I was reading information about the Dred Scott case (1857) recently, and I was amazed at how similar the arguments were to arguments from pro-choice advocates. Speaking for the majority, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney said:

We think they are... not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States....

In a nutshell, the Supreme Court said that Dred Scott had no legal standing in the court system simply because he was black, and that he was considered "property" under the Fifth Amendment. At the time, blacks were considered inferior, or not fully human, and thus were not guaranteed the same protections under the constitution.

The entire basis for the pro-choice position is that it's "the woman's body", and therefore, "her choice". Legal justifications for this are predicated on the fetus as not fully human, and therefore have no legal status or protection under the constitution. The Roe v. Wade decision phrased this as an issue of the fetus reaching a "viable" stage of development in order to be granted constitutional protection, but went so far as to say that:

The law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before live birth or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon live birth... In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.

Then I found this article today -- The Peculiar Morality of Secession.

Shocked that "moral values" was the issue that defeated them and re-elected President Bush, the LibDems are bleating on every air wave they can ride that they have moral values too. Yes, they certainly do - it's just that some of those values are immoral. Not all. Confederate Southerners held many decent values - but on slavery they were morally wrong. No relativistic morals here, no "that's just your opinion" situational ethics, no wiggles, hesitations, or qualifiers. Slavery is immoral, period - even the LibDems agree.

Thus the teachable moment - for abortion is morally no different than slavery, the claim that one human being may own another as personal property to be disposed of if the owner so chooses.

Thus we need to refer to abortion as "the peculiar institution," and Roe v. Wade as disgracefully unconstitutional as Dred Scott. Watch for this to happen. Watch for abortion advocates to be increasingly on the defensive as they are made to understand the moral equivalence between abortion and slavery.

The day is not that far off when schoolkids will be asking their history teacher puzzled questions as to how there was a time in America when people passionately defended the morality of a mother killing her own baby.

This mirrors my own thinking on the subject, and I'm encouraged that there are others who share the same idea.

Labels: politics

Two excellent columns at http://www.townhall.com/ today. The first is by Linda Chavez, Schools are Distorting Thanksgiving.

Apparently some school officials worry that the religious overtones of Thanksgiving might represent a chink in the wall secularists insist separates church and state, so they proscribe any mention of Who it is the nation thanks on this day.

George Washington had no such qualms when he proclaimed the first day of
thanksgiving in 1789: "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the
providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits,
and humbly to implore His protection and favor."

Many public school systems have removed Christianity from Thanksgiving, by focusing more on the Wampanoag traditions and belief in Kiehtan, their name for the Creator, and completely omitting any information on the Pilgrims' spiritual beliefs.

Michelle Malkin, in Grace, Gratitude, and God, says that "Once an unabashedly pious land, we have been transformed into a nation of historically clueless ingrates -- embarrassed about our heritage, afraid of offending all newcomers, and more committed to inculcating a sense of entitlement over a culture of gratitude."

It seems that, in the name of multiculturalism, we are destroying our own culture. In the name of "separation of church and state," we are watering down our own history. In the name of religious diversity, we are allowing lawyers and the judicial system to make us afraid of mentioning anything related to Christianity in a public context.

If you're a little town in rural USA, with no real ability to fight it, national pressure can be exerted to remove any display of the Ten Commandments from any government property. Nevermind that the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC has numerous displays of the Ten Commandments.

In Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation, he said:

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, the many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God that made us!

But we certainly can't make reference to that God now, not even in historical context. One nation "under God" has already been attacked. I have no doubt that it will soon be "In God We Trust" that will receive the national attention. Then it will be the presidential custom of ending speeches with "God bless America". Once there are no current targets left, they're likely to be culling old famous speeches, removing any reference to God from our culture.

Labels: politics

The Star Wars site has the new teaser trailer for Episode III out, and it's very cool. Check it out!

Labels: movies