For Once, Supreme Court Poised to Change America for the Better

AMAC Exclusive – By Seamus Brennan

According to a draft of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that was obtained and circulated by Politico Monday evening, the United States Supreme Court stands on the cusp of overturning its notorious 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. In terms of its legal implications, such a decision would end the recognition of abortion on demand as a right under the U.S. Constitution and allow voters in the various states to determine their own abortion laws through their elected state representatives.

But if the Court’s draft majority opinion accurately reflects the way it will officially rule later this spring or summer, Dobbs would represent far more than a mere Court decision and its magnitude would clearly extend far beyond the legal, constitutional, and political realms of American life. Dobbs would very likely pave the way for a great revival in American life that reasserts the sacred and enduring value of human life.

“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 and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division,” Justice Samuel Alito writes on behalf of the Court in the leaked document. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.” Alito was joined in the draft opinion by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—the latter three of whom are appointees of former President Donald Trump. Together, the five would constitute a majority should the opinion be officially issued by the Court.

With Dobbs, the Court would be a significant catalyst in restoring the foundational American promise that all men and women are created equal, and made in the image of God, and that protecting life is one of government’s most fundamental duties. Dobbs could inspire Americans to forge a future rooted firmly in the timeless principles of the American Founding—a future that, in the words of Pope John Paul II, is “worthy of man.”

Should the Court move forward with this courageous decision, the sheer number of sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters whose lives would be spared by the Dobbs decision cannot be understated. Since Roe was authored nearly half a century ago, more than 62 million unborn children have been killed in the womb in the United States—nearly a fifth of the country’s current population.

But, thanks to state-level pro-life legislative initiatives in places like Texas, yearly abortion deaths are steadily beginning to drop—a trend that is all but guaranteed to continue in a post-Dobbs nation. According to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, there was a 51 percent reduction in abortions performed in the state from September 2020 to September 2021 (the month the Texas Heartbeat Act went into effect)—culminating in the prevention of 75 abortions statewide every day.

With the overturning of Roe now a very real possibility, the United States is at a rare moment of national reckoning and fundamental course correction.  In the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln freed all slaves in the states in rebellion at a time when the nation was engulfed in civil war. Lincoln wrote that the United States “will recognize and maintain the freedom of [these slaves], and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”

Nearly three years later, the 13th Amendment, which abolished the practice of slavery entirely and is now rightly seen as being among the most important developments in American history and a great fulfilment of the American promise, was ratified.

Today, many tensions and divisions consume our land, including over the practice of abortion. But just as the practice of slavery is now universally seen as an egregious affront to America’s guarantee of equal justice for all, abortion too will someday be universally seen for what it truly is: the barbaric ending of innocent human life. And the Roe decision itself, much like the Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision (which regarded African Americans as property and barred from citizenship), will one day similarly be seen as a heinous attack against the values and principles of the Founding.

In his 1863 Gettysburg Address, in the midst of the bloody Civil War, Lincoln powerfully stated his faith that American renewal would follow a recommitment to our most sacred principles:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

As the Supreme Court nears the end of its term in the coming weeks, let every American of good will boldly stand up in defense of life. With Dobbs, the Court has a rare opportunity to give our nation a “new birth of freedom” by empowering the American people to disavow the evils of abortion and to fulfill our hallowed mandate to safeguard life and liberty for all.