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Pope, Pelosi And Personhood
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| U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, right, meets with Italian parliament's lower chamber President Gianfranco Fini in the “Sala della Lupa,” in Rome, Monday. Ms. Pelosi’s official visit in Italy brought her face-to-face with the pope who talked to her about her stance on abortion. (Pier Paolo Cito/Associated Press) |
By Joe Murray, The Bulletin
While the economic stimulus has dominated the headlines of most newspapers, a silent battle has unfolded on the abortion front as the North Dakota House recently passed an historic challenge to Roe v. Wade and Pope Benedict XVI schooled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on abortion.
In the recent weeks since the Obama administration has begun to take shape, pro-life and pro-abortion activists alike have been testing the waters in an attempt to gauge the president’s pro-abortion resolve in a debate that has divided the nation for more than three decades.
Because Barack Obama stands to reshape the Supreme Court — a number of jurists are over the age of 70 — and the lower federal courts, conservatives are hoping to launch a legal battle that could topple Roe v. Wade, the decision legalizing abortion on demand, before the Obama appointments can impede their efforts.
To that effect, the North Dakota personhood amendment stands to be the new front in the abortion wars.
“We are very excited about the personhood movement in North Dakota — which has the chance to become the first state to protect the rights of all its citizens from their biological beginning,” said Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League.
The personhood bill, if passed by the North Dakota Senate and signed by the state’s governor, would bestow to the unborn the rights of personhood, thus overriding the ruling in Roe that said the unborn are not entitled to the same rights as the born.
“It is the intent of the legislative assembly that an individual, a person, when the context indicates that a reference to an individual is intended, or a human being includes any organism with the genome of homo sapiens,” the legislation reads.
The North Dakota bill seeks to take advantage of a legal loophole left by Justice Harry Blackmun when he issued the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Roe.
Many of the technological advances that are routine today were unavailable when Roe was decided in 1973. Mr. Blackmun declared the right to an abortion while readily admitting the court was clueless as to when life begins. Mr. Blackmun, though, left the door open for the people to answer, by way of the legislative process, the question of when life begins.
“If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case [the case for abortion], of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment,” wrote Mr. Blackmun.
North Dakota is not the only state that has, or is, attempting to fight the abortion issue on the personhood front, for six states have launched similar effort and more are expected to follow suit in the months ahead.
“Personhood efforts raise the standard of what it is to be pro-life. We expect that as the understanding that all humans are people spreads, the injustice of abortion will end,” said Keith Mason of Personhood USA, a grassroots Christian organization founded to establish personhood efforts across America.
Aside from North Dakota, Maryland, Montana, South Carolina and Alabama have introduced personhood bills, while efforts are currently underway in Mississippi and Oregon. On the federal level, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., has introduced the federal personhood measure.
And though Democrats, led largely by Mrs. Pelosi, a pro-abortion Catholic, continue to impede such measures, Pope Benedict XVI recently reminded the lawmaker her faith should come before her ideology in a meeting this week at the Vatican.
“His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoins all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development,” the Vatican wrote in a statement released moments prior to the two meeting.
Joe Murray can be reached at jmurray@thebulletin.us
In the recent weeks since the Obama administration has begun to take shape, pro-life and pro-abortion activists alike have been testing the waters in an attempt to gauge the president’s pro-abortion resolve in a debate that has divided the nation for more than three decades.
Because Barack Obama stands to reshape the Supreme Court — a number of jurists are over the age of 70 — and the lower federal courts, conservatives are hoping to launch a legal battle that could topple Roe v. Wade, the decision legalizing abortion on demand, before the Obama appointments can impede their efforts.
To that effect, the North Dakota personhood amendment stands to be the new front in the abortion wars.
“We are very excited about the personhood movement in North Dakota — which has the chance to become the first state to protect the rights of all its citizens from their biological beginning,” said Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League.
The personhood bill, if passed by the North Dakota Senate and signed by the state’s governor, would bestow to the unborn the rights of personhood, thus overriding the ruling in Roe that said the unborn are not entitled to the same rights as the born.
“It is the intent of the legislative assembly that an individual, a person, when the context indicates that a reference to an individual is intended, or a human being includes any organism with the genome of homo sapiens,” the legislation reads.
The North Dakota bill seeks to take advantage of a legal loophole left by Justice Harry Blackmun when he issued the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Roe.
Many of the technological advances that are routine today were unavailable when Roe was decided in 1973. Mr. Blackmun declared the right to an abortion while readily admitting the court was clueless as to when life begins. Mr. Blackmun, though, left the door open for the people to answer, by way of the legislative process, the question of when life begins.
“If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case [the case for abortion], of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment,” wrote Mr. Blackmun.
North Dakota is not the only state that has, or is, attempting to fight the abortion issue on the personhood front, for six states have launched similar effort and more are expected to follow suit in the months ahead.
“Personhood efforts raise the standard of what it is to be pro-life. We expect that as the understanding that all humans are people spreads, the injustice of abortion will end,” said Keith Mason of Personhood USA, a grassroots Christian organization founded to establish personhood efforts across America.
Aside from North Dakota, Maryland, Montana, South Carolina and Alabama have introduced personhood bills, while efforts are currently underway in Mississippi and Oregon. On the federal level, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., has introduced the federal personhood measure.
And though Democrats, led largely by Mrs. Pelosi, a pro-abortion Catholic, continue to impede such measures, Pope Benedict XVI recently reminded the lawmaker her faith should come before her ideology in a meeting this week at the Vatican.
“His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoins all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development,” the Vatican wrote in a statement released moments prior to the two meeting.
Joe Murray can be reached at jmurray@thebulletin.us
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