My granddaughter has her mother's eyes.
And her daddy's nose.
When she yawns, her tiny mouth forms a perfect circle.
The handiwork of God is a marvel.
She isn't here yet, though we peeked at her yesterday. Her 3-D image is still on my phone.
I couldn't help but think of her when I heard that Roe v. Wade might be overturned.
And I couldn't help but remember the reason behind Roe's original decision.
Do you?
The Supreme Court's 1973 ruling rested on not knowing what was inside a mother's womb. The High Court said that because they couldn't see, they couldn't know.
So, what was in the womb? A turtle? A wombat?
After thousands of years on this planet, how did the justices suddenly not know what was in a mother's womb?
But here's the big fat question:
Why didn't the high Court prove that what was in the womb wasn’t life?
The burden of proof has always been on their shoulders.
Always.
And yet, they pretended not to know.
Consider this article from 1981 in the New York Times:
Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmun, speaking for the majority, said the Court could not determine when life begins. "When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology cannot arrive at any consensus," he wrote, "the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."
Historically speaking, we know that abortion is an ancient practice. It is not new.
But our ability to lie to ourselves is. What's more, the idea that our High Court went along with an insidious lie is unbelievable.
The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BC. Many of the methods employed in early cultures were non-surgical. Physical activities such as strenuous labor, climbing, paddling, weightlifting or diving were standard techniques.
Do you think Egyptian women invented the idea that they didn't know what was in their wombs when they chose to abort their children? Do you think they wondered what was in there?
According to the Guttmacher Institute, nearly one in four women in the United States (23.7%) will have an abortion by age 45, according to a new analysis by researchers Rachel Jones and Jenna Jerman, published in the American Journal of Public Health.
"Despite recent declines in abortion, it is still a common procedure, and nearly one in four U.S. women will have an abortion in her lifetime," says Jones, lead author of the analysis.
The reasons women give for abortion vary.
None of them are new. All of them were affected by the High Court's 1973 decision.
And their babies, 63 million of them, paid with their lives.
Eliminated because of a lie that said, “Because we can't see, we don't know.”
But we do know.
There is good news and reason to hope.
Because of our precise technology, we can no longer ignore what hundreds of new mothers see each day. Because of medical advances, in-utero surgery is an actual thing that saves real lives - before the youngest among us ever see daylight.
We can see what mothers in full bloom have always known with our own eyes.
Consider this from the Wall Street Journal:
"As a diagnostic radiologist —whose youngest patients are fetuses, who are very much alive — I submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization urging the justices to rethink Roe, a case premised on a claim about science."
So, what about Roe? Where do things stand?
According to Politico, the word is that Justice Samuel Alito has drafted a preliminary opinion.
"Roe was egregiously wrong from the start," Alito writes.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled," he writes in the document, labeled as the ‘Opinion of the Court.’
"It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives."
Have the Supremes seen the light?
Will they send abortion decisions back to the states?
Right now, we don't know.
But here's what we do know:
The pro-life community will continue to liberate the preborn and provide care for their mothers and fathers.
We will not rest until the disastrous, deceptive 1973 ruling is changed.
We will fight for the right to decide this issue, state by state.
Understanding now that we can see what we've always known.
Like my 25-week-old granddaughter, a person is a person, no matter how small.
It's time to repent from the awful sin of our disastrous national lie for truth.
In doing so, we will trade death for life.
Amie Beth Shaver is a speaker, writer, and media commentator. Her column appears every Wednesday in 1819 News. Shaver served on the Alabama GOP State Executive Committee, was a candidate for State House 43 and spokeswoman for Allied Women. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
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