Natural Law and the Right to Life

(Photo of an angry Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) pointing at Clarence

Thomas during Thomas’ U. S. Supreme Court judicial nomination
proceedings in 1991)

In my last post, I brought up (current Vice President of the United

States) Joe Biden’s criticisms of (current U. S. Supreme Court Justice)
Clarence Thomas’ belief in natural law during Thomas’ confirmation
hearings during the early 1990’s. There is one reason—and one reason
only—for Biden’s being so critical of Thomas’ belief in natural law: the fear
that Thomas, as a U. S. Supreme Court Justice, would vote to overturn Roe
v. Wade, thus recriminalizing abortion on demand.

I’m going to tell you, now, about a person encounter that I once had
with an abortionist. And, as much as I hate to say it, this is the rather
disturbing truth about abortionists.
 In 2003 a friend of mine, Leon Holmes, was nominated, by then
president George W. Bush, to the judiciary of the U.S. District Court for
the Eastern District of Arkansas. I attended a meeting of angry liberals
who were opposed to (then president) Bush’s nominations to the federal
judiciary, which was held in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas at the
University of Arkansas’ William Bowen School of Law.

During this liberal bitch-fest, a man who was sitting behind me shouted
out, “What are we going to do about Leon Holmes?!” After the meeting
adjourned I turned to the man and asked him, “So what’s your problem
with Leon Holmes?” He said, “He’s pro-life” and I said, “So what’s wrong
with that? What are you, pro-abortion?” He said, “Yes, actually I used to
be an abortionist.” I said, “What did you do, graduate at the bottom of
your class in medical school?” He said, “How did you know?” I said, “It
just figures . . . if you’re lousy at healing people then you’re probably a lot
better at killing them.”

This is the disturbing truth about abortion on demand: the back-alley

butchers have simply moved—legally—onto Main Street.

And this is exactly my problem with abortion on demand: the legality of

it. Some women will always seek abortions; just as some jealous, angry
husbands will always seek out their cheating spouse’s lover in order to kill
him. But this doesn’t mean that the state (i.e., the government) should
legalize such killings.

As far as I’m concerned, if a woman wants to hire someone to kill her

unborn child, she should have to find an abortionist who’s hiding-out in a
back-alley somewhere , because she’s got no business being able finding an
abortionist right out in the open—operating like a McDonald’s or a Wal-
Mart—on Main Street.

The U. S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision was made upon a very
sketchy legal premise: a right to privacy, which is not explicitly stated but
was “discovered” to exist, in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U. S.
Constitution. And this decision mandates—contrary to state laws
prohibiting abortion on demand—the legality of abortion on demand in all
fifty states, contrary to the Tenth Amendment. In fact, if the abortion issue
had not been removed from the political arena to the courts, it would be
left up to the people of each state and their elected representatives to
decide the issue, as it should have been. As things stand now, abortion on
demand is available in every state, regardless of the peoples of the fifty
states feel about abortion on demand (think: McAbortion or Wal-Abortion
here).

The Declaration of Independence, which is based upon natural law, as I

have previously pointed out, grants us the rights to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness:

“We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . .”

The Declaration of Independence reveals the Founder’s legal and

philosophical presuppositions: all people are created equally and they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. The right to life
being first and foremost, yet the unborn child—thanks to positive law—no
longer enjoys this right.

As I’ve said elsewhere, this is just one, important example of just off-
track—at the philosophical level—our nation has gotten. This rejection of
natural law— by Biden and most others—has been going on for many,
many years now. This undermining of natural law has been the legal basis
for denuding the Bill of Rights: our rights no longer come from nature and
nature’s God (natural law), they now come from men in high government
places (positive law) and this is how our government has been taking them
away.

Think about it: if men and governments give us our rights, then men
and governments can also take away those same rights, which is exactly
what’s been happening. But if our rights come from nature and nature’s
God then they are inalienable rights, which men and governments can
never take away.

Which do you prefer?

Another personal story, concerning the same liberal bitch-fest I

mentioned earlier, which, again, took place in 2003 at the William Bowen
School of Law. After the meeting had adjourned, I spoke with a woman
who was an attorney, having gotten her degree in law from the University
of Chicago, and I asked her, “In the context of the abortion debate, would
you say that human—meaning the unborn child’s—rights trump women’s
rights? Or would you say that women’s rights trump human rights?” She
said, “Women’s rights trump human rights.”
 What I didn’t say to her, because I didn’t feel like getting into an
argument with her, was that if women’s rights trump human rights then
men’s rights can certainly trump women’s rights. In other words, once we
reject God-given natural law and natural rights and replace these with
man-given positive law and government-given rights, men can take away
those rights whenever and for whatever reason they decide to do so.

I’d really like you to think about that, okay?

I’d really like you to think about this too: Since Dr. King’s crusade
against segregation was based upon natural law—as found in America’s
founding documents—what do you think happens to his crusade when we
reject natural law for positive law? That’s right: white people’s rights can
trump black people’s rights.

And I really don’t think we want to go there, do we?