Old-school activists from the Operation Rescue era have ratcheted up their resistance to abortion recently, this time under the banner of the Personhood movement. (http://www.personhoodamendments.com/intro/index.php)
Former Rescuers Cal Zastrow and Chet Gallagher are at the forefront of the movement to enact state Constitutional amendments, which had gone dormant under National Right to Life's leadership.
On the U.S. Supreme Court, even Antonin Scalia has declared his hostility to a federal Personhood statute because he believes the issue properly belongs with the states. Now, activists like Zastrow and Gallagher are petitioning states to put Constitutional Personhood amendments on the ballot where permitted, and elsewhere they are urging state legislators to take up the Personhood issue.
In this article that prolife activist Mary King wrote for a Montana newspaper, she outlines a strategy to "end abortion by using the Constitution instead of amending it." That strikes me as wildly optimistic, but I do think it's worth a try.
As much as the Personhood activists denounce the incrementalist strategy of the National Right to Life "establishment," I believe every increment is worth fighting for because the increments are comprised of real live babies. If the Personhood movement's successes turn out to be incremental, that is no reason to be dismissive. If they turn out to be as revolutionary as Mary King predicts, I'll be absolutely thrilled to guess wrong.
How pro-lifers can overturn Roe v. Wade
By Mary King
In this month in 1973, the Supreme Court declared open season on unborn babies when they infamously invented a "right" to abortion in their Roe v. Wade decision, making null and void laws protecting the unborn in all 50 states.
In the 37 years since, black-robed despots have devalued the worth of life by systematically defending the slaughter of more than 51 million babies whose only crime was to have been "inconvenient." While this judicial activism has been tenaciously resisted by tens of thousands of pro-life activists in every state, the Congress and state legislatures have so far only whittled away at the margins by passing laws that slightly regulate abortion in the most egregious cases.
Yet the time to bow before the Supreme Court is over. It is time to really defend the defenseless and end abortion-on-demand entirely.
One such bill — a Life at Conception Act — would do just that.
By legislatively establishing the personhood of the unborn, this bill would actually eliminate judicially imposed abortion-on-demand.
Working from what the Supreme Court ruled in Roe, pro-life lawmakers can pass a Life at Conception Act and end abortion by using the Constitution instead of amending it.
When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade, it was based on the new, and previously undefined, "right to privacy" it "discovered" in the so-called "penumbrae" of the Constitution.
Of course, as constitutional law it was a disaster.
But never once did the Supreme Court declare abortion itself to be a constitutional right.
Instead the Supreme Court left the door open for lawmakers to protect life when it stated in its opinion that the Court "need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins." It admitted that "if the suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case [for an abortion], of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment." That is exactly what a Life at Conception Act would do.
A Life at Conception Act changes the focus of the abortion debate. It takes the Supreme Court out of the equation and places responsibility solely on the shoulders of the elected representatives who, unlike life term judges, must respond to grass-roots pressure.
And the grass-roots pressure of pro-lifers has led to ever-increasing support in Congress.
The Life at Conception Act has attracted growing record numbers of co-sponsors in each of the last four Congresses.
And much to the chagrin of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Life at Conception Act in the current 111th Congress — S. 346 by Sen. Roger Wicker, R- Miss., and H.R. 881 by Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif. — are again on track to achieve new record support.
The politicians had better take heed.
Even if a Life at Conception Act doesn't pass immediately, the public attention will send another crew of radical abortionists down to defeat in the next election.
I can think of no more fitting way to celebrate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade than to prepare for its demise.
— Mary King is executive director of the National Pro-Life Alliance, 4521 Windsor Arms Court, Annandale, VA 22003.
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