Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Tag: Abortion

Pro-moms. Pro-babies.

by | 0635, 6 Jun 2323 | | 1 Comment

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

Still, one must step back from the political machinations at play and marvel at the ghoulishness and cruelty of Evers’ position. He refuses to extend the child tax credit to unborn children because to do so would acknowledge that they are children. Even at nine months, Evers’ maniacal support for abortions cannot acknowledge that the baby is a human — as if the thin layers of skin, muscle, and membrane separating the baby from air also separates her from humanity.

 

In Evers’ pro-abortion world, it would be unforgivable to clarify when an abortion would be allowed to protect a mother’s life. He would rather see the mother die, or the doctors risk their careers, than sign anything that might be construed as defining an unborn baby as a living human deserving of protection.

 

As Republicans are putting forth reasonable changes to the law in consideration of concerns raised, Evers will broker no adjustments in lieu of his ardent desire to see babies aborted up to the point of natural birth. If there is a more radical and grisly position, I know not what it is.

32,000 More Living Babies In 6 Months After Dobbs

by | 2049, 18 Apr 2323 | | 3 Comments

Excellent!

In the six months after the Supreme Court ruling that ended the federal right to an abortion, there were about 32,000 fewer abortions than expected in the United States, according to a new analysis.

There were about 5,000 fewer legal abortions each month, on average, than there were in the months before the ruling – a drop of about 6%.

I thought the most interesting thing about the report was the before/after chart by state starting on page 9. Look at the “before” column and notice that the number of abortions is nowhere near linear by population. The states had different restrictions prior to Dobbs, but abortions were still generally available for most of the time for all pregnancies. The difference in abortion rates seems to be indicative of the varying cultural preferences in each state more so than the legal restrictions. Of course, those differing legal restrictions in each state were also reflective of the cultural variances in each state.

I guess it just confirms what we knew… liberals just really like to abort their babies much more than conservatives.

Tennessee Considers Rape Exemption to Abortion Ban

by | 0857, 4 Feb 2323 | , | 0 Comments

Interesting.

Republican lawmakers in Tennessee introduced a bill this week that would add a rape exception to the state’s near-total abortion ban—with the caveat that those who “lie” about being raped to access abortion care could be sentenced to up to three years in prison. The bill, which Jessica Valenti first surfaced in her abortion news newsletter on Tuesday, would also require rape victims who do receive abortion care (which they can only get after an invasive forensic exam) to preserve and submit “a sample of the embryonic or fetal tissue extracted during the abortion” to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for “investigation into the offense.”

From a purely academic/public policy standpoint, this is how regulating abortion is supposed to work. It is not a federal issue, so individual states are experimenting with how they want to regulate abortion according to their local norms and values. It is interesting to see all of the variations.

From a policy standpoint, why wouldn’t lying about being raped carry a criminal charge? Lying to police and falsely alleging rape already carries criminal charges in most states – as it should. It eats up a tremendous amount of taxpayer resources to investigate the alleged rape and often casts the eye of suspicion on innocent men.

Planned Parenthood Hits the Road

by | 1851, 3 Oct 2222 | | 0 Comments

How gruesome.

Planned Parenthood officials on Monday announced plans for a mobile abortion clinic — a 37-foot RV that will stay in Illinois but travel close to the borders of adjoining states that have banned the procedure since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year.

 

The announcement came 100 days after the Supreme Court ruling that stripped away constitutional protections for abortions, allowing states to ban the procedure. Illinois didn’t institute an abortion ban, but neighboring Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee did, along with several other states in the South and Midwest.

I seem to remember another time and place where vans went around the country executing people.

Profits From Abortions Plummet

by | 0806, 15 Aug 2222 | , | 1 Comment

Follow the money.

Abortions accounted for 40% of the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia revenue, Quinonez said, adding that there would be no easy way to replace such a large a chunk of the clinic’s $1.6 million annual budget. (At least for now, the clinic can again provide abortions, since a lawsuit brought by the clinic days after the Dobbs decision has paused enforcement of the ban.)

“Being unable to provide abortion care absolutely puts us in a precarious financial position,” Quinonez said. “Our ability to keep our doors open very much depends on revenue from the services we provide, as well as grants and donations.”

On Abortion

by | 0942, 13 Aug 2222 | | 7 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week:

We are already seeing some states move to change their abortion laws after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The Indiana legislature is on the cusp of making abortion illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or life of the mother. In Kansas, the citizens voted to keep language in their state Constitution that keeps abortion legal before twenty weeks. In Wisconsin, abortion is already illegal except in cases where the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life and there does not appear to be any legislative appetite to change the law.

 

When the federal Supreme Court usurped the power of the states to regulate abortion, the public debate devolved into a robotic caricature of a discussion. Now that we, the People, will need to put in the heavy effort of deciding what our abortion laws should be through the rigorous legislative process, that debate should be joined in good faith with respect for our fellow citizens’ perspective. Herein I give explanation for why I oppose abortion in almost every circumstance and believe it to be the duty of government to protect people irrespective of their size or dependency.

 

Our nation’s Declaration of Independence set forth that we are all created equal and, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life.” Our United States Constitution went on to protect people from being deprived of life without the due process of law in the fifth and fourteenth amendments. Both documents are based on a fundamental understanding of Natural Rights.

 

Natural rights are universal and inalienable. They are not dependent on government, laws, customs, traditions, or societal norms. They are rights that are embedded in the very essence of humanity and are enjoyed by each individual irrespective of age, color, creed, nationality, gender, or station. The just duty of government is to protect those rights from being infringed upon by others and to regulate the outcome of when two rights collide.

 

The most precious Natural Right is the right to live. Life is the right from which all other Natural Rights flow. The only real question regarding abortion, then, is to determine when life begins, for once we have determined that a life has begun, it is incumbent on us to protect that life through the power of government.

 

Fortunately, here in the 22nd century, the mysteries of reproduction and gestation have been largely solved. Once an egg is fertilized, a unique DNA is created and cells begin to multiply until they form a human that we would recognize. Some would pinpoint the start of life at when the heartbeat starts, or when brain activity begins, or when the baby would be viable outside of the womb. Some would allow abortion even in the moments after birth under the argument that the baby is still woefully dependent on the mother. That is the same argument that could be made for infanticide well into the toddler years.

 

For me, the most ethical and logical point at which to mark the start of life is when that unique DNA is created. That is when there is a unique life. There is clearly nothing separate from the parents before that moment and there is someone unique after it. While one could argue that life begins at a more viable state, each of those benchmarks seem arbitrary. Our moral, ethical, and legal obligation to protect life should make us err, if we are to err, on the side of prudence. It is better to accidentally protect people’s pre-lives than it is to intentionally kill them.

 

With life beginning at fertilization, we must structure our laws to protect those lives. In the case of a mother not wanting a baby, we come into a conflict of the rights of two individuals. The baby has a right to life. The mother has a right to bodily autonomy. In such cases of conflict, we make laws to decide the best, least harmful, outcome. In no other area of law do we permit the killing of one individual to protect the bodily autonomy of another. Neither should we in this case. The consequences for the mother are significant, but the consequences for the baby are cataclysmic. In such cases, we must protect the life of the baby even though its very existence imposes obligations and consequences on the mother.

 

We must also remember that creating a new life is a joyous event — even when it is unplanned. A great many of us were not planned and we, and our mothers, went on to enjoy full, wonderful lives. If the mother does not want the baby after it is born, there are families ready to welcome a new baby and the mother can move on with her life. Any social stigmas of unplanned babies are largely extinct. Also, it must be added, that in an age of DNA, there is no excuse to not identify the father and ensure that he is equally accountable for the wellbeing of the child. Some of the best dads did not plan to be one. Both parents deserve to be treated with compassion.

 

The decision to have a child or not does not happen after conception. It happens before having sex. The decision to use birth control greatly diminishes the likelihood of creating another human, but there is still a chance. One must be willing to accept the consequences of that decision. Once another person is created, it is our moral, ethical, and legal obligation to protect that person.

 

I sincerely hope that Wisconsin leaves its current abortion law alone. It is correct. But if we are to debate changing the law, let us all engage with sincerity, respect, and reasoned positions. Wisconsin’s babies deserve as much.

On Abortion

by | 0714, 9 Aug 2222 | , | 68 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. I put a taste below. I realized that as the abortion debate has moved to the state houses where we, the people, will actually have to debate the issue and come to some decisions, the rhetoric of abortion politics is still frozen in the theater of inaction in which SCOTUS froze it in 1973. This is one guy’s attempt to explain his position on the issue. Hopefully those with other opinions will offer them with the same sincerity and not resort to the crutch of “you hate women” or some such nonsense and we can have a grown-up debate about public policy. Pollyannish? Probably, but a guy can hope.

Our nation’s Declaration of Independence set forth that we are all created equal and, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life.” Our United States Constitution went on to protect people from being deprived of life without the due process of law in the fifth and fourteenth amendments. Both documents are based on a fundamental understanding of Natural Rights.

 

Natural rights are universal and inalienable. They are not dependent on government, laws, customs, traditions, or societal norms. They are rights that are embedded in the very essence of humanity and are enjoyed by each individual irrespective of age, color, creed, nationality, gender, or station. The just duty of government is to protect those rights from being infringed upon by others and to regulate the outcome of when two rights collide.

 

The most precious Natural Right is the right to live. Life is the right from which all other Natural Rights flow. The only real question regarding abortion, then, is to determine when life begins, for once we have determined that a life has begun, it is incumbent on us to protect that life through the power of government.

 

Fortunately, here in the 22nd century, the mysteries of reproduction and gestation have been largely solved. Once an egg is fertilized, a unique DNA is created and cells begin to multiply until they form a human that we would recognize. Some would pinpoint the start of life at when the heartbeat starts, or when brain activity begins, or when the baby would be viable outside of the womb. Some would allow abortion even in the moments after birth under the argument that the baby is still woefully dependent on the mother. That is the same argument that could be made for infanticide well into the toddler years.

 

For me, the most ethical and logical point at which to mark the start of life is when that unique DNA is created. That is when there is a unique life. There is clearly nothing separate from the parents before that moment and there is someone unique after it. While one could argue that life begins at a more viable state, each of those benchmarks seem arbitrary. Our moral, ethical, and legal obligation to protect life should make us err, if we are to err, on the side of prudence. It is better to accidentally protect people’s pre-lives than it is to intentionally kill them.

 

With life beginning at fertilization, we must structure our laws to protect those lives. In the case of a mother not wanting a baby, we come into a conflict of the rights of two individuals. The baby has a right to life. The mother has a right to bodily autonomy. In such cases of conflict, we make laws to decide the best, least harmful, outcome. In no other area of law do we permit the killing of one individual to protect the bodily autonomy of another. Neither should we in this case. The consequences for the mother are significant, but the consequences for the baby are cataclysmic. In such cases, we must protect the life of the baby even though its very existence imposes obligations and consequences on the mother.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois Reports Increase in Wisconsinites Getting Abortions

by | 1757, 14 Jul 2222 | | 0 Comments

This is kind of a silly story about a tragic topic.

The number of Wisconsin women seeking abortions at Planned Parenthood of Illinois has gone up 10-fold since June 24, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights and Wisconsin halted abortions, the head of the organization said Thursday.

 

[…]

Planned Parenthood declined to say how many Wisconsin patients have had abortions at its centers in Illinois since the ruling last month that overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
They won’t give numbers, so there really isn’t a way to validate their claims. But the claim itself is misleading.
“number of Wisconsin women seeking abortions at Planned Parenthood of Illinois has gone up 10-fold”
Okay. Until a few weeks ago, abortions were legal in Wisconsin, so it stands to reason that Illinois saw very few Wisconsinites getting abortions in their clinics. Why would a Wisconsinite travel to Illinois when they could get in Wisconsin? So the starting number for that alleged “10-fold” increase may be as few as 1 resulting in 10 additional abortions. Is that significant? It is for the children, but not for much else. If, for some strange reason, IL clinics have a history of 100 or more Wisconsinites getting abortions every month, then an increase to 1,000 is very significant.
What I would like to know is if the aggregate number of abortions has increased or decreased since the ruling? Wisconsin averaged about 500 abortions a month. Since the ruling, have IL and MN seen a net increase of about 300 abortions? If so, then abortions have not been reduced. If it’s substantially less, then the ruling may have already saved a couple hundred babies. We will need several months of data before we can really start to draw some conclusions, but the evidence from when other states increased regulations on abortions, the net number of abortions for the region decreased. We can hope.

Power to the People

by | 1934, 2 Jul 2222 | | 7 Comments

Here is my full column that ran last week in the Washington County Daily News. I’m glad to see that the rest of the rulings continued this theme.

It was a blockbuster week of rulings from the Supreme Court of the Unites States. With a few more important rulings to be released this week, we see a positive trend emerging from the rulings. SCOTUS is stripping back the power of government and returning it to the people.

 

Arguably the two most important rulings of this session have to do with gun rights and abortion. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the court was asked to evaluate if New York’s restrictive gun laws violated the 2nd Amendment. The law in New York prohibits people from carrying a firearm unless they obtain a permit to do so from the government. To obtain the permit, the applicant must cite a specific reason and it is up to the arbitrary judgment of the government official as to whether the given reason is good enough to get a permit. SCOTUS struck down New York’s gun restrictions. What is interesting, however, is that the court did not strike it down based on the 2nd Amendment protection of the right to keep and bear arms. Instead, the court struck it down based on the 14th Amendment’s protection for citizens being denied “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Taking the rights guaranteed in the 2nd Amendment as already clarified by earlier case law, Justice Clarence Thomas brilliantly sums up the ruling by saying, “We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense.”

 

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court issued a narrower ruling that, “the Constitution does not confer a right to an abortion.” Thus, “the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

 

Abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution, but in Roe v. Wade the earlier court engaged in judicial activism to thrust the power of the federal government into the regulation of abortion. In Dobbs, the court corrected that wrong and transferred the power to regulate abortion from the unelected federal court system to the elected representatives of the people. This is how it was up until Roe.

 

While the court did confirm that aborting a baby is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution, it did not say that the Constitution protects someone from being aborted. The Constitution does protect citizens from being deprived of life without due process, but to make such a ruling, the court would have had to define when life begins. That was not the question before the court and to rule on that issue would have been an act of judicial overreach. Perhaps a future court will have the opportunity to consider that question.

 

In both cases, we see the court reducing the power of government. In the case of Bruen, the court checked any government from restricting the 2nd Amendment without the same kind of extraordinary justifications we require of government to restrict other rights enumerated in the Constitution. This will have a cooling effect on zealous gun grabbers.

 

In the case of Dobbs, the court returned the power to regulate abortion to the people to exercise through their elected representatives. While the federal legislature could take up the issue, reaching a consensus across the broad ideological spectrum represented in the national legislature would be difficult. The state legislatures will more practically take up the arduous task of regulating such a politically contentious issue. Since the government closest to you generally governs the best (a reliable, if not unfailing, truism), the court’s ruling has empowered the people.

 

As the courts final rulings are released, we may hope to see more of this trend of limiting the power of government and returning powers heretofore usurped by government to the people.

Evers and Kaul Sue Over Wisconsin’s Abortion Law

by | 0756, 29 Jun 2222 | , | 19 Comments

Interesting.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the state’s 173-year-old abortion ban, arguing that statutes passed in the 1980s supersede the ban and it’s so old no one can say it passed with the consent of modern generations.

To the layman (me), this seems like a legitimate question. If the state has two laws about the same thing, which one governs? I don’t think that the most recent one necessarily wins. In this case, the older law bans almost all abortions. The newer laws in which the legislature implemented regulations on abortions under the framework that the old law was invalid, but not repealed. Common sense says to me that you overlay the two sets of laws and that is the law. So, in effect, the newly valid older law essentially invalidates the new laws.

But… Rick Esenberg, esq., opined on the Jay Weber Show that the cases are invalid on procedural grounds. Normally, someone has to be impacted by a law in order to have standing to sue. So, if an abortionist did an abortion and was being prosecuted under the old law, the doctor would have standing to potentially sue on these grounds. But the governor and AG are essentially suing the legislature for a law that was passed before any of them were born.

What’s interesting is that Kaul’s and leftist DA’s refusal to prosecute anyone under the old law may mean that the law is never challenged in court at all. If the law is not being enforced, then nobody will ever be being prosecuted and have the standing to appeal over it. Kaul may need to prosecute and convict someone just to create a case to challenge the law. I still don’t think they would win, but at least they would have a case to use.

Power to the people

by | 0734, 28 Jun 2222 | , , | 13 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

It was a blockbuster week of rulings from the Supreme Court of the Unites States. With a few more important rulings to be released this week, we see a positive trend emerging from the rulings. SCOTUS is stripping back the power of government and returning it to the people.

 

[…]

 

While the court did confirm that aborting a baby is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution, it did not say that the Constitution protects someone from being aborted. The Constitution does protect citizens from being deprived of life without due process, but to make such a ruling, the court would have had to define when life begins. That was not the question before the court and to rule on that issue would have been an act of judicial overreach. Perhaps a future court will have the opportunity to consider that question.

 

In both cases, we see the court reducing the power of government. In the case of Bruen, the court checked any government from restricting the 2nd Amendment without the same kind of extraordinary justifications we require of government to restrict other rights enumerated in the Constitution. This will have a cooling effect on zealous gun grabbers.

 

In the case of Dobbs, the court returned the power to regulate abortion to the people to exercise through their elected representatives. While the federal legislature could take up the issue, reaching a consensus across the broad ideological spectrum represented in the national legislature would be difficult. The state legislatures will more practically take up the arduous task of regulating such a politically contentious issue. Since the government closest to you generally governs the best (a reliable, if not unfailing, truism), the court’s ruling has empowered the people.

Left Engage in Violent Protests

by | 0825, 25 Jun 2222 | , , , | 3 Comments

If the ruling had gone the other way, there would not have been riots. We all know it. Only one side of the ideological spectrum routinely resorts to violence and rage when things don’t go their way.

Furious pro-choice demonstrators took to the streets in cities including Washington DC, Phoenix, New York City and Los Angeles as they begged the Biden administration to find a way to overrule the decision.

 

A group was spotted burning the flag of the United States in the capital while others gathered outside Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ home.

 

In Arizona, cops were forced to fire tear gas at protestors after they appeared to breach the State Senate building in Phoenix, with staff evacuated but no one reported to have been injured.

 

And at least 25 were arrested in New York City after around 17,000 descended on Washington Square Park before marching through the streets to Grand Central Station, Times Square, and Bryant Park.

 

They also stopped outside News Corp headquarters – home to Fox News and The New York Post – and yelled ‘Burn it down! Burn it down! F–k Tucker Carlson!’ Vandals also sprayed ‘F*** Fox’ on the side of the building.

 

Meanwhile pro-life protesters also amassed nationwide, some breaking down in tears as they celebrated the immediate end of abortions in 18 states.

SCOTUS Overrules Roe and Casey

by | 0914, 24 Jun 2222 | | 30 Comments

Hallelujah. Pray for peace.

Held: The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives

5-1-3. I admit… I did not think I would see this in my lifetime.

Interesting note from the ruling:

our decision is not based on any view about when a State should regard prenatal life as having rights or legally cognizable interests,

So the ruling still leaves it to state legislatures to decide when life begins and when rights are imbued. In this way, the ruling leaves an open question for future litigation.

Wisconsin’s pro-abortion governor

by | 1911, 18 Jun 2222 | | 1 Comment

Here is my full column that ran last week in the Washington County Daily News.

Gov. Tony Evers has issued another executive order calling the Legislature into a special session for something that could have been proposed in the regular session. This time, Evers wants the Legislature to repeal the state law that prohibits all abortions unless the mother’s life is in danger. There are some curious aspects of Evers’ order.

 

The reason that Evers is calling for a special session is because a leaked draft of an opinion of the United States Supreme Court indicated that the high court is going to overturn the terrible Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. The court has not released the opinion and that may not be the case, but it seems likely that the court will finally correct this legal and moral abomination.

 

If that happens, it does not prohibit abortion. It would relegate the legal regulation of abortion to the states. In Wisconsin, state law still prohibits abortions except if the mother’s life is in danger. That state law would be in effect the moment the Supreme Court overrules Roe. Evers has been a longtime supporter of abortion. The only thing that seems to get his gears more than aborting babies is spending money on government education. He has a history of doing everything he can to support abortions, including giving millions of dollars of federal COVID relief money to Planned Parenthood. True to form, Evers is trying to make sure the abortion mill keeps grinding should Roe be overturned. Of course, the Republican-led Legislature is not going to repeal the state’s abortion ban. They know it. Evers knows it. Evers is calling for a special session for the sole political reason of making sure there are a few headlines from a compliant media that he can put in his re-election ads. It won’t sway any votes, but it will reaffirm his pro-abortion bona fides.

 

The language of Evers’ executive order itself is incredibly revealing. Words matter and, presumably, a lifelong educator chose his words with purpose. Let us look at a couple of excerpts. From Executive Order #168: “WHEREAS, licensed healthcare professionals should be able to provide appropriate, evidence-based medical advice to patients making reproductive healthcare decisions without fear of intimidation or criminal prosecution, and politicians should not interfere with the relationship between a patient and their doctor.”

 

Really? I seem to recall that Evers and his fellow Democrats have spent the last three years telling everyone that they must get a COVID vaccine. They have even mandated that people inject a new serum under penalty of law. They have shamed people who declined the vaccines and advocated that they should be shunned and prohibited from work. Forgive me if I roll my eyes at Evers’ protestations about politicians meddling in healthcare decisions.

 

Then there is this form the order: “without swift action, so many people — our neighbors, parents, families, and friends — could soon be unable to access the healthcare they need and deserve … .”

 

Did you notice something? In Evers’ full-throated defense of abortion, he never uses the word “woman” or that denotes that it is women who get pregnant and women who get abortions. In the new leftist orthodoxy, women are being erased with the dogma that anyone can get pregnant and have an abortion. The Democrats’ war on women is in full advance and Evers is merrily playing his fife in the vanguard.

 

Under this new convention, Evers is very specifically not defending women’s rights. He is defending abortions. Evers even calls his proposed law the “Abortion Rights Preservation Act.” Evers isn’t about women or women’s rights. He is about the abortions.

Planned Parenthood Stops Scheduling Abortions in Wisconsin

by | 1631, 17 Jun 2222 | , | 6 Comments

Wonderful news!

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, which operates three clinics that provide abortions in the state, is not scheduling the procedure beyond June 25 as it anticipates a late June decision reversing the landmark 1973 decision that guaranteed abortion rights nationwide. The organization in recent weeks has dedicated two staff members to help patients book appointments and figure out how to get to clinics.

 

Whether clinics in Wisconsin will be able to provide abortions, though, has turned into a day-to-day question.

Abort Democrat policies, not babies

by | 2022, 15 May 2222 | , , , | 0 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week:

The issue of abortion had been simmering on the back burner of the midterm election as the nation awaited the Supreme Court’s ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. After the egregious breach of trust and decorum when someone leaked the draft ruling, the issue may still be on the back burner, but it is boiling over.

 

While the leaked ruling is a draft and not the final version, it does indicate that the Supreme Court has decided to reverse and strongly reverse the terrible Roe v. Wade ruling in the same virtuous spirit as Brown v. Board of Education. Justice Samuel Alito’s draft is a masterpiece of legal reasoning written in a strident prose designed to firmly correct the court’s 50-year injustice.

 

When the Supreme Court issues its ruling, and assuming that it will be to reverse Roe, it will not make abortion illegal or legal in the United States. Such a ruling will simply divorce the federal courts from making that decision for anyone and restore the issue to the elected branches of state government to decide. Roe was a massive usurpation of rights and responsibilities left to states in our federal Constitution and hopefully Dobbs will return the issue to the appropriate public policy forum.

 

Several liberal states have already passed laws legalizing abortion up to the point of infanticide. Other states have been increasingly restricting abortions. In both cases, states have been acting to ensure that their state laws will reflect the will of the people should Roe ever be overturned.

 

In Wisconsin, attempts to change abortion laws for the better or the worse have failed to make it into law. Consequently, should the Dobbs decision reverse Roe, Wisconsin’s current abortion law passed in 1849 will be in effect. That law makes it a felony to conduct or assist in an abortion in all circumstances except in the case that the mother’s life is at risk. For those of us who ardently oppose killing babies, the Wisconsin law is ideal. In a politically divided state like Wisconsin, we are in the minority. Public opinion polls for years have shown that a majority of people support abortion very early in a pregnancy with steadily declining support for abortion as the pregnancy progresses with late-term abortions being opposed by a strong majority of people. Should Roe be overturned, abortion policy will no longer be a theoretical policy plank in a party platform and Wisconsin’s elected officials will be responsible for their positions. Earlier this year, the Republicans failed to advance a bill that would have revise Wisconsin’s abortion statute to make abortion legal up until the point that the baby’s heartbeat is detectable. The abortion abolitionists and the secretly pro-abortion wings of the Republican caucus united to bottle up the bill without a vote. It may be an untenable position for Republicans to hold in the long term in a politically divided state. For the sake of the babies, let us hope that they can hold it.

 

While abortion policy is critically important to the thousands of babies who are murdered in Wisconsin every year, it is not as powerful a political issue as those on either side of the issue would like to think it is. There is a sliver of the electorate for whom abortion is the most important, and sometimes only, issue that decides their vote. Polls and electoral results in Virginia and Ohio seem to indicate that the anti-abortion single-issue voters outnumber the pro-abortion single-issue voters by a smidge. But either way, these voters tend to be extremely reliable voters and abortion stances are already strongly divided along party lines. There are a few pro-abortion Republicans left, but there are almost no anti-abortion Democrats to be found anymore. In other words, these voters were already very likely to vote, and their votes were already baked into the political projections.

 

If anything, Democrats are desperately hoping that a vigorous debate about abortion will distract some voters from the fact that Democratic policies are ruining our country. Runaway inflation not seen since the early 1980s is destroying our quality of life and erasing the economic gains of the middle and lower classes. Gas prices are through the roof. There are shortages of necessities like baby formula. Rising housing prices and interest rates are robbing young families of the dream of home ownership at the same time as rent is rising. Criminals are gutting neighborhoods.

 

If Democrats are hoping that a reinvigorated debate about abortion will save them from an electoral correction for their disastrous policies, they are mistaken. At the end of the day, most people care far more about themselves than they do about tiny innocent unwanted babies, but that is why abortion exists in the first place.

 

Abort Democrat policies, not babies

by | 0721, 10 May 2222 | , , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

While abortion policy is critically important to the thousands of babies who are murdered in Wisconsin every year, it is not as powerful a political issue as those on either side of the issue would like to think it is. There is a sliver of the electorate for whom abortion is the most important, and sometimes only, issue that decides their vote. Polls and electoral results in Virginia and Ohio seem to indicate that the anti-abortion single-issue voters outnumber the pro-abortion single-issue voters by a smidge. But either way, these voters tend to be extremely reliable voters and abortion stances are already strongly divided along party lines. There are a few pro-abortion Republicans left, but there are almost no anti-abortion Democrats to be found anymore. In other words, these voters were already very likely to vote, and their votes were already baked into the political projections.

 

If anything, Democrats are desperately hoping that a vigorous debate about abortion will distract some voters from the fact that Democratic policies are ruining our country. Runaway inflation not seen since the early 1980s is destroying our quality of life and erasing the economic gains of the middle and lower classes. Gas prices are through the roof. There are shortages of necessities like baby formula. Rising housing prices and interest rates are robbing young families of the dream of home ownership at the same time as rent is rising. Criminals are gutting neighborhoods.

 

If Democrats are hoping that a reinvigorated debate about abortion will save them from an electoral correction for their disastrous policies, they are mistaken. At the end of the day, most people care far more about themselves than they do about tiny innocent unwanted babies, but that is why abortion exists in the first place.

Pro-Abortion Violence Erupts in Madison

by | 1433, 8 May 2222 | , , | 94 Comments

Once again we see that it is the liberals who have such a strong propensity for violence when they don’t get their way. Antifa. BLM. Occupy Wall Street. Protests outside of justices’ homes. Attacking Senator Paul. The list goes on.

MADISON, Wis. — Madison police and the Fire Department are investigating a fire at an office building on the city’s north side that they said was arson.

Crews were called to the 2800 block of International Lane Sunday just after 6 a.m. and flames could be seen coming from the facility.

[…]

Officers and arson investigators have not determined the cause of the fire, but police confirmed at least one Molotov cocktail was thrown at the office during the incident.

Police confirmed that the office of Wisconsin Family Action was damaged in the incident. The group is a PAC that lobbies against abortion rights and gay marriage.

Texas Supreme Court Strikes Final Blow to Challenge to Abortion Restrictions

by | 1333, 11 Mar 2222 | , | 0 Comments

Excellent. Now do it in Wisconsin.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas abortion providers on Friday conceded a final blow to their best hope of stopping the nation’s most restrictive abortion law after a new ruling ended what little path forward the U.S. Supreme Court had left for clinics.

 

The decision by the Texas Supreme Court, which is entirely controlled by Republicans, spelled the coming end to a federal lawsuit that abortion clinics filed even before the restrictions took effect in September, but were then rejected at nearly every turn afterward.

 

“There is nothing left, this case is effectively over with respect to our challenge to the abortion ban,” said Marc Hearron, attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which led the challenge against the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8.

Although Texas abortion clinics are not dropping the lawsuit, they now expect it will be dismissed in the coming weeks or months.

 

The Texas law bans abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy and makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. Abortions in Texas have plummeted by more than 50% since the law took effect.

Governor Evers Doles out COVID Money to Planned Parenthood

by | 2028, 28 Feb 2222 | | 3 Comments

I suppose one could argue that every abortion prevents a potential case of COVID.

In November 2020, Governor Evers announced the creation of a $10 million “COVID-19 Pandemic Response Nonprofit Grant Program” to distribute federal COVID relief dollars. This grant program was not established by the Legislature and, further, the Wisconsin Department of Administration failed to follow the legal rulemaking process when establishing standards for grant applications. This is unlawful.

 

In the years prior to Governor Evers taking office, state agencies routinely followed the rulemaking process for grant programs established by the Legislature.

 

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin: Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin received $1.4 million from the “COVID-19 Pandemic Response Nonprofit Grant Program” and $1 million in February 2022 from the “Equitable Recovery Grant Program.” The grants to Planned Parenthood in 2020 and 2022 reveal more legal problems than those outlined by the failure to follow state law on rulemaking.

 

Criteria established by the Wisconsin Department of Administration for applicants to the Nonprofit Grant Program bar entities that “have received funding from another CARES Act program.” Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin received CARES Act funds from the Paycheck Protection Program – violating the terms of the Wisconsin DOA grant.

 

The February 2022 “Equitable Recovery Grant” of $1 million to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin does not have the CARES Act funding restrictions. But this grant, like others, runs up against a state law that prohibits “federal funds passing through the state treasury as a grant” awarded “wholly or partially or directly or indirectly” to a pregnancy program that (1) “provides abortion services,” (2) “promotes, encourages or counsels in favor of abortion services,” or (2) “makes abortion referrals.” Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin meets all of the above criteria, making each of these grants unlawful.

 

WILL is requesting more information from Governor Evers to determine what legal authority the administration is relying on to make grants that appear to be unlawfully created, unlawfully administered, and allocating federal funds through to an entity that state law has established explicit and clear prohibitions.

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