James Thibault: Federal government has no business legislating abortion

To The Daily Sun, 

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has the opportunity to be a historic landmark Supreme Court case, and based on the justices’ lines of questioning during oral arguments on Dec. 1, the court seems to be leaning in the logical and moral direction.

The fact is that every single argument in favor of abortion can be dismissed quite easily. If the woman didn’t want a child, she shouldn’t have had sex, especially without contraception. If she chose to, that’s her burden to bear, and if she does not want the child after he or she is born, adoption is always an option. According to American Adoptions, for every child who is up for adoption, there are 36 couples waiting to adopt, and this number gets even higher for newborns because they are the statistically most favored children to be adopted. The mother will not have to have a child she doesn’t want, and that child gets to live with an adopted family that will care for him or her. So the mother will be inconvenienced for a few months waiting for delivery, but again, that’s on her for being sexually irresponsible; not the baby for existing. There is absolutely no reason to take an innocent human life, especially when 36% of women who get abortions say they chose to just because they weren’t “prepared” for a baby, according to a study out of Boston Medical Center Women’s Health. Just because a life is inconvenient to your way of living does not mean you can take it.

The primary point made in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (the current law of the land regarding abortion) is in regard to “viability.” This is defined in Casey as around 21-24 weeks into a pregnancy, and it asserts that abortions before the baby is viable (meaning able to survive without the mother) are fine because the baby cannot survive on its own. This argument is flawed because just because the baby cannot survive without its mother does not mean it is not alive and there is nothing within either Roe v. Wade or Casey to claim that life starts at this viability date and not before. In addition, the date of viability will get earlier as medical technology advances, so the date set in Casey is completely arbitrary and nonsensical.

The fact of the matter is that the 10th Amendment of the Constitution clearly states that any power not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution is a power held by the states. Nowhere in the Constitution is abortion mentioned, and Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were clear attempts for the federal government to grab this power away from the states, make the unethical practice of prenatal murder legal nationwide under the guise of the 14th Amendment’s right to privacy, and all without allowing the people to decide on what they thought was morally right. It’s a sickening example of legislating from the bench and these cases should be overturned.

James Thibault

Tilton