By Dave Andrusko

Okay, I admit the headline for Part Two is a take-off on a column that appears in the Huffingtonpost.com today--"Is the Ban on Federally Funded Abortions Constitutional?" It's written by Judge H. Lee Sarokin whom, we are told, "retired in 1996 after 17 years on the federal bench."

The column is an all-hands-on-deck assault on the Hyde Amendment ("and similar language proposed in the pending health care bill"). I take the time to bring it to your attention for three reasons.

Former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart

Because (1) the thinking behind it is of a piece with the cranky, all-out-of-proportion hysteria about CBS agreeing to accept the 30-second Tim Tebow Super Bowl spot that we talked about in Part One; (2) it is so reminiscent of the back-to-the-future rhetoric you hear from those trapped in the 1970s; and (3) sooner or later pro-abortionists may directly try to overturn the Hyde Amendment, as opposed to the back-door route they are employing in the fight over health care "reform."

As we discussed in Part One, NOW is beating the same old drum --conformity. (They really do believe in a herd of independent minds.) Perhaps Sarokin found the beat catchy.

In any event many pro-abortionists, especially older one, cannot escape their default position: opposition to abortion must "have a strong religious basis," as Sarokin writes, and therefore….. Therefore what?

Therefore, since abortion is legal courtesy of Roe v. Wade, limiting federal funding of abortion "imposes a political moral judgment on a decision that has been entrusted by law to the woman involved in consultation with her doctor, and her family if she so chooses." Yes, a judge, retired or otherwise, actually wrote that. What to say?

If the following sounds basic, well, I apologize. You have to go back to basics when dealing with this kind of nonsense.

Justice Potter Stewart wrote the majority opinion in Harris v. McRae, the 1980 case that decided the constitutionality of the Hyde Amendment. Stewart was no friend of ours, but he dismissed the idea that the Hyde Amendment (or any statute) represented the establishment of any religion's beliefs into law because it "happens to coincide or harmonize with the tenets of some or all religions."

Stewart then added, "That the Judaeo-Christian religions oppose stealing does not mean that a state or the Federal government may not …enact laws prohibiting larceny." Exactly.

Just one other argument from Sarokin: "It is the government that is limiting a woman's freedom to choose abortion over childbirth." But one of the major emphases of Harris v. McRae (and something reiterated over and over in subsequent decisions) was a conclusion the justices had come to in an earlier decision: that it not impermissible for a state (or, in this case, the federal government) to make "a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion, and . . . implement[ing] that judgment by the allocation of public funds."

I know it's difficult for pro-abortionists to assimilate this thought, but life and death ARE different.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.