In response to the leaked decision by the Supreme Court on overturning Roe v. Wade, Pat Buchanan explains at The American Conservative that it is time to “heed the Constitution.” He writes (abridged):
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe … enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
“We hold that Roe … must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”
Indeed, at the time of Roe, January 1973, the U.S. had a long history of punishing “abortionists,” and the laws under which they were prosecuted were “spurred by a sincere belief that abortion kills a human being.
A New York Times front-page map this week shows that if Roe is overturned, states with liberalized abortion laws such as Illinois, California, Oregon, Washington, New York and most of New England would not be significantly affected.
It is the Republican states, the Trump states, the Mountain West and the South, where the overturning of Roe will free up Christians and social conservatives to write the regulations and restrictions that were abolished and outlawed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe.
These states are where the post-Roe abortion wars will be fought.
If Roe is overturned, it is never coming back. It is gone for good. No Supreme Court will ever reinstate it. It will be on the ash heap of history, as President Ronald Reagan used to say.
Patrick J. Buchanan: Co-founder and editor of The American Conservative. He is also the author of Where the Right Went Wrong, and Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. His latest book is Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.
Read more here.
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