Blowback

When the campaign is launched, the Left will go into a feeding frenzy of lawsuits and court injunctions, backed up by various forms of saber rattling and street theater. At the same time, their flunkies in the media will start characterizing the effort as “anti-choice extremism” and breathlessly warning the public that if it succeeds it will signal the end of western civilization. In short, the Left’s standard dog and pony show.

The important thing is that our goal of getting this case to the Supreme Court is all but assured. The only real unknown is: what actions will the Court take against a state that openly refuses to comply with one of its rulings? Remember, by the time they get this case, the governor or attorney general involved will have already made it clear that he or she will not back down no matter how much pressure is applied, what kind of pressure is applied, or where the pressure comes from. At every stage along the way, the message will have been sent that (a) homicide statutes are a state matter over which the federal courts have no authority, (b) those statutes will be enforced regardless of the victim’s birth status, and (c) this principle is not open to compromise or negotiation.

With that as a backdrop, would the justices be willing to issue a ruling that creates an intractable Constitutional crisis? Would they be willing to see the National Guard called up to take control of this state? If an abortionist has already been indicted and is being held on a million dollar bond, would they be prepared to see federal troops sent in to break him out of jail?

The thing to keep in mind is that, for the kind of person who ends up on the Supreme Court, this is uncharted territory.

When the Court’s transition from a judicial body into a political body was complete, by default its justices became politicians. The problem they have – and the reason they are not equipped to deal with this sort of situation – is that they did not come up through the rough and tumble world of politics. They are academicians who were appointed to this elitist enclave, given lifetime tenure, told that they are the unquestionable authority on every aspect of American society, and assured that because of their god-like status they never have to publicly defend their actions to anyone. In the case of abortion, Supreme Court discussions are sterile and philosophical, and played out in the rarefied air of mahogany lined chambers. It is an environment in which the babies sentenced to die only exist as legal theory. The initiative proposed in this document is intended to drag these people out of that ivory tower and into the streets.

I am certainly aware that when the Supreme Court stopped deferring to the Constitution as its controlling authority, predicting its behavior became a fool’s errand. Let’s not forget that ObamacCare was challenged in the Supreme Court on the basis that it gives the federal government the power to force citizens to purchase a product that many of them do not want. Since no such power is found in the Constitution, there was no way for the Court to get around that argument. Their solution was to declare that ObamaCare is a tax and the government has a right to compel the payment of taxes. And with that, George Orwell was again proven right when he said, “There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”

So, yes, the Court is unpredictable, but what I am proposing here would seem to leave only two basic options. The first would be for the Court to rule that the governor or attorney general is correct in saying that the unborn child is entitled to be protected by the state’s homicide statutes. Logically, this would acknowledge the personhood of the unborn and, under the Fourteenth Amendment, apply to every state in the union.

The alternative would be to rule that the governor or attorney general is not correct, and on the surface this would seem to be the safer course of action for the justices to take. But they also realize that such a ruling could lead to a physical confrontation between this state and the federal government, and they may even be concerned that it could become a threat to their own institution. Given that the Court is made up of people in black robes and not black leather, they may not be eager to light that fuse – especially if they are convinced that this governor or attorney general is not going to blink.

Tactical Advantages

When analyzing this proposal, several things need to be acknowledged. The first is that it is far better grounded in both law and logic than is the sanctuary cities campaign. The second is that no new legislation is needed to launch this effort. And the third is that the success of this initiative is not dependent on a Republican Party that has betrayed the unborn so many times in the past.

Right now, the pro-life movement is frozen in place and the only way we are going to get out of this trap is for our movement to break loose and do something bold and innovative. We need to recognize that the opportunities we have today and didn’t have in the past, we are not likely to have in the future. It is time to act, and act decisively.

The Challenge

One thing we need to keep in mind is the ticking bomb described earlier. If the Supreme Court takes a case that allows them to issue a states’ rights decision, that bomb explodes and the personhood issue goes up with it.

It is interesting to note that the abortion lobby has dramatically accelerated its efforts to codify Roe into the laws of several states. Recent high profile examples occurred in New York and Virginia, but it is happening across the country. This could indicate that our enemies have figured out that allowing Roe to be overturned on a states’ rights basis and then falling back on the “patchwork quilt” phenomenon, may be in their best long-term interest. In fact, I would not be at all surprised to see that the next time a case comes along that could threaten Roe, they check their egos at the door and don’t oppose it as long as they are confident it cannot be used to establish personhood.

In a sense, we are in a race to get to the Supreme Court first, and for us to win we have to find the right governor or attorney general. By any yardstick, that is the “make-or-break” element in this campaign. Once it is launched, it will immediately become a brutal test of wills, and any governor or attorney general who does not have the resolve, the strength, and the character to see it through to the end, has no business getting involved. What we need, and what we had better be looking for, is our General Patton.

As we do that, we should not be naïve about the practical effects of this campaign, nor should we sugar coat them for the governor or attorney general we might be recruiting. We should not downplay the possibility – perhaps even the likelihood – that this person will have his or her political career destroyed by this campaign whether it is successful or not. On the other hand, it is likely that there will be $50,000-a-night speeches to conservative organizations lined up as far as the eye can see. But more important than that, when the day comes that this tragedy is over, the American people are going to look back at it with the same revulsion they now have for slavery and wonder how our great nation could have been caught up in something so horrific and so immoral. They will also see this person’s name and picture in history books as the hero who had the courage to get us out of it.

Someone once said, “One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.” and I believe this will be the silent motto of the governor or attorney general who takes up this fight. But having that “crowded hour of glorious life” should not be the motivation for doing this. The motivation should be that it is simply the right thing to do and it is what God expects. It may be difficult for us to find someone who sees that as a sufficient reward, but if we settle for less this effort will neither succeed nor deserve to.