A much need suggestion for President Biden’s White House. To release a statement on Roe v. Wade being overturned something along the lines on the following, and start a national debate which has long been avoided:
To the American People:
I am deeply troubled by the leaked document on Rose v. Wade by our Supreme Court. Although our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, it also guarantees separation of Church and State. It’s written in a way that cannot be disputed. From the First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the exercise thereof."
However, the original Supreme Court ruling in Row v. Wade was not a religious ruling. It attempted as best it could to determine when a potential life should be protected and when life in a legal and material sense begins. It came up with the scientific and legal view that life begins at the point the fetus is viable if born. Which was about six months into pregnancy.
It did not rule at that time that legal life begins when the fetal heart starts beating or at conception. As we know, even transplanting a full grown living heart into another human being, such as one from an accidental death, does not make the receiving person become the deceased contributor. Laws in state legislatures that claim conscious life begins with a fetal heartbeat are in clear error.
“Religious views based on the unknowable vary widely
and cannot be allowed to govern civil society.”
The current basis for overturning Rose v. Wade is based on the religious belief that life and the soul begins at the moment of conception. Which is a religious belief, not a scientific one. The Constitution may guarantee that you can hold such a view or even the view that life and the soul begins at birth. Others believe the soul is eternal and is passed on at death to another living being. Still others believe there is no soul at all. Which is why the Constitution separates religion from the state. Not because it hates or disapproves of religion, but because it recognizes that religious views based on the unknowable vary widely and cannot be allowed to govern civil society.
The current leaked ruling, if enacted, is a religious one that clearly violates the First Amendment of our Constitution, and subjects our citizens, and women in particular, to religious law and forced births. We are not like China, and do not allow government to limit child births. Neither do we want our government to do the opposite and force women to have children.
This Supreme Court ruling clearly will cause untold suffering and deaths for women as well as a Constitutional crisis caused by the Court itself, which that has blatantly ignored our own Constitution and the separation of Church and State. The leaked majority ruling is in clear violation of the First Amendment.
A Bloodless Coup?
I believe an open letter format may be better as our president is not the most eloquent of speakers. It might even be better if the Justice Department or Garland himself wrote a letter like this suggesting strongly that the Supreme Court has overstepped its Constitutional boundaries. Legal experts can point out other violations of law that surely have been violated by the leaked ruling. It also brings up the question of the balance of power in government as there is no one to hold the Court accountable with a divided Congress and the 60-vote filibuster rule in the Senate. I left language like the following out of the letter, but the actions of the Court are the equivalent of a bloodless coup. And should be refuted on Constitutional grounds by this administration in my opinion. This is both a politically defensible and fighting position. It may be risky but our Republic is on the ropes.