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NRL News COURT-SPONSORED TERRORISM Editor's note. The following guest column is written Gunter N. Franz, Ph.D. Dr. Franz, associate professor emeritus of Physiology and Pharmacology at West Virginia University School of Medicine, is the husband of NRL President Wanda Franz, Ph.D. Recently, I heard a speaker who sought to “disturb” his captive audience by invoking a long list of instances in which we, individually and collectively, “terrorize” others. Anyone in the audience who did not simply “tune out” the speaker’s obvious (and inappropriate) attempt to make an ill-conceived and ill-concealed political comment would have been astounded to hear that not being nice to those around us was, well, “terrorism.” Of course, to accept such trivializations and redefinitions of the term terrorism—especially in these days—would have required us to suspend our critical faculties and play a silly game of pretend. But, in this case, the speaker actually could have made a convincing case for the existence of a “domestic terror.” During the “Great Terror” (la Grande Terreur) of the French Revolution, perhaps as many as 40,000 people were executed. The blood of the guillotined victims flowed freely and publicly. In our own “domestic terror,” too, blood flows freely—but not publicly. Instead of the openly displayed guillotine, we have other machines, an array of surgical instruments, and even poisonous drugs—hidden away in “clinics.” And the number of victims is vastly larger: about 1.3 million a year. Or, cumulatively, more than 48 million since this “domestic terror” was initiated in our country. I am speaking, of course, of abortion. The “Great Terror” was instituted by the Convention of the French Revolution on September 5, 1793, and came to end on July 28, 1794—lasting less than a year. Our own “domestic terror” began with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions on January 22, 1973—and continues unabated nearly 35 years later. The victims of the “Great Terror” were usually charged with some real or imagined “crime” and faced a “tribunal” of a sort. The victims of our own “domestic terror” are charged with no crime and are executed without any legal process—because they are “products of conception” or mere “tissue” or simply “nothing” under the rules of abortion law. It shocks our conscience to read about blood-thirsty drunken mobs assembled for the sport of seeing heads roll from the guillotine. The mob had a new goddess then: “Reason,” impersonated by a woman who was displayed on a defiled church altar. In our days, the executions are performed “in privacy” by “abortion doctors” in special temples called “clinics.” How have we gotten to this point? Our “domestic terror” is a Court-sponsored terror because the U.S. Supreme Court did not just legalize and federalize abortion; it constitutionalized abortion rights with its Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions. Now, years later, we are left with two avenues to hasten the end of this “domestic terror”: a human life amendment to the Constitution or the reversal of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions by the Court itself. Both approaches are easier said than done. To amend the Constitution is very difficult. If it were not, we would have done it already. Specifically, it requires approval by “two thirds of both Houses” of Congress and “three fourths of the several States.” To have two-thirds of the Senate in favor of a human life amendment would currently require that 25-30 seats switch towards our side. And that still leaves a massive job in the House. Reversal of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton by the Court requires at least five of the nine justices ruling to overturn. And for that to happen there must be a President willing to nominate such justices and a Senate majority approving their appointment. The President’s constitutional power to appoint justices and the Senate’s constitutional power to “advise and consent” to such judicial appointments is at the core of the fervor about the next election. Our pro-abortion opponents are spending enormous amounts of money and effort on the next elections because they want a president who will nominate justices who will affirm and perpetuate Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, not reverse them. When a reversal occurs, the matter of abortion will be returned to the legislative branch of government where it traditionally was handled. The pro-abortion forces have the easier job. They can concentrate on keeping the Court from reversing itself. The right-to-life movement faces a more difficult task. First the Court must reverse itself, and then we have to prevail in the legislatures. A difficult task, yes, but one NRLC is determined to achieve with God’s grace and every NRLC member’s help.
It is correct to say that the
“domestic terror” of abortion is “Court-sponsored.” First, the Court
made the “domestic terror” legal by proclaiming the “right” to
abortion in Roe v. Wade. Second, in Doe v. Bolton the Court
authorized the development of a new industry dedicated to
implementing the new abortion regime—with profit. “The hospital requirement of the Georgia law, because it fails to exclude the first trimester of pregnancy … is also invalid. In so holding we naturally express no opinion on the medical judgment involved in any particular case, that is, whether the patient's situation is such that an abortion should be performed in a hospital, rather than in some other facility.” This edict created the modern abortion industry, making abortion the most widely used and least regulated major surgical procedure on women of child-bearing age. And nearly all of these procedures are done not in hospitals but in “clinics.” They range from the old back-alley abortionist, who has now moved to Main Street, to Planned Parenthood, which performs about 20% of all abortions. At the core of terrorism is violence against the innocent. With the Supreme Court’s explicit permission, violent acts are performed on unborn babies, out of sight and about 1.3 million times a year. That should shock our conscience, make us all work harder, and sacrifice more willingly for unborn babies. |