OPINION:
In briefs we have filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the state of Mississippi’s quest to protect children from abortion, we are standing up not only for the unborn children who are its primary victims but for the mothers and fathers, grandparents, siblings, communities of color and others who are impacted every day by a 48-year-old ruling that was wrongly decided and continues to tear at the fabric of our nation.
In the case known as Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi is defending a state law that would protect babies from abortion beyond 15 weeks’ gestation. It has also asked the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy.
Priests for Life, which Father Pavone serves as national director and Alveda King as pastoral associate, has filed an amicus brief in which we assert that “This fateful decision has no legitimate foundation in law, it continues to tear at the fabric of our nation, and it has corrupted our judicial system. It is time for it to go.”
Prepared by our attorneys Robert Muise and David Yerushalmi at the American Freedom Law Center, the brief includes personal testimony of the way abortion harmed several women who are now part of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a joint project of Priests for Life and Anglicans for Life for which Ms. King has served as spokeswoman for more than a decade.
“Priests for Life believes it is imperative that this Court hear their voices because these testimonies demonstrate that abortion is not only fatal to the unborn, it is exceedingly harmful to women,” the brief states. “The collective voice of these victims cries out to this Court to take bold action to permit states to mitigate if not halt altogether the devastating harm caused by abortion.”
In another brief to which Ms. King is a party, the experience of millions of African-Americans and Latinos is highlighted, as those communities are relentlessly targeted by an abortion industry whose systemic racism has only recently been acknowledged.
Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger didn’t just want to help women space out their pregnancies with birth control; she wanted to eliminate Blacks and others whom she deemed inferior. Her organization has excelled at just that.
There can be no denying that children torn from the womb are the primary victims of abortion. As these unique individuals grow and develop in what should be a safe space, they are instead sucked out with vacuums; expelled into toilets in homes and shared dormitory bathrooms; torn apart with forceps; poisoned with deadly shots to the heart, or delivered alive and left to die, alone and gasping for air.
This is the true face of abortion.
But others, too, are deeply wounded. No mother who chooses this kind of death for her child remains unchanged. Fathers, whether they coerced or acquiesced, come to regret abdicating their role as protectors. Families mourn the loss of siblings, grandchildren, and cousins. No sector of our collective lives is not impacted by the shockwaves of abortion.
Roe v. Wade created a nation of victims, which is not the unforeseen consequence of a just ruling. This is a tragic byproduct of the legal gymnastics seven justices went through in 1973 to find a way to exclude the unborn from the human race.
If a new group of justices – including a majority who do not believe the Court should invent new rights – have the courage to overturn their predecessors’ manipulative jurisprudence, it will not bring back the 62 million children we have lost, nor will it end legal abortion in the U.S. But it will return to life-loving states like Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and many others the right to protect all of their citizens, born and unborn.
The Supreme Court has a chance to save millions of lives. Let’s pray they take it.
• Father Frank Pavone is the national director of Priests for Life and the national pastoral director of Rachel’s Vineyard Ministries and the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. The books he has authored include Abolishing Abortion and Proclaiming the Message of Life.
• Evangelist Alveda King is a pastoral associate of Priests for Life and leads its outreach Civil Rights for the Unborn. A niece of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., she has authored many books, including King Rules and How Can the Dream Survive if We Murder the Children. Connect with her at www.Facebook.com/CivilRightsForTheUnbornOfficial.
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