Apparently we should all be very concerned about what could happen if/when Roe v Wade is overturned.
The Department of Homeland Security has even notified Catholic bishops to be on the alert. “The Department of Homeland Security warned on Tuesday, June 7, that “faith-based institutions” could be potential targets amid a “heightened threat environment” in the United States.
The DHS alert followed an unconfirmed report that it had notified Catholic bishops of “credible threats” if Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide, is overturned.”
So will there be a violent uprising of progressive liberated feminists? Will they march and burn churches and loot stores and do wanton destruction because their ‘right’ to murder an un-born child has been taken away? Hard to say, but I hope not.
There will probably be protests, such as when a Mass in Eastpointe MI was interrupted by a “Nearly naked activist shouting pro-abortion chants.” But I would hope that saner heads will prevail. I hope that the pro-abortion crowd will stop and think through what such a decision portends.
What it means
In the first place it would only be a recognition that there is no right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution. In fact, there never was. The so called right was arrived at through smoke and mirrors. SCOTUS made up a right where no right existed, in the same way it made up a right to same-sex marriage. The highest court in the land can and does make mistakes.
As the Constitution states (Amendment X) “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” So because the US Constitution makes no mention of abortion (or marriage), the power to regulate abortion resides in each of the 50 states, which is where it always belonged.
As Stephen Krason wrote recently, “. . . it appears that the best that will happen if reversal occurs is that abortion will become a states’ rights issue.”
Since abortion would no longer be a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, any abortion laws ‘on the books’ in the 50 states would once again have the force of law. If a state already has laws regulating abortion on the books, those laws are once again enforceable. In a few states abortion would be legal, while in most others it would not.
Women seeking an abortion will still be able to travel, with impunity, to states where abortion is legal. So it just won’t be quite as easy to obtain an abortion as it is currently.
Some History
According to the Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood), by the year 1900 almost all of the 50 states had enacted laws “making abortion or attempted abortion at any point in pregnancy a criminal offense.” So it will be up to states’ attorneys and county prosecutors to decide whether or not they will prosecute anyone who runs afoul of an existing law regulating abortion.
In Michigan, for instance, under a state law that was updated in 1931, nearly all abortions are a felony that carry a penalty of up to four years in prison. But as an article at Slate notes, nationwide, “Women who sought abortions were not targeted for prosecution (although some states allowed it). Prosecutors who tried to go after women who sought abortions in the 19th century had quickly learned that juries refused to convict and shifted to pursuing abortion providers when women died.”
Of course most states have laws ‘on the books’ that they do not enforce. In another example from Michigan, there is a law that is still on the books regarding haircuts. It states that a married woman can face jail time if she gets her hair cut without her husband’s permission. Not surprisingly, this law is no longer enforced.
So if/when Roe v Wade is overturned, the onus to regulate abortion will again fall to state legislatures. Prosecutors, police departments, and judges will be called on to enforce laws pertaining to abortion – or not.
Not so ‘grim’
Leslie J. Reagan, Professor of History, Law, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Media Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is the author of “When Abortion Was a Crime.” The book is billed as “The definitive history of abortion in the United States.”
Ms. Reagan states in a review of her own book, that “While abortions have typically been portrayed as grim “back alley” operations, this deeply researched history confirms that many abortion providers—including physicians—practiced openly and safely, despite prohibitions by the state and the American Medical Association.”
An Aside . . .
Ms. Reagan’s book may be “deeply researched” but I do have to question her conclusions. Right in the Preface the author makes statements like:
“The criminalization of abortion in the nineteenth century was rooted in the anxieties of upper-class white men . . .”
and
“Compelling middle-class white women to have more babies in the service of maintaining white elite political power was the goal” (Preface, pg. xvi).
A simpler explanation is that abortion has always been considered immoral. The increase in abortions in the late 1800s simply led to a codifying of the activity in many states. Even the Planned Parenthood website points out, “In 1847, doctors banded together to form the AMA [American Medical Association]” and “AMA members believed they should have the power to decide when an abortion could be legally performed.”
It’s worth remembering that the original Hippocratic Oath (translated from Greek by Francis Adams in 1849) states “I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art.” Unfortunately, the AMA has greatly changed since then as has the oath medical practitioners take.
Nothing really changes
So despite Ms. Reagan’s attempt to put a woke, progressive, feminist spin on history, it’s more likely that the AMA viewed abortion as murder in the 1800s, in the same way moral, rational thinkers still view it today. And it is also likely that women will still seek to have abortions if/when Roe v Wade is overturned.
Overturning Roe v Wade will simply make abortions less convenient and less affordable. Other than this nothing will change. Those who are pro-abortion and those who are pro-life will continue to be at odds with one another.
Some who are pro-abortion have tried to make the argument that pro-lifers don’t really care about low-income women and unmarried women who become pregnant. If pro-lifers really were pro-life, the argument goes, they would support improving to the “social safety net” and national healthcare. Such spurious attacks are, however, irrational and entirely without merit.
In the first place such arguments are fallacious character attacks. They presume an ‘unfeeling’ character flaw on pro-lifers. However it is perfectly reasonable to have compassion for fellow human beings while having a difference of opinion in regard to the extent of government programs and actions.
Secondly, national ‘socialized’ government programs are contrary to Catholic Social Teaching on subsidiarity. Problem solving at a local level is preferable to national socialistic programs run by bureaucrats in a far off city.
So one can only hope that at some point progressives will come to their senses. Hopefully they will realize bigger government and more government intrusion into our lives is not necessarily a good thing. It can easily lead to totalitarianism.
As has been said many time before, Christ is the answer to our problems, not more government programs.
The root cause
But even more important than helping and caring for single mothers-to-be is the need to dispel the notion that sexual intercourse is a recreational activity. As the Catholic Church teaches, sexual intercourse is a procreative act. It is a licit activity for married men and women only. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is listening to the devil instead of God.
As Monica Migliorino Miller argued recently at Catholic World Report, “Abortion is a very peculiar kind of murder. Unlike other instances of unjust killing, abortion is inherently connected to human sexuality—connected to sexual practice. I will put it bluntly: abortion on demand is the consequence of a disordered sexual ethic. Indeed, it feeds off such a disordered sexual ethic.”
Miller cites the CDC in support of her argument. In 2019, in the 42 states reporting by marital status, 85.5 percent of women who obtained an abortion were unmarried.
Miller goes on to say “We are living in a time of sexual explosion, an era in which it is simply taken for granted at every level of society that there is no inherent moral connection, no moral requirement at all, for sexual activity to be related in any way to marriage, love, commitment or responsibility.”
Combine the statistics on the number of abortions performed every year and statistics on kids growing up without fathers. If you do so, you’ll end up with a pretty horrendous picture of the fruits of the sexual revolution.
Miller is right. There is only one way to put an end to the immoral and inhumane murder of babies. We have to get everyone listening to Christ instead of listening to the devil. Virtuous behavior is the cure for our problems.
15 thoughts on “What Might Happen if/when SCOTUS Overturns Roe v Wade?”
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Dear AOP, Re: a society’s or government’s efforts to change, exercising their feeble worldly power, the institution/sacrament of marriage that was made by God for us: see https://the-american-catholic.com/2022/02/08/todays-democrats-blueprint-russian-efforts-to-abolish-marriage/. Marriage is the holy union of one man and one woman – no “revolution” can change that. Nor can heretics like those who write theological bollocks like Amoris Laetitia. Guy, Texas
Dear Guy, I should have been more concise about the sexual revolution. Marriage will
be here ALWAYS, what will change however is the age someone takes the plunge and
the onset of (I’ll be generous) fornication. As I once posted to Gene, there is a difference
between sin and consequences. Sin is adulatory, free love is what becomes of it. Everyone who engages in premarital sex risks many, many outcomes one of which is true love – like friends who cohabited for 5 years then married until cancer took one after 40 years of bliss. You can only cheat on someone who you haven’t made a vow to – serious enough but no where near the spiritual consequences of infidelity. Many people today have the foresight to not trust their commitment until they feel mature. They want to
enjoy their sexuality without guilt or shame. 500 years from now, all things being equal and futuristic we’ll see a much healthier society then the sexually inferior species we were
in the first century of the 21st millennium. You and I won’t be here to see it so don’t get
your dander up over the evolution of our species.
wow Gene!
You really stirred it up this time.
Certainly wounded the effete sensibilities of some of us.
As the whole system that is/was the West comes off the rails, there will be increasing civil unrest. The Roe v. Wade “leak” and subsequent “analysis” provides a cover, a red herring, to explain increasing chaos.
The real reason is we ALL need to repent and it looks like we’ll have to get deadly serious about it; cuz we WON’T have an environment of peace and light in which to do it.
I say: Thanks for not “tickling my ears.”
It is a licit activity for married men and women only. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is listening to the devil instead of God.
An ordinary anyone here, to challenge the exclusive club’s licit only policy with its two dire shalt not’s glaring out over a marital landscape that has seen more infidelity than could ever be computed. It might be latent envy that impedes your ability to fathom the good come about by factoring all aspects of the sexual revolution : memories of genuine love – now minds at rest in old age – sighing in gratitude for the free will that for the most part ended, not unlike those who refrained.
Latent envy? Really? There is no “good” from the sexual revolution. People are not smarter than God.
Here’s a good that resulted. The CC has stopped inadvertently marrying gay people who
thought they could change, thought the act would result in coitus when it was physically /
psychologically impossible. How many coerced marriages over the millennium ended
because someone never got past holding hands ? The chance to break off a train wreck
could have been avoided. Gene, part of the problem is that some cannot envision a
civilization that has moved beyond marriage. I’m sure there’s quite a few out there in
the universe that through evolution did just that. In any case it’s tough to be on the cusp
of any revolution but the genii is not and probly has never been or put back in the bottle.
In a word, balderdash. Homosexuality is a learned behavior so it can become un-learned and a civilization that moves beyond marriage is a civilization that has turned its back on God. End of discussion.
Looks like the recent violent attacks on crisis pregnancy centers are an admission by pro-aborts that the pro-life movement has been providing that “social safety net” all along. And the pro-aborts have known it all along.
With Roe overturned, it will be much easier for a woman, or her survivors if she is killed, to sue an abortionist, an abortion business, and all who assisted in her abortion if she is injured or if she dies due to the abortion. There are many of these cases, even while Roe has been in effect. Plaintiffs personal injury lawyers in the states that, post-Roe, permit unborn baby murder will have a field day, a huge payday [typically 33% to 40% plus or minus of what is won or what is settled upon]-and the baby killers, especially so-called doctors and nurses, and the abortion businesses will be forced to purchase expensive malpractice insurance. Also, it will be much easier in the pro-death states to identify and track the plethora of statutory rapists – and this includes boyfiends and even pastors – who have inseminated a minor in a statutory rape. Interstate sex trafficking laws will also be enforced by non-democrat attorneys general and honest prosecutors. As nationwide abortion businesses coordinate the death dealing they provide in separate states, the fines and penalties, including criminal ones, under the RICO statute will become applicable [Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations act]. And make no mistake, the power folks in the pro-death states, following the inevitable dramatic uptick in abortion business gross and abortionist and nurse assistant incomes will find ways to increase taxes all this devil money. Be assured: the overwhelming majority of catholic priests, pastors, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals will – as they have been for decades – silent about all this in a post-Roe USA; because according to church teaching, which they ignore, engaging in an abortion is an ‘intrinsic evil” – i.e. always wrong under any circumstances in any situation; and they must ignore this fact – that there are intrinsic evils, if they want to succeed in proclaiming that voluntarily engaging in “loving” homosexual actions are acts of virtue and are not intrinsically evil – even for the ordained. Guy, Texas
Gene: You decry “national socialistic programs run by bureaucrats in a far off city.” So, I assume you have rejected all Social Security benefits and refused to accept Medicare. And don’t get me started on how Washington billions kept the auto industry afloat over the last half century.
If you dislike big government, wait till Big Brother starts policing women’s bodies. I suffered through several miscarriages. How much worse would they have been knowing the cops might investigate, or some neighbor might sue me and my husband through a bounty law like Texas recently enacted?
Some things in life are not so simple as Newsmax talking points.
@Peter Darcy. And yet, despite your dismissiveness, you still feel the need to respond to me.
And how many miscarriages have you had, Mr. Darcy?
You will never have to worry about the cops, or your nosy neighbors, policing your body. If men got pregnant, the entire conversation would be different.
Ms. McCarthy, in regard to social security I would be pretty stupid to not file for social security since the money I am getting back from it is money that social security took out of my paycheck for 45 years. Even so, I do think Social Security is a national Ponzi scheme.
In regard to Medicare, as Lenin once said “Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.” But here in the U.S., Medicare also ushered in the idea of healthcare for profit – hence the moniker Big Healthcare. So no, I’m not a fan of Medicare. But once again the government is taking money out of my social security (money I earned) to pay for Medicare so I would be stupid not to sign up for it.
And finally, regarding the Texas Heartbeat Act, you might want to actually read the law. It allows for lawsuits against abortion providers or those who provide assistance to women seeking an abortion. So your husband could get sued if he drove you to an abortion clinic in Texas, but since they have all ceased operations it’s a moot point. Regardless, I would be more concerned about God’s judgment when it comes to murdering or assisting in the murder of an innocent child.
And FYI, I don’t watch Newsmax and I watch Fox News only occasionally – about as often as I watch the news on PBS. I prefer to do my own thinking.
You deserve credit for looking into the future, at least partly. Most pro-lifers are offended if you bring up what would happen when Roe is overturned. But real questions will arise.
You cite previous abortion laws coming back into force. But those laws did not treat the unborn child as a person and did not treat abortion as murder. The penalties were much milder, and were rarely if ever enforced against the woman (in the days when women were considered lesser legal creatures). To go back to those laws would require today’s pro-lifers to abandon their views on abortion and the unborn child.
You also say that strengthening the social safety net on a national level is against Catholic social teaching. Can you give a cite to that? For years most other Western democracies have had such a net and I don’t remember any bishop protesting. In fact they were almost always in favor and pushing for it.
You also say that women will still be able to get abortions by traveling to pro-choice states. Why are you so sure of that? If a state can punish someone for driving two girls out of state and molesting them there (People v. Betts, 34 Cal. 4th 1039 (2005)), it can certainly punish a woman for going out of state for an abortion. Particularly if the home state considers the fetus to be a “person”: the woman would be transporting another home-state resident out of state in order to murder it.
What about late miscarriages? If a woman can’t get an abortion and doesn’t want the child, getting rid of it doesn’t require a coat hanger. The motivation can be subconscious. Will a pregnant woman acting in such a way as to jeopardize the fetus (for example, drug or alcohol abuse) run the risk of prosecution for reckless endangerment? What if an obviously pregnant woman gets really drunk in a public restaurant? Would the police be called? If you really think the fetus is a person, how can you not call the police?
What about late-term abortions? In the tragic case of late fetal non-viability would doctors, afraid of being prosecuted, force the mother to die a horrible death just so that she can deliver a stillborn child?
These are real questions which will shortly become live issues in a number of states. Unlike a recent poster here, you seem at least ready to deal with them.
These “real questions” of yours are not new ones and those who are pro-life have always been aware of them. None of the questions you pose change the fact that abortion is the murder of an innocent human being.
1) Your comment on “previous abortion laws” is incorrect. Abortion was treated as manslaughter, which, like murder, is a form homicide.
2) Regarding Catholic Social Teaching, read the Encyclical Centesimus Annus and the Compendium of The Social Doctrine of the Church.
3) Regarding getting abortions by traveling to pro-choice states, there are no laws in existence prohibiting pregnant women from traveling out of state to procure an abortion. You are mixing federal laws (the transportation of minors across state lines) with state laws (homicides have local jurisdiction).
4) As for your other “real questions,” all existing state abortion laws, for instance, allow abortion to save the life of the mother. States also have reckless endangerment and child endangerment laws and it would, as has always been the case, be up to prosecutors to decide how to proceed in such cases.