Roe's Mating Call Answered After 30 Years Roe 'Collapsed' on April Fool's Day
By Dave Leach The Covenant News ~ January 08, 2010
Fourth in a series of simplified excerpts from the pro se brief which Scott Roeder is considering submitting, to answer how the Necessity Defense justifies his shooting of Wichita’s late term abortionist, George Tiller, May 31. Judge Wilbert held a hearing December 22 whether to order Scott not to say a word to the jury about the only contested issue of the trial, and Scott’s only defense: the Necessity Defense. Judge Wilbert’s email address is wwilbert@dc18.org. Scott’s trial is scheduled for January 11. Future installments: The Theory that Stopping Kansas Abortions can’t be Justified because Abortion is Legal Originated in a Grammatical Misunderstanding in 1993 <> Not Even Roe Says Whether Abortion is Genocide is “Irrelevant” <> Imminence and Alternatives <> Due Process Denied, when the Only Contested Issue of a Jury Trial is Hidden from the Jury.
Let’s call it “Roe’s Collapse Condition.”
Roe v. Wade put a leash on itself. It said if anyone ever finds out that the millions of babies whose murders Roe legalized are human beings, then Roe is history. Over. Done. Roe “collapses”.
Supreme Court decisions are considered, by most people, unreviewable. That is, we think no other branch of government, no individual, no anybody, has the legal jurisdiction to examine a Supreme Court ruling and decide to revoke it, or strike it down, or annul it, or repeal it. But if the Supreme Court’s ruling is that it is revokable, who are we to revoke that revokableness and say “no it’s not! We have to live with it forever, no matter WHAT anyone finds out – no matter WHAT Roe says!”?
Here is Roe’s Collapse Condition, in its own words:
“[Texas argues] that the ‘fetus’ is a person. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the [pro-abortion] case, of course, collapses, for the right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Constitution]... [because until 2004] the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.”
Think of this as a mating call. On the 30th year that this plaintive call went out over the sooty woods of federal law, a mate was spotted. Another year and the beastly bond was done. It was signed into law on April Fool’s Day, 2004.
Here is the Federal Law that answered Roe’s mating call:
18 U.S.C. § 1841(d) (Laci and Conner’s Law) “‘unborn child’ means a child in utero, and the term ‘child in utero’ or ‘child, who is in utero’ means a member of the species Homo Sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.’”
No formula of words could be more explicit than § 1841(d) in satisfying Roe v. Wade’s “Collapse Condition”.
“Child,” “Homo sapiens”, “who,” (not “what” or “which”) “carried in the womb” are all words which apply solely to human beings. Moreover, the law expressly provides that the intentional slaying of an unborn baby be punished as the “intentional killing (of a) human being”.
You cannot murder a turnip. The law against unborn child murder clearly identifies the § 1841(d) child as a human being, a legal person whole and entire, meriting equal protection of the 14th Amendment. After 2004 it is legally impossible to treat children in or out of the womb differently without violating the 14th Amendment rights of one or the other.
The Collapse Condition and Laci and Conner’s Law are unqualified.
The Collapse Condition is a doe in estrus, and Laci and Conner’s Law is a 20 point buck.
Obviously the Supreme Court has the power to declare Laci and Conner’s Law unconstitutional. But it has not. It would have to say Congress is wrong about recognizing the unborn as human beings. Very unlikely. Roe said “(if the doctors and preachers can’t agree) when life begins, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is unable to speculate as to the answer.” The people are less likely to rebel if you answer “we cannot tell”, like the Pharisees in Matthew 21:27 and Mark 11:33 who “feared the people”.
WHY DIDN’T STATE PERSONHOOD LAWS “COLLAPSE” ROE LONG AGO?
But this raises the question: Missouri, Nebraska, and Louisiana have already enacted laws defining the unborn as “persons”. Why would a federal law succeed in “collapsing” Roe after state laws failed?
Missouri’s law says: “...the life of each human being begins at conception...unborn children have protectable interests in life, health, and well-being [and all state laws] shall be interpreted and construed to acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of development, all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state....” (Mo. Rev. Stat. 1.205.1)
A lower court had held that Missouri's law “impermissibl[y]” adopted “a theory of when life begins,” but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Missouri’s law didn’t challenge Roe in any practical way, so what’s the problem? It only directs state agencies to treat the unborn as “persons” “subject to federal law and [Supreme Court] precedents”. (Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490), 1989.)
The Supreme Court explained that until Missouri courts interpret the law in a way that restricts abortion “in some concrete way, it is inappropriate for federal courts to address its meaning.”
But why didn’t the Court recognize that Roe had just “collapsed”, and preside over its funeral? Or why didn’t the Court at least acknowledge that the definition of the unborn as “persons” should establish abortion as a “legally recognizable harm” in abortion prevention cases?
Because the Court wasn’t asked. Courts do not address issues not raised before them. The Missouri Attorney General, Dan Ashcroft, was not petitioning the Court to terminate Roe by the strength of Missouri’s new law, so the Court didn’t rule on that. All Ashcroft asked was to keep his harmless law so Missourians could feel good. There were no prolife “Rescuers” in the case, so the “harm” of abortion wasn’t brought up. No one asked, so babies did not receive.
This time, I’m asking.
(Not in the brief: As for the other state laws, conflicts between laws and rulings don’t automatically resolve themselves. A case needs to come up that forces resolution. But even if a case comes up, the Supreme Court still has the discretion not to review it. I know of several cases submitted to the Supreme Court which squarely challenged Roe’s personhood finding, which the Court simply declined to hear. Even when appellate courts hear cases, they don’t necessarily address all the arguments submitted to it. The challenge of Scott Roeder’s case is to create conditions which courts cannot ignore. Public education is a vital part of those conditions.)
DOES FACE CONTRADICT LACI & CONNER’S LAW?
So what about the federal FACE law which seems to contradict Laci’s Law?
FACE stands for Freedom of Access to clinic Entrances. U.S.C. 18 §248 (1992).
FACE does not address the factual nature of abortion, so it is irrelevant to a jury’s jurisdiction to establish that fact.
FACE does not prevent states from criminalizing abortion; it only says until such time as abortion is made illegal by states, there are penalties for individuals who interfere with it.
The interaction of these laws and precedents may be illogical and embarrassing, but they are perfectly legal. But then, that epitomizes the history of abortion jurisprudence. Which should be no surprise, anytime anyone creates public policy concerning abortion who is unable to discern whether abortion is unthinkably barbaric genocide, or a tonsillectomy.
Usually laws and precedents attempt to logically respond to relevant facts. So where laws or precedents are premised on the facts being irrelevant, there should be no surprise if the laws and precedents are an illogical response to them.
Our calling is not to make sense of the senseless, but to replace the senseless with sense. (That wasn’t in the brief either.)
Next: Preamble Constitutionally Protects “Our Posterity”, Making Roe Unlawful from its Inception