Last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling on Roe vs. Wade was a win for the life of the unborn and for common sense. It dealt a shattering blow to the fictional argument that a woman has a constitutional right to abortion. The court’s ruling was in agreement with what the Bible has been communicating for thousands of years, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:13-14
The Christian response to the June 24, 2022 ruling can be one of praise and thanksgiving. We can praise God for creating human life in his image and for allowing justice to be upheld, and we can thank him for graciously allowing the series of events to transpire that made the ruling possible.
I have been reflecting on Proverbs 21:11 which says, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.” Having closely watched the nomination and confirmation of justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, I can give first-hand testimony to the fact that God was clearly involved in bringing a conservative majority to the court, which made this ruling possible. Soli Deo Gloria!
The court’s ruling reads as follows, “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.” As a constitutional originalist, it is incredibly refreshing to read that the Supreme Court is referring to the constitution in this ruling. This should be a common practice, but for the last sixty years the activist mentality of many justices resulted in the court functioning like the legislative branch instead of the judicial branch. Friday’s majority opinion was a dramatic course-correction, effectively stating that the Supreme Court’s role is to interpret and apply the constitution and the law, not legislate on issues that oversteps their purview.
The ruling also states that Roe and Casey are overruled. The significance of that statement is hard to overstate. The ruling means the court’s conclusion on Roe and Casey were wrong! Christians have known this to be true for half a century, but it was finally confirmed by the Supreme Court.
Another key point of the ruling is that the question of abortion will now be returned to the courts of each individual state. It says, “The authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” This has common sense written all over it. Each state has the constitutional authority to decide these issues, not the Supreme Court. This is how the question of abortion was addressed before Roe vs. Wade, and thankfully, this is how it will be addressed in the future. This means the battle against abortion will continue to be waged in each state. At this point the abortion debate has divided the states into three different groups: twenty states will activate some type of ban on abortion, ten other states are still uncertain on the outcome, and the remaining twenty states will work to protect abortion.
Dr. Al Mohler has been following the issue of abortion and the rights of the unborn for decades. I don’t agree with all his viewpoints, but when it comes to the issue of abortion I find his writing very helpful. This is what he said in last week’s podcast, “I have to tell you that another of my favorite sentences and sections from the Alito majority opinion is this, ‘Roe, however, was remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text. It held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned.’ Now, that’s subtlety, but frankly, it’s not all that subtle. Here, you have Justice Alito saying that Roe v. Wade was built upon an artificial argument, that was built upon an artificial argument, that was built upon an artificial argument.”
The artificial arguments supporting abortion have been brought into the light by the Supreme Court’s ruling. I think this is what was the most shocking part of this entire story. Many people following this case were not alive when Roe vs. Wade was originally handed down. We have scratched our heads trying to understand how such a controversial practice could be said to be constitutionally protected. Now we can have clarity on this issue. It never was a constitutional right, and it never should have been supported in that way.
