Earlier this week, the Supreme Court decided to hear arguments in a Mississippi abortion case to kick off what many are calling the biggest threat to Roe v. Wade in decades. Don’t you believe it. Despite the rhetoric from pro-abortion and pro-life groups, the right to murder unborn babies will remain alive and well . . . which is more than we can say for the millions of babies slaughtered in the womb and denied their right to life since Roe was decided in 1973.
The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, concerns Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks. By taking the case, the Supreme Court said it will be considering the question of “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”
Translation? SCOTUS is only going to make a ruling on when a baby can be murdered, not whether or not abortion is illegal.
“Pre-viability” is a politically correct word often used by pro-abortionists to rationalize the murder of an unborn baby based on the child’s ability to live outside the womb. Unfortunately, this has been adopted by what we’ve come to call “Pro-Life, Inc.” to rationalize their faux defense of life in the name of “incrementalism.”
What is pro-life incrementalism and why is it an ineffective strategy? Writer and editor Philip Jeffery answered these questions when he wrote these words two years ago:
“Incrementalism is a losing cultural strategy. The left did not gain the cultural upper hand by incrementalism. The sexual revolution that gave us the current abortion regime did not come about by baby steps. Cultural battles are won with bold claims and striking images. The left has been winning the culture, especially on issues of abortion, sex, and gender, by offering materially comfortable middle- and upper-class Americans the chance to imitate Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X. Abortion thus becomes a great and noble cause. This strategy works because many Americans, especially young men, feel that their lives are unmoored, banal, and hemmed-in by forces beyond their control. They have an itch for moral heroism.
“The pro-life movement needs to take a clear stand. Vigorous action and bold law-making does not mean giving up on caring about mothers and children alike. And no organization understands this as well as Planned Parenthood itself. Planned Parenthood has managed to convince millions that it “cares no matter what”—even as its supporters march in the streets, rage on the Internet, and pressure legislatures in New York, Virginia, and elsewhere to do their bidding. How much better could the pro-life movement be at playing that game, by providing actual care and actual results in statehouses?” (emphasis mine)
In other words, incrementalism doesn’t abolish abortion nor save many babies, but it makes people feel good about doing nothing. Still, the rhetoric continues from Pro-Life, Inc. about how this latest Supreme Court will “protect” babies from “late-term” abortions.
“This is a landmark opportunity for the Supreme Court to recognize the right of states to protect unborn children from the horrors of painful late-term abortions,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, one of the largest anti-abortion advocacy groups.
How did so-called pro-life organizations like Susan B. Anthony and others arrive at this sorry state? Quite simply, they have compromised values and abandoned conscience while leveraging the millions of murdered babies to make money and gain political influence.
Pro-life incrementalism takes many forms; heartbeat bills, pain-capable bills (20-week ban), and born-alive abortion survivor bills are just a few examples of what they look like, and the Mississippi law is another effort along these lines.
These so-called “restrictions” tug at the heartstrings of those who want to end abortion, and they look good on the surface. Ultimately, they only serve to create a political passivity concerning life that might ease their guilty consciences but do nothing to end the abortion holocaust.
Knowing that Roe v. Wade is safe, the Democrat/Republican duopoly is playing a game of politics on the backs of the unborn (via Washington Examiner).
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren also sounded the alarm that Roe’s precedent could be in danger and urged the Senate to take action to protect abortion in case the Supreme Court’s 1973 pronouncement comes into question.
“This shouldn’t just be up to the Supreme Court,” Warren said. “Congress can — and must — pass a law to protect the right to a safe and legal abortion, no matter what Trump’s justices say.”
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, on the other hand, told the Washington Examiner that the case presents the court with an opportunity to show it is not in the business of essentially legislating contentious issues such as abortion.
“The Supreme Court shouldn’t invent new laws — as they did in Roe — because Supreme Court justices aren’t super-legislators,” he said. “Across the country, and in Mississippi, the American people have worked to limit Roe and Casey’s radically pro-abortion status quo. The Supreme Court now has an opportunity to affirm this American system and recognize that states can enact compassionate, common-sense, pro-life legislation.”
Ironically, Warren shows how abortion could have been brought to an end years ago. If Congress can pass a law protecting the right to abortion, it could have passed a law protecting the right to life. This has always been true.
Unfortunately, as we see in Sasse’s statement, Republicans are too constitutionally ignorant and/or indifferent to do so. Either that or, and this is most likely the reason for their inaction, they lack the courage necessary.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden says he is committed to seeing Roe v Wade become a federal law regardless of what the Supreme Court decides in the case. “The president is committed to codifying Roe, regardless of the … outcome of this case,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.
Following the Supreme Court announcement, Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver released a statement saying the court’s decision to hear the Mississippi case “is a positive step toward finally overturning the tragic decision of Roe v. Wade made 48 years ago and subsequent abortion precedent. Abortion takes the life of an innocent human being and has enormous physical and psychological consequences on the mother. It’s time to stop committing human genocide in this nation, and Mississippi now can take the lead.”
“A positive step” is Pro-Life, Inc. politispeak for incrementalism.
With the Supreme Court decision expected to be released a few months before the 2022 midterms, it should be noted that the Trumpist Republican Party is looking for an issue to hang its hat on and the Mississippi abortion case could fit the bill. This means that regardless of how SCOTUS rules, Trump, McConnell, and McCarthy will likely add abortion to their agenda . . . just as they have before.
Republicans love abortion as an election issue, and they’ve become experts at promoting incrementalism to make it look like they’re actually defending life. We see examples of this in the Republican Party’s 2016 platform (it was called the most pro-life ever) and in meaningless show votes like the one we witnessed in 2018 with the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act.”
None of the Republican pro-life promises became law, and even if they had, it wouldn’t have prevented a single abortion . . and that’s exactly the way Republicans want it. They don’t really want to see abortion outlawed because there’s too much money in it. But by adopting the incrementalism approach used by Pro-Life, Inc., they can tickle the ears of donors and voters until the next election when they’ll do it all over again.
Despite the rhetoric, the Supreme Court ruling in the Mississippi abortion case won’t affect Roe v. Wade
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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