Cosmic Citizen

Personhood, Bodyhood, and the Right to Not be Aborted 

Part Six

62 million “human weeds” lost in Blackmun’s legalese

The movement to control and reduce the US population, extirpating Sanger’s “human weeds”—62 million aborted since Roe (See Part One), continues to pick up steam. Many accept the assumed “legality” of abortion, and this wrong visited upon the unborn has been twisted into an inviolable woman’s right, a sacred tenet of women’s reproductive healthcare, and a cause célèbre to be stridently defended. 

While the unborn are the targets of abortion, their mothers also are forced to bear the brunt of the problems associated with the procedure. Abortion victimizes both of them.

Facts About Post Abortion Depression

—Women who have an abortion are 3x more likely that women of child-bearing age in the general population to commit suicide.
—The increased risk percentage of women who have an abortion compared to women in the general population of having at least one mental health issue: 81%.
—Teen girls are up to 10x more likely to attempt suicide than their counterparts who have not had an abortion.
—Teen girls who have had an abortion are up to 4x more likely to successfully commit suicide when compared to older women who have had an abortion.
—About 45% of women who have had an abortion report having suicidal feelings immediately following their procedure.
—Only 1% of women of child-bearing age seek psychiatric help for mental health issues in the 9 months prior to having an abortion. After having an abortion, the percentage rises to 1.5%.
—1995 data suggests that the rate of deliberate self-harm is 70% higher after abortion than after childbirth.

The injustice is further compounded by the fact that men, who share equal responsibility in a woman’s pregnancy, bear little, or none of the pain. They can get a girl pregnant, after a casual “hook-up”, then walk away, leaving the expectant mother to fend for herself. This is male privilege writ large, but, by their actions, pro-abortion women are among its most passionate defenders.

Nevertheless, despite the overwhelming support for eugenics disguised as abortion, family planning and women’s reproductive health, there was always the fear that Roe, already resting on a shaky, legal foundation, would one day, be overturned. Much to the chagrin of the anti-lifers, that day finally came—June 24, 2022, with Justice Alito’s landmark, Roe-shattering decision, in the Dobbs case. 

Predictably, Alito’s memo sparked a massive and on-going furore among the anti-lifers. They wept, wailed, gnashed their teeth, and plotted to assassinate Supreme Court Justices. This, with the approval and endorsement of Democrat politicos such as Chuck Schumer, who warned Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh that they “won’t know what hit them”. His unconscionable threats did not go unnoticed, but if people like Schumer are prepared to inflict such terror on the unborn, what evil will they not incite and commit? 

Although the anti-lifers assumed the worst: that abortion would, once again, be made illegal everywhere, Alito’s decision does not end abortion. He states, 

It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's representatives....That is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand. 

In other words, raising the issues of constitutionality and the rule of law, he sought to kick this contentious and emotionally-charged issue back to the States, which is where abortion was handled, prior to the 1973 Roe decision. In a Constitutional Republic such as ours, guided by the rule of law, it would be assumed that citizens would embrace Alito’s decision. 

Not only is there no national consensus on this issue, but, by the looks of it, there will never be. The divide is only increasing, with some States enacting even more restrictive measures, and others relaxing existing laws, or making it legal up to birth. It has become a Blue Voter v Red Voter issue that will, no doubt, be exploited for political purposes. Some publicly-traded corporations are also getting in on the act. Amazon, Tesla and Citigroup, for example, will pay travel and medical expenses for employees looking to travel outside their domicile State to procure an abortion. Makes sense. Better that than paying for maternity leave. Feticide has become the “cause du jour”, and a line item in the corporate expense column. 

Some have argued that, although the word, “abortion”, does not appear in the Constitution, it is, nevertheless, a constitutionally-protected right. Naturally, anti-abortion activists claim that no such constitutional right exists, which is the substance of Justice Alito’s decision. So, why did the Justices in Roe, decide in favor of Jane Roe’s (real name, Norma Leah Nelson McCorvey) pro-abortion claim against Texas Attorney General, Henry Wade? That decision overturned long-standing Texas
statutes criminalizing abortion, except in cases where the mother’s life was threatened. It also enshrined a precedent that upended anti-abortion laws in other States. 

In Roe, Justice Blackmun, who wrote the majority decision, found justification for his decision in the 9th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. (Ed. Note: A reading of Blackmun’s ruling is highly recommended, but for those who do not have the time, the money quotes are given and discussed below.) 

The 9th states: 

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

In other words, this Amendment suggests that there are other rights, “retained by the people”, that are not mentioned in the Constitution. What might those other rights be? Could access to abortion services be one of them? Blackmun’s interpretation of this Amendment indicates his belief that just because the right to abortion is not specifically listed, does not mean that women do not have a right to the procedure. 

Further, the 14th Amendment, the source of the “due process” clause, states: 

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

Is the 9th, then, only a grab-bag Amendment full of unenumerated rights under which abortion falls, as Blackmun insinuates? If that is the case, then no State could legally enforce any laws that infringe upon this right. However, Justice Alito’s arguments strike at the heart of this “exceptionally weak” reasoning.

Norma McCorvey aka Jane Roe 

The language of the 14th is critical in that it draws our attention to the word, “persons”. When does person-hood begin? Do we magically become persons at the moment of birth, but we’re not persons the second before birth? The language of the 14th is not clear, perhaps because the Framers of the Constitution never imagined that this Amendment would be used as justification for baby-killing. 

Nevertheless, the issue of personhood is so important, that Blackmun was forced to dance around it: 

Ix A. 

The appellee (Ed. Wade) and certain amici (Ed. Amici Curiae: Friends of the Court) argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. 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 Amendment. (Emphasis added) 

The fetus, were he accepted as a person, would be automatically protected by the law. Thus, there could be no legal abortion. Sadly, the fate of 62 million American children, since Roe, hung on Blackmun’s interpretation of the law, and the Court’s understanding, or lack thereof, of when personhood begins. 

Several States, acting from a moral and religious perspective, have promoted the idea that life begins at conception, a starting place most religions and people in general accept. Roe does not challenge that conclusion, nor does it reject moral and religious arguments. It neatly sidesteps these considerations. Justice Blackmun opted for a purely legalistic conclusion: 

93
In areas other than criminal abortion (Ed: In Roe: Abortion performed after the fetus becomes viable; In some States: After the “quickening”, when the fetal heartbeat is detected, or when the mother’s life is not in danger), the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before life birth or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon life birth....In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense. (Emphasis added.) 

In other words, Blackmun interpreted the 14th Amendment in a manner unaffected by moral and religious arguments. By doing so, his decision appears to affirm the pro- abortion contention that the mother is protected in the exercise of an inherent, non- Constitutionally-enumerated, 9th Amendment right, in this case, to bodily autonomy. 

Justice Blackmun

Blackmun also declared: 

119
Clearly, therefore, the Court today is correct in holding that the right asserted by Jane Roe is embraced within the personal liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

120
It is evident that the Texas abortion statute infringes that right directly. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more complete abridgment of a constitutional freedom than that worked by the inflexible criminal statute now in force in Texas. The question then becomes whether the state interests advanced to justify this abridgment can survive the 'particularly careful scrutiny' that the Fourteenth Amendment here requires. 

For him, and the entire cast of Roe cheerleaders, all these legalistic arguments are meant to persuade us that, since “...the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons”, ipso facto, they are not persons, existentially. The normal and natural protections the unborn should have been accorded, were stripped away, and baby-killing went mainstream. It is this failure of the legal system to recognize a fundamental truth concerning the natural cycle of life, that has led to decades of Government-sanctioned crimes against the unborn, and crimes against humanity. 

Keeping in mind the fact that man-made law is not perfect, and is as fallible as its proponents, is there any place, superior to mundane law, where the unborn can be recognized as persons, and treated with utmost dignity? Perhaps, it is time to look beyond the jaundiced and limited scope of US law, to understand the personhood of the unborn.

Our society is becoming even more maddening and confusing, and in our politically-correct, emotion-charged environment, “men”, it seems, have  become “birthing persons”, while the term, “woman” cannot be defined. Clearly, even our language is failing us, and basic terms and concepts that have guided our society, over millennia, allowing us to advance as a people, are suddenly beyond definition. This does not bode well for our future. 

Cosmic Citizen is a reader-supported publication. If you find my research and analysis of this critical issue to be helpful, please consider supporting my work by subscribing, obtaining a gift subscription for others, and/or sharing this article. You can also subscribe for free. Please click on the heart icon to like this post, and leave a comment. Thank you.

Copyright © 2022 All Rights Reserved