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BREAKING BOUNDARIES: When IVG's dystopian sci-fi enters reality
Sheena Rodriguez
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OPINION: Liberty and privacy must never overrule the right to life
No person possesses a fundamental right to end an innocent human life. Yet the United States has become a nation where the most vulnerable — preborn human beings — are systematically killed. Since Roe v. Wade, nearly 66 million abortions have been committed. Even after the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling which overturned Roe, with the proliferation of chemical abortion pills and easy access to states where abortion is permitted, abortion numbers have only increased. In fact, since Dobbs, more than 4.6 million abortions have been recorded, and this death count only continues to climb.
This raises the question for many in the pro-life movement who were hopeful that the number of abortions would dramatically decrease after the overturning of Roe: what happened?
The founding fathers chose their words with careful consideration and intentional meaning in the Declaration of Independence, including the word "unalienable."
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Unalienable rights are beyond deliberation; they are inherent to the human being and inseparable from our existence. Every individual is endowed with these rights from the moment of existence, rooted in unconditional human dignity.
In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court recognized an inherent right to privacy. The majority opinion argued that a right need not be explicitly named in the Constitution to exist; rather, rights like privacy are self-evident realities.
The inherent right to privacy protects many of our most foundational and cherished freedoms such as the freedom of speech, religious exercise, parental rights, the freedom of association, and several others.
Like the fundamental right to life, the right to privacy is inherent — it exists regardless of whether it was explicitly written in the Constitution... or anywhere else, for that matter.
For example, this right is the reason why cameras are not allowed in public restrooms or why security cameras and recording devices are not allowed inside of Airbnb rental properties — because there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.
While the right to privacy is fundamental, it is not absolute or free from reasonable restrictions. It upholds human dignity, but cannot be used to shield the intentional killing of an innocent human being — because no one has a "right" to end the life of an innocent individual simply because the act of killing occurs behind the closed doors of an abortion clinic or inside a woman’s home bathroom.
In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court erroneously tied the "right" to kill preborn human beings to the right to privacy. Later, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, proponents argued that autonomy and bodily integrity were central to “ordered liberty.”
These claims to “liberty” and “privacy” perversely ignored the bodily autonomy, integrity, and life of the child, discriminating against the preborn human based solely on location and stage of development.
Unlike the privacy recognized in Griswold, abortion involves a third human being of equal dignity. The right to life cannot be "regulated" in degrees or restricted as with the right to privacy. A human being is either alive or dead — there is no in-between. The right to life, therefore, cannot be “regulated”; rather, it can either be preserved or obliterated. And when fertilization occurs, there is now a third human being involved, of equal dignity and worth.
Of the 11 core organ systems (circulatory, lymphatic, respiratory, integumentary, endocrine, digestive, urinary, musculoskeletal, nervous, immune, and reproductive), all are complete toward the purpose of the system's existence or function on its own — except for the reproductive system.
The human reproductive system is the only biological system that requires the complementary (male/female) reproductive organ(s) of another human being to complete the function for which it is created. This is why sex and procreation are inextricably linked — despite false narratives Planned Parenthood so often tries to promote to the contrary, which is in stark opposition to reality and is outright deceptive.
When sperm and egg unite, a new, unique individual enters existence at the moment of fertilization. This human being is instantly endowed with the same intrinsic right to life as any other. Roe and Casey ignored this, dehumanizing the preborn under a false shroud of liberty and privacy which exists to shield dignity, not to provide legal cover for mass homicide of the innocent.
In the Dobbs case, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization (an abortion business) argued that abortion restrictions were a "fundamental deprivation" of liberty. When Justice Clarence Thomas asked what specific right protected abortion, counsel Julie Rikelman, representing Jackson Women’s, claimed, "It’s liberty, Your Honor."
Liberty is the power to act free from arbitrary government restraint — but like privacy, liberty is not an absolute right and does not guarantee autonomy.
Even utilitarian and philosopher John Stuart Mill, in "On Liberty," noted that while an individual is sovereign over his own body, that liberty is amenable to society for conduct that "concerns others." Abortion, by definition, concerns and destroys another human being and denies that individual's fundamental right to exist, and consequently denies all of the preborn’s intrinsic rights.
The failures or shortcomings in these cases, including Dobbs, often stemmed from legislation that allowed for exceptions, which were used against the state's defense:
Claims of “medical necessity,” which is an abortion industry myth. Live Action has explained that abortion (the direct and intentional killing of a preborn human being) is not required to save a woman’s life (more here and here).
Planned Parenthood v. Casey also included the following additional exceptions: where the husband is not the father of the child; where the husband cannot be found; where the pregnancy is the result of a reported sexual assault; where the woman in her judgment believes it’s likely that she will be physically abused.
Exceptions undermine the moral and legal foundation for the right to life.
In commentary published shortly after the Dobbs opinion, theologian and philosopher Marcel Guarnizo pointed out in a Daily Wire commentary that exceptions to the right to life are simply nonsensical, writing, “... no exceptions are the only possibility of upholding the right to life. Postulating exceptions at the outset is another unjust law, for it usurps the right to life from those not covered by the law.”
In Dobbs, the Supreme Court decided that the “The right to abortion is ultimately a policy goal in desperate search of a constitutional justification."
However, instead of recognizing the unalienable right to life and dignity of preborn human beings and affirming that innocent human life cannot ever be licitly taken, the Court instead sent the issue back to the states to decide what category of the preborn population lives and dies, writing that this determination was for "the people and their elected representatives."
Guarnizo continued:
And yet again, promptly forgetting that there is no such thing as an abortion right, they falsely affirmed, ‘...the people of the various states may evaluate those interests differently.’ In some states, voters may believe that the abortion right should be even more extensive than the right that Roe and Casey recognized.
This false “authority” to dictate who lives or dies is no more egregious than pretending states had the “authority” to decide who could be enslaved or considered less than a whole human being—and in this case allows the state legislatures to decide what category of human being lives or dies.
It is the government’s role to ensure the protection of the people’s fundamental rights.
Elizabeth Prelogar, counsel for Jackson Women’s Health in Dobbs, noted that “the nature of fundamental rights is that it’s not left up to the state legislatures to decide whether to honor them or not” — which, ironically, is correct... but not in the way or reason which she originally claimed.
The judicial and legislative inadequacies and failures to recognize the fundamental right to life for all runs contrary to our founding principles, and is exactly why the right to life should have been recognized by the Supreme Court as a constitutionally protected right.
Just as the abolition of slavery had to come from the federally recognized protections, so too does protection from abortion. The horrendous injustice against the life of a preborn human being is a blatant violation of natural law and can never be a legitimate, just, or moral good.
A nation that permits and even promotes the destruction of its most vulnerable members forfeits any claims to upholding liberty, privacy, or any other fundamental right.
Until the law unequivocally recognizes the intrinsic dignity and worth of every human life, this nation will remain a nation divided against itself on its most basic principle: the issue of Life itself.
Instead, it will remain a nation that merely pays lip service to the idea of rights and freedoms, while in practice, denying the rights and freedoms of those who have no voice.
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
OPINION: Liberty and privacy must never overrule the right to life
No person possesses a fundamental right to end an innocent human life. Yet the United States has become a nation where the most vulnerable — preborn human beings — are systematically killed. Since Roe v. Wade, nearly 66 million abortions have been committed. Even after the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling which overturned Roe, with the proliferation of chemical abortion pills and easy access to states where abortion is permitted, abortion numbers have only increased. In fact, since Dobbs, more than 4.6 million abortions have been recorded, and this death count only continues to climb.
This raises the question for many in the pro-life movement who were hopeful that the number of abortions would dramatically decrease after the overturning of Roe: what happened?
The founding fathers chose their words with careful consideration and intentional meaning in the Declaration of Independence, including the word "unalienable."
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Unalienable rights are beyond deliberation; they are inherent to the human being and inseparable from our existence. Every individual is endowed with these rights from the moment of existence, rooted in unconditional human dignity.
In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court recognized an inherent right to privacy. The majority opinion argued that a right need not be explicitly named in the Constitution to exist; rather, rights like privacy are self-evident realities.
The inherent right to privacy protects many of our most foundational and cherished freedoms such as the freedom of speech, religious exercise, parental rights, the freedom of association, and several others.
Like the fundamental right to life, the right to privacy is inherent — it exists regardless of whether it was explicitly written in the Constitution... or anywhere else, for that matter.
For example, this right is the reason why cameras are not allowed in public restrooms or why security cameras and recording devices are not allowed inside of Airbnb rental properties — because there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.
While the right to privacy is fundamental, it is not absolute or free from reasonable restrictions. It upholds human dignity, but cannot be used to shield the intentional killing of an innocent human being — because no one has a "right" to end the life of an innocent individual simply because the act of killing occurs behind the closed doors of an abortion clinic or inside a woman’s home bathroom.
In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court erroneously tied the "right" to kill preborn human beings to the right to privacy. Later, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, proponents argued that autonomy and bodily integrity were central to “ordered liberty.”
These claims to “liberty” and “privacy” perversely ignored the bodily autonomy, integrity, and life of the child, discriminating against the preborn human based solely on location and stage of development.
Unlike the privacy recognized in Griswold, abortion involves a third human being of equal dignity. The right to life cannot be "regulated" in degrees or restricted as with the right to privacy. A human being is either alive or dead — there is no in-between. The right to life, therefore, cannot be “regulated”; rather, it can either be preserved or obliterated. And when fertilization occurs, there is now a third human being involved, of equal dignity and worth.
Of the 11 core organ systems (circulatory, lymphatic, respiratory, integumentary, endocrine, digestive, urinary, musculoskeletal, nervous, immune, and reproductive), all are complete toward the purpose of the system's existence or function on its own — except for the reproductive system.
The human reproductive system is the only biological system that requires the complementary (male/female) reproductive organ(s) of another human being to complete the function for which it is created. This is why sex and procreation are inextricably linked — despite false narratives Planned Parenthood so often tries to promote to the contrary, which is in stark opposition to reality and is outright deceptive.
When sperm and egg unite, a new, unique individual enters existence at the moment of fertilization. This human being is instantly endowed with the same intrinsic right to life as any other. Roe and Casey ignored this, dehumanizing the preborn under a false shroud of liberty and privacy which exists to shield dignity, not to provide legal cover for mass homicide of the innocent.
In the Dobbs case, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization (an abortion business) argued that abortion restrictions were a "fundamental deprivation" of liberty. When Justice Clarence Thomas asked what specific right protected abortion, counsel Julie Rikelman, representing Jackson Women’s, claimed, "It’s liberty, Your Honor."
Liberty is the power to act free from arbitrary government restraint — but like privacy, liberty is not an absolute right and does not guarantee autonomy.
Even utilitarian and philosopher John Stuart Mill, in "On Liberty," noted that while an individual is sovereign over his own body, that liberty is amenable to society for conduct that "concerns others." Abortion, by definition, concerns and destroys another human being and denies that individual's fundamental right to exist, and consequently denies all of the preborn’s intrinsic rights.
The failures or shortcomings in these cases, including Dobbs, often stemmed from legislation that allowed for exceptions, which were used against the state's defense:
Claims of “medical necessity,” which is an abortion industry myth. Live Action has explained that abortion (the direct and intentional killing of a preborn human being) is not required to save a woman’s life (more here and here).
Planned Parenthood v. Casey also included the following additional exceptions: where the husband is not the father of the child; where the husband cannot be found; where the pregnancy is the result of a reported sexual assault; where the woman in her judgment believes it’s likely that she will be physically abused.
Exceptions undermine the moral and legal foundation for the right to life.
In commentary published shortly after the Dobbs opinion, theologian and philosopher Marcel Guarnizo pointed out in a Daily Wire commentary that exceptions to the right to life are simply nonsensical, writing, “... no exceptions are the only possibility of upholding the right to life. Postulating exceptions at the outset is another unjust law, for it usurps the right to life from those not covered by the law.”
In Dobbs, the Supreme Court decided that the “The right to abortion is ultimately a policy goal in desperate search of a constitutional justification."
However, instead of recognizing the unalienable right to life and dignity of preborn human beings and affirming that innocent human life cannot ever be licitly taken, the Court instead sent the issue back to the states to decide what category of the preborn population lives and dies, writing that this determination was for "the people and their elected representatives."
Guarnizo continued:
And yet again, promptly forgetting that there is no such thing as an abortion right, they falsely affirmed, ‘...the people of the various states may evaluate those interests differently.’ In some states, voters may believe that the abortion right should be even more extensive than the right that Roe and Casey recognized.
This false “authority” to dictate who lives or dies is no more egregious than pretending states had the “authority” to decide who could be enslaved or considered less than a whole human being—and in this case allows the state legislatures to decide what category of human being lives or dies.
It is the government’s role to ensure the protection of the people’s fundamental rights.
Elizabeth Prelogar, counsel for Jackson Women’s Health in Dobbs, noted that “the nature of fundamental rights is that it’s not left up to the state legislatures to decide whether to honor them or not” — which, ironically, is correct... but not in the way or reason which she originally claimed.
The judicial and legislative inadequacies and failures to recognize the fundamental right to life for all runs contrary to our founding principles, and is exactly why the right to life should have been recognized by the Supreme Court as a constitutionally protected right.
Just as the abolition of slavery had to come from the federally recognized protections, so too does protection from abortion. The horrendous injustice against the life of a preborn human being is a blatant violation of natural law and can never be a legitimate, just, or moral good.
A nation that permits and even promotes the destruction of its most vulnerable members forfeits any claims to upholding liberty, privacy, or any other fundamental right.
Until the law unequivocally recognizes the intrinsic dignity and worth of every human life, this nation will remain a nation divided against itself on its most basic principle: the issue of Life itself.
Instead, it will remain a nation that merely pays lip service to the idea of rights and freedoms, while in practice, denying the rights and freedoms of those who have no voice.
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
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