A Strategic Approach to the Anti-Abortion Argument

         Our Constitution begins with the words; “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” This is the preamble to the constitution of the United States of America. Let us start with a brief vocabulary lesson on the difficult terms as follows:

Ordain: An action to officially make or to invest officially with authority; to officially establish or order something by appointment, decree, or law.

Posterity: People in the future, or all future generations.

Nearly all the courts have gotten the idea of when an unborn baby is or becomes a person with constitutional protections wrong; “The Constitution does not define "person" in so many words. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to "person." The first, in defining "citizens," speaks of "persons born or naturalized in the United States." The word also appears both in the Due Process Clause and in the Equal Protection Clause. But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only after birth unless considered in light of medical science and the preamble to the constitution. There are several considerations that have been largely ignored by the courts that when considered in the totality of the circumstances will render a different outcome on Roe v. Wade as follows:

1. The term Posterity as the overarching philosophy of the constitution. The term of the first consideration; posterity as the overarching philosophy of the constitution includes all future people to the furthest generation. The killing of unborn babies denies a subset of humans; specifically, aborted future generations of American citizens, the right to become a part of that future or posterity under the constitution because their lives are cut short by pregnancy termination. This is true because medical science has proven that a fetus is human, and the life thereof begins at conception.
   
   
2. The term Posterity as it applies to all citizens. All unborn citizens must be afforded constitutional protection in order to become part of our future generations called for in the very preamble of the constitution itself. The courts have only considered specific instances where the constitution and amendments read of who and/or what a person is, and how a person is defined; however, these definitions must be taken with respect to the overarching philosophy of the preamble as a whole in terms of who the word posterity is intended to cover. The balance is somewhere in between what has currently been decided concerning a woman’s right to privacy over terminating a pregnancy, and how we view discrimination of a subset of people that are denied certain rights. Unborn babies facing abortion today have no voice in the exact same way Africans and African Americans had no voice when they were slaves. The only difference is that because they are unborn they will never have a voice, especially if their mother terminates her pregnancy. Does this fact make the unborn less human or somehow undeserving of constitutional protections as part of the whole of the word 'posterity' as outlined in the preamble of the constitution? Absolutely not.
   
   
3. Murder and its consequences throughout history. When considering Murder and its consequences throughout history; murder occurs when one human being unlawfully kills another human being. It is also true that homicide is when one human being causes the death of another. When looking at common law,  murder was defined as killing another human being with malice aforethought. Contemporaneously murder is the purposefully or knowingly killing another human being, or the killing of another human being in circumstances showing extreme recklessness.

          In more recent times there have been new reforms that outline legislation to defined the fetus as a person under fetal homicide or "feticide" laws.  Such legislation is hotly debated under names such as the Fetal Protection Act, the Preborn Victims of Violence Act, and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.  Those supporting these acts say that both the lives of the pregnant woman and the fetus should be explicitly protected. Proponents of these new legislative actions assert that fetal homicide laws justly criminalize these cases and provide an opportunity to protect unborn children and their mothers. This clearly is political revenge for Roe v. Wade that will continue to cause blowback, opposition, and polarization among the two political parties. Furthermore; these laws are redundancies that are not needed under current definitions of both murder and homicide. What is required is the full measure of enforcement, protection and due diligence to ALL citizens born and preborn under current laws that trump the right to privacy in all circumstances when considered under the entire constitution, beginning with the preamble thereof.

            Medical science is also on the side of the unborn as well in terms of the viability question. At what point can an unborn baby survive outside the womb?  The answer to this is changing with time as well.  In 1973 the answer was not earlier than 25 weeks gestation. Today with new medical technology and medical advances we have; the prospect of infant survival is at about twenty three (23) weeks. At Twenty four (24) weeks the chance of a normal survival is about 50%, and after this the odds are in favor of a normal infant survival. Considering this data, intensive care should be the only choice for fetuses at twenty three (23) weeks or older gestation rather than simply terminating pregnancy. Specific medical attention rather than pregnancy termination will protect both mothers’ right to privacy and the unborns’ right to live as a citizen covered by the constitution. Clearly the bar on viability is moving in favor of the unborn.  The question of when an unborn baby can live outside the womb will be answered differently in the near future.  With the development of artificial wombs for gestation we will be able to save lives from the moment of conception at some point in the near future.  Once the artificial womb is perfected there will no longer be a need for abortion for any reason. This is why Catholics should not fear advancements in medical technology. To the contrary, the faithful should be funding research and development at our Catholic Universities and hospitals to provide for this better future for the unborn that are unwanted. We could make the difference by being at the cutting edge of such new innovations.  Politics do not matter in R & D because privately funded programs are not bound by such things.

          It is clear that the totality of the circumstances around a mother’s right to privacy vs. her unborn baby’s right to live as a protected citizen of the United States of America need to be more thoughtfully considered. Political conversalism has forced the two party system to lose any sense of what is right as they fight over who is right solely in order to win the next election.  The reality is that in the meantime, the unborn are being killed routinely, they have no voice, they are being discriminated against and we are decimating our constitutional obligation to the future of our great nation by murdering them.  Embrace the true meaning of pro-choice, because under the constitution as a whole it is required that to choose to commit murder of one citizen born or not to the benefit of the privacy for another citizen is never acceptable constitutionally.