Dred Scott Descendant is Pro-Life -- Part Two of Two

One of the most useful pro-life sites around is Baptist Press news. I try to read it several times a week, which is how I ran across "Dred Scott case offers hope for opponents of Roe v. Wade, Scott's descendant says." (See www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=25105)

I didn't realize that March 6 was the 150^th anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court decision, Dred Scott v. Sanford. In a nutshell, this 1857 decision, authored by Chief Justice Roger Taney, declared that it didn't matter when a black person was slave or free. None could ever become citizens of the United States, the Court held. The justices further enflamed passions by declaring that the 1820 Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, which had the effect of permitting slavery in all of the territories.

The Baptist Press story, written by Allen Palmeri, informs us that Lynne Jackson, Scott's great-great granddaughter, is strongly pro-life. "I know children, when they just hear that little babies are being killed before they're born, who say, 'That's not right. Did you want to kill me?'" Jackson, a member of the St. Louis-area Cross Keys Baptist Church in Florissant, Mo., said in an interview with The Pathway, newsjournal of the Missouri Baptist Convention. "The sensibilities and just the pure innocence of children alone know that this is wrong."

Pro-lifers often cite Dred Scott as a parallel to Roe v. Wade--an outrageous Supreme Court decision that eventually was seen to be not only terrible constitutional law but also an affront to our common human dignity.

Mr. Palmieri's story includes an eloquent and deeply encouraging quote from a statement given to the Baptist Press by Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Dr. Land wrote, "On this 150th anniversary of the Dred Scott decision, the pro-life forces in America would do well to remember and draw inspiration from the fact that at the time the decision was handed down, it appeared that the pro-slavery forces in America were impregnable. With a clear majority of the Supreme Court on their side, the pro-slavery forces were poised to force every state in the union to accept slavery, as Lincoln so aptly pointed out in his [1860] Cooper Union speech in New York City, the speech that did much to elect him president of the United States."

Land noted, "[T]he pro-freedom forces were utterly triumphant less than a decade later. This should remind us, as does the story of William Wilberforce and his triumphant struggle against the powerful planter class to end the slave trade in the British Empire in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, that with God on your side, all things are possible."

As noted above, the story can be read in its entirety at www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=25105

If you have any comments or questions, please write Dave Andrusko at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

Part One