Letter to SD Right to Lifer's - J. C. Willke

The problem with the "exception" is that this is exactly the justification Mr. Justice Blackmun used to demonstrate that the unborn are not considered of equal value to the born.
Note 54: "When Texas urges that a fetus is entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection as a person, it faces a dilemma. Neither in Texas nor in any other State are all abortions prohibited. Despite broad proscription, an exception always exists. The exception contained in Art. 1196, for an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, is typical. But if the fetus is a person who is not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and if the mother's condition is the sole determinant, does not the Texas exception appear to be out of line with the Amendment's command?

"There are other inconsistencies between Fourteenth Amendment status and the typical abortion statute. It has already been pointed out, n. 49, supra, that, in Texas, the woman is not a principal or an accomplice with respect to an abortion upon her. If the fetus is a person, why is the woman not a principal or an accomplice? Further, the penalty for criminal abortion specified by Art. 1195 is significantly less than the maximum penalty for murder prescribed by Art. 1257 of the Texas Penal Code. If the fetus is a person, may the penalties be different?"
The text at note 49, referenced in note 54: "…in many States, including Texas, [n49] by statute or judicial interpretation, the pregnant woman herself could not be prosecuted for self-abortion or for cooperating in an abortion performed upon her by another."

ANY exception is a wide open barn door for treating unborn (not yet born - those who are alive but not (yet) born) humans as of lesser value than the born. A typical exception of the unborn from the protection of the criminal homicide laws is in the definition of "person": "One who is alive and has been born."

"Abortion, the artificial termination of pregnancy with intent to kill the unborn child, has been unlawful in the United States since 1789.

That the English and American common law was indeterminate concerning abortion is irrelevant. The US constitution is the supreme law of the land. It repealed and amended all law up until its ratification to the degree necessary to obtain compliance with the constitution.

The US constitution in Article I, Section 9, forbids congress to pass any bill of attainder. Please don't skip over this vitally important provision of the constitution just because the word "attainder" is unfamiliar.

Attainder is a sentence of death. In English law, attaint not only sentenced the offender to death, it confiscated his estate, leaving his heirs destitute and his creditors holding an empty bag.

In America, the penalty beyond death, called "corruption of blood," was abolished by the constitution. Further, the power formerly asserted by the British crown and Parliament to put certain persons or classes of persons outside the protection of the law without judicial conviction (due process of law; law of the land) was abolished and forbidden.

The statutes purporting to put the unborn child outside the protection of the [criminal homicide] law are declared unconstitutional. Art. I, Sec. 10 forbids the States from the same thing.

When the first abortion laws were enacted in the US, about 1820, they did not forbid abortion, which was already forbidden. They exempted medical practitioners who performed pregnancy terminations in which the child's life could not be preserved, such terminations being performed to save the life of the mother (defense of other), from fear of prosecution and the necessity of defending their actions in court.

Later laws follow a general pattern of regulating abortion. Permitting abortion without criminal responsibility of both the abortionist and the mother(or person with decision-making power over her) was in conflict with the general text of the criminal homicide (murder/manslaughter) laws, so wording was inserted into the criminal homicide laws to make an exception for abortion.

Typical is the definition of "person" within the purview of the law, in which "person" is defined as "a human being who is alive AND HAS BEEN BORN." These four words, or their equivalent in other states' laws, constitute the bill of attainder. They exclude "a human being who is alive and has NOT been born," an easily identifiable class of humans, from the protection of the criminal homicide law.

There is no statute of limitations for MURDER. If the government ever returns to upholding the law in this matter, all who have committed abortion, and all who have solicited abortion (like mothers), will be in danger of the law.

That prosecution of perpetrators of abortions committed before a return to upholding the law is unlikely does not mean that as a matter of law they are not at risk of the penalty of the law. Prosecutors have historically been reluctant to go after abortionists.

In Roe, it is pointed out that mothers have never been held accountable for obtaining abortions. Further, even in cases of illegal abortion, the abortionist and his accomplices have been punished with lesser penalties than the same act committed upon one who is already born. (Text at Note 49, Note 54)[1] These facts are part of the excuse that the Roe court used to justify expanding its denial of protection of the law to the unborn, which protection was already minimal.

"Privacy" and "emanations of penumbras" are merely smokescreens.

Until a State legislature eliminates distinctions made between human beings based on their place of dwelling (in or out of the womb) in its criminal homicide laws, the courts will almost certainly continue to declare that unborn humans unwanted by their mothers (or by those having decisionmaking power over mothers) have no rights that the born are bound to respect. Also see Dred Scott v Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (Howard), 1856 [2]

Footnotes:

[1] Roe v. Wade is readily available at FindLaw.com Supreme Court Opinions. The citation search is down just a little. Findlaw even has given you the case ref. of Roe (410 U.S. 113)

Do "FIND" enter "49" to go to the text at Note 49. Click 4 times and if your browser is like mine you are at the text at Note 49.

Text at Note 49: "…in many States, including Texas, [49] by statute or judicial interpretation, the pregnant woman herself could not be prosecuted for self-abortion or for cooperating in an abortion performed upon her by another."

Scroll down into the Footnotes to Footnote 54.

Note 54 in part: "If the fetus is a person, why is the woman not a principal or an accomplice? Further, the penalty for criminal abortion specified by Art. 1195 is significantly less than the maximum penalty [death] for murder prescribed by Art. 1257 of the Texas Penal Code. If the fetus is a person, may the penalties be different?"

[2] "Dred Scott: "[Negroes] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had NO RIGHTS WHICH THE WHITE MAN WAS BOUND TO RESPECT [my emphasis]; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was BOUGHT and SOLD [my emphasis] as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion."
http://www.covenantnews.com/grayson051228.htm

The grant of impunity to the mother and her hired child killer while others who might inflict abortion upon an unwilling mother is a "Title of Nobility," an exemption of certain persons from the law that applies to everyone else. Titles of Nobility are prohibited to both the federal and state governments by Article 1, sections 9 and 10 of the US constitution.

Steve: I consider this - Willke's letter - to be a direct answer to our prayers from Sunday Eve.