Since the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade was overturned last Friday, I thought I would say a few things about it. When I was in law school many years ago, most every law student learned that Roe v. Wade was a very poorly reasoned decision. It claimed to find language within the Constitution to make abortion a federally protected right when, in fact, no such language actually exists. Over the years the Supreme Court held to the precedent of Roe v. Wade though, at times, even supporters of abortion were critical of the reasoning behind the original decision. Now, 50 years after the original decision, the Supreme Court has corrected itself and stated that there is no language within the Constitution for abortion to be a federally protected right. This means that decisions regarding abortion now return to each individual State. Under our Federal system, unless the Constitution gives particular rights to the federal government those rights stay with the States or with individual persons.
There is much political rancor by those who support abortion. It has taken the form of fear-mongering and demagoguery, even from supposedly devout Catholic politicians. Despite the rhetoric, the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is historic. It sets things right, at least regarding abortion, concerning the role of the States and the Federal Government. Much more importantly, it means that we as a nation have not resigned ourselves to the obviously immoral proposition that killing unborn human beings, even up to the moment of birth, is a right. It is only by de-humanizing an unborn child, seeing it as a clump of cells and an inconvenience, that politicians and those who profit from abortion can claim this killing to be a right. From a moral perspective destroying innocent human life is a tragedy. From a practical political perspective, the people of each state and their legislators should work toward making abortion a great rarity.
Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical called the Gospel of Life, recognized that in individual instances the decision to end a pregnancy could be agonizingly difficult for a young woman to make. Lack of resources, lack of parental support, lack of a stable relationship with the child’s father, etc. could all contribute to a decision to end a pregnancy. This calls us all to be more supportive of mothers in difficult situations and it calls us to be more generous in our support of pregnancy resource centers and supportive of practical ways to encourage adoption, to support single parents, require personal responsibility from unwed fathers, and to generally foster a culture which supports human life. We are a long way from a culture which both supports life and recognizes our responsibilities toward our Creator and toward one another, but the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, in placing serious moral issues back at a local level, is a giant leap in the right direction.