Court of Injustice

By: American Decency Staff

Yesterday, pro-choice women celebrated their “right” to have their lives put at risk.

In a 5-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law which put in place commonsense health and safety requirements for abortion clinics in that state.  Such “radical” precautions such as up-to-date fire and sanitation codes, hallways wide enough to accommodate a gurney in case of emergency, and requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic.  In essence, abortion clinics would have been required to meet the same health and safety standards that are in place for other outpatient surgical centers. 

Dental offices, restaurants, even hair salons and tanning facilities are required to meet health and safety standards – but not abortion clinics?

This outrageous ruling by five Supreme Court justices unmasks the lie which the pro-abortion side has been telling us for decades – that the so-called “right” to abortion, “protects the health and welfare of women”.  Instead, the abortion industry threw women under the bus.  Obviously, that hypocritical “women’s health” argument was just a ruse to protect their only true objective – to eliminate any restrictions on abortion for the full nine months of pregnancy.  This is the position of Hillary Clinton who wouldn’t even restrict partial-birth abortion.

As theologian Al Mohler points out:  “The unborn child does not show up in any way as being even to any extent morally important. That’s because in terms of the rise of the abortion rights movement in the United States, it was premised upon that idolatry, a personal autonomy in which the woman alone is the important moral figure, in which the woman alone is the deciding figure in terms of the life or death of the life within her. …”

Not long after I listened to Al Mohler speak on this topic during his daily briefing, I read an article in which Hollywood celebrity Chelsea Handler boasted of her two abortions and stated:  “It’s OK if you think it’s not right for women to have abortions — but it’s not your problem, because we decide.”

Notice the “we” decide.  If abortion is considered morally wrong, they might have to recognize that there is an Authority higher than oneself.  And so pro-abortionists will go to extreme measures to defend their autonomy – even defending the most horrific abortion procedures that not only kill a baby, but put women’s lives at risk.

The Texas law passed by the state legislature and upheld by the 5^th Circuit Court, was in response to the horrific case of Kermit Gosnell, the Pennsylvania abortionist who is currently serving a life sentence in prison for the murder of a woman and three born-alive infants killed at his abortion clinic. (He will one day face the ultimate Judge for the murder of countless unborn babies.) 

Regulations such as those passed in Texas, but struck down by the Supreme Court, would have at least stopped the atrocities sooner.  As The Federalist reported:  Gosnell “worked for decades in filthy and unsafe conditions, keeping trophies of his victims’ feet and other body parts in formaldehyde around his cat-urine-soaked offices. The conditions of his abortion clinic and the illegal killings that took place there were only discovered when federal drug agents investigated him on tangential and unrelated drug trafficking claims.” (emphasis mine) 

And there are countless Gosnells out there.  In Texas, one such abortionist is Douglas Karpen, who, as former nurses reported, would kill babies born alive by “twisting the head off the neck.”

Thirty miles from my home this abortionist was finally shut down after years of appalling practices.  And this report shows a common theme among many abortion facilities. 

Yet just as the 1973 Supreme Court invented a constitutional “right” to abortion when none exists, the 2016 Supreme Court found a “right” to protect the wellbeing of abortion clinics over the wellbeing of women.   The Court claimed such restrictions would place an “undue burden” on women’s access to abortion – obviously because some of the abortion clinics in Texas couldn’t meet the basic health standards and would have to close.  However, abortion clinics could remain open as long as they met the commonsense health requirements set forth in the Texas law – but according to five justices, being required to meet basic health standards is an “undue burden”.

Tell that to the 500 Texas women who are rushed to the emergency room each year due to botched abortions, according to information from the Texas-based Justice Foundation.  And nationwide, according to 2011 statistics, 26,500 women experienced abortion-related complications.

The case before the Supreme Court was Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.  As reported by National Review:  Whole Women’s Health, which operates facilities in four Texas cities, was disciplined repeatedly by the state for offenses ranging from failing to have licensed nursing staff at the facility (2007) to illegally dumping medical waste (2011) to using rusty equipment (2014). In 2013, it was cited on 13 different safety-code violations.

Still, in 2015, Whole Women’s Health successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to stay, then hear its case against, Texas’s newest abortion regulation. Whole Women’s Health, a limited-liability company, has no constitutional right to abortion, and in normal circumstances the Court does not allow a third party to sue to vindicate someone else’s constitutional rights. But, to quote Justice Thomas’s dissent: “The Court employs a different approach to rights that it favors.”

It is obvious that life – whether born or unborn – is insignificant when it comes to pushing the radical abortion ideology held by the majority on the Supreme Court.  When an out of control Supreme Court can overrule any legislation passed by state and federal government, it shows what is at stake with the upcoming presidential election where the balance of the Supreme Court will be effected for an entire generation.

As Tony Perkins of Family Research Council warns:  “As they've done with Obamacare, marriage, and abortion, five unelected people are making it impossible for elected leaders to run their states the way they and voters see fit. And in the process, they're putting millions of lives at risk. If anyone needed more proof about the importance of this year's election, this is it. When the next pro-life case makes its way to the high court, whose Supreme Court justices do you want deciding it?”

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