Shownotes Transcript
Commissioner Johnston explores the first election after the overturn of Roe versus Wade. Brian goes in depth into why this election, and in fact, every subsequent election, will require a vibrant and knowledgeable pro-life electorate.
Brian explains that it is in fact the laws that have been at stake all along. That Roe versus Wade was significant only in that it overturned the laws of all 50 states. The laws had protected both mothers and babies up until January 22, 1973. When Justice Blackmun created a new law, and did so inappropriately in Roe v. Wade, he struck down the rights and duties of each of the state legislatures and the responsibility of legislators to make laws for their states.
The Dobbs decision of 2022, in overturning Roe, made it clear that there is no right to an abortion hidden somewhere in the constitution. It also very clearly handed back to each of the state legislatures and the lawmakers in every state, the right to determine which human lives are protected and how they are to be protected under the laws of that jurisdiction.
So now pro-life individuals in each and every election, need to understand that it is the LAW that is designed to protect life, that it is lawmakers who make laws, and that it is us, the voters, who elect lawmakers. So it is in voting that a pro-life individual can have a voice in whether or not innocent children are protected in their jurisdiction.
It really is that simple. But often because of the emotions, and the personal convictions of individuals, there are many tangents that we as pro-lifer’s can be distracted by: one of the most common is our personal sectarian inclinations and its influence on our personal view of the Right To Life.
Brian comments at length to explain that the right to life, is a self evident truth, (not a personal one) revealed through higher law, ‘the laws of nature of nature’s God’, which America’s founders asserted as the foundation for all just laws, and that “to ensure this right to life and all of these rights given by a Creator, governments are instituted among men.“
So while there are many different churches, church groups, and passionate people of faith involved in the pro-life movement, this is not a debate about their personal faith. It is a transcendent, overarching issue. This, and all laws, are public policy questions which apply to all members of society and apply equally, therefore we must be able to demonstrate through objective facts, and not our own personal religious predilections, why the laws of our state should protect unborn children.
Brian reminds us that the new Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Jackson has just been confirmed to the court, and points out how her judicial worldview, her judicial temperament – a positivist worldview – sharply contrasted with the most recent justice Jackson - Justice Robert Jackson, who was elevated to the court by Franklin D. Roosevelt. The previous Justice Jackson is one of the most notable and respected advocates of natural or higher law as applying to all human beings, and is most noted for leading the American prosecution of the Nazi regime. That prosecution was not because the Germans had gone to war, (that happened a lot in Europe) it was much more specific. The Germans had killed their own innocent citizens. The Germans, in violation of natural law and higher law, had committed crimes against humanity. And for this reason it was necessary to publicly state the fact that though their country allowed such laws, (a positivist view of law), nevertheless such laws were unjust because they violated a higher law to which all human beings should be held to account.
It is precisely this understanding of the law, which America’s Founders loudly proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution, which pro-life individuals must reinforce. The debate is not about our personal feelings or religious convictions or our geographic or cultural inclinations. This debate is about the requirement that the law should protect innocent lives, a transcendent and principle element of any just society. It is the right to life.