Guest Post by Pro-life Leader Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
Proposed constitutional amendments are on the ballot in 10 states to eliminate restrictions on abortion and take away protections in place for the youngest children and their mothers.
Those advocating for the amendments paint this as safeguarding reproductive freedom.
But the manner in which they are doing it goes far beyond the consensus the American public has developed on abortion through much laborious activity in the legislative and judicial arena, both on the state and federal levels, over the course of 50 years.
And it goes far beyond what the Supreme Court has said about abortion.
These ballot measures lock state constitutions into the most extreme positions possible: No time limit into the pregnancy, little or no parental involvement in a minor’s abortion, no requirements that a medical doctor be the one involved in the abortion, and treating every other regulation of any kind as a burden, delay, or infringement on abortion.
It’s not just about having legal abortion. It’s about having unhindered, unrestricted, immediate abortion delivered on a silver platter.
But the legislatures, courts, and public opinion on abortion have come to a different position.
The courts have not considered abortion to be a “fundamental right,” which is what many of these proposed amendments explicitly declare it to be. It has been considered, rather, a right to be balanced with other interests the state can pursue, including the health of the mother, the integrity of the medical profession, and yes, the life growing inside the womb.
The Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in 1973 but the Supreme Court did not say it had to unregulated and available on demand. So the legislatures kept acting, and kept raising questions the court had to address. And the Supreme Court ruled dozens of times on those questions, including:
• May parents have a right to veto their minor daughter’s abortion decision?
• What kind of health and safety requirements should abortion clinics have to observe?
• May the state actually prohibit abortion or certain forms of abortion in later stages of the pregnancy?
Over decades of laborious debate, legislation, court decisions, and reversals of court decisions, certain points of consensus emerged among the American people, reflected both in opinion polls and in state laws favoring parental involvement, waiting periods, gestational limits, and limiting taxpayer funding.
Doesn’t respect for the legislative and judicial processes through which Americans have wrestled with abortion, and for the conclusions they have reached, suggest we should let those processes continue?
We should not pretend that shutting our courts, lawmakers and governors out of this ongoing debate by constitutional mandate will settle the issue in the minds, hearts and lives of our citizens.
Indeed, if these amendments pass, we may find ourselves more unsettled, disenfranchised, and divided on the abortion issue than ever before.
