe have been right for decades when they’ve said that the Supreme Court should have never involved itself in the issue to begin with. The passions are too high, the factions too split, the issue too politicized for an oligarchic decree from 7 black robed lawyers who have permanent status among society’s elite.

Justice Alito’s proposed opinion explains it best:

And that’s precisely what this decision would do, should it eventually be released as the majority’s position. Just like the Court has done multiple times before, they would merely be repealing or overturning their previous decision which they later acknowledge was made in error.

For instance, in 1896 the Supreme Court themselves oligarchically imposed the “separate but equal” doctrine on the country in the Plessy v. Ferguson case. Black kids would have black schools, white kids, white ones. Blacks could ride the same bus, but they had to ride in the back seats. Blacks could have a drinking fountain, but weren’t allowed to partake from the white ones. Almost 60 years later, they corrected their error in Brown v. Board of Education, striking down segregation and ordering the integration of schools.

Similarly, in 1973 the Supreme Court themselves oligarchically imposed the “abortion on demand” doctrine on the country in the Roe v. Wade case. Not only would unborn children now be expendable in the eyes of the law, but the court made their ruling on the basis of a non-existent right to privacy that appears nowhere in the Constitution.

What does appear in the Constitution is the 10th amendment, which confers all duties and things not specifically granted to the national government (by the Constitution) or denied to the states (by the Constitution) are reserved for the states to regulate and adjudicate.

Therefore, all the people screaming bloody murder (no pun intended) over the ruling, shouting that they will not be subject to the whims of unelected judges, seem to have missed the fact that this Alito opinion takes the momentous issue of life and abortion, and hands it back to those same people and all their elected representatives.

Allowing people a voice when it comes to the regulations and rules governing something as intimate and personal as life and death in the womb seems to be an approach that would please a rational individual. But in our current environment, the people engaged in these debates and discussions are anything but rational.

Where am I on all this personally?

1. First and foremost, I’m beyond ecstatic that the long, national holocaust we’ve been enduring will cease being sanctioned and endorsed by our federal government.

2. I am still trying to convince myself that this majority will truly hold between now and the publishing of the opinion.

3. I’m concerned for the safety of the justices and the political temperature of the nation.

4. I’m convicted that I need to do a better job supporting the ministries that care for abused, unwanted, and discarded women & children.

That fourth point ruffles some feathers when I bring it up because I’m told it conveys the perception that to this point churches and individual believers haven’t been doing anything like that. Having done my fair share of pregnancy resource center banquets through the years I know how silly that is.

Of course they are doing a great deal. But it weighs on me that in response to a coming flood of “unwanted” children that will no longer be ritualistically sacrificed to the gods of convenience, God’s people must be ready to do more. While we rejoice that dismembering children limb from limb will soon no longer be viewed as a legitimate, upstanding solution to the “problem” of the un-wantedness, we must be prepared to act generously and aggressively in the care of a suddenly increased number of at-risk foster kids.

Prayer to end Roe must now transform to prayer for the resources to care for all those who will need it. A daunting challenge, but certainly one I believe the church of Jesus is ready to meet.

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ICYMI…

I made a video about some of the most absurd reactions the left has had to the Roe v. Wade news. You can check that out here:

Also, here are a couple of columns I’ve written on that same issue that I think you might want to read and share:

• If you can think, please read this

• Assuming the news is real, Christians…