Why We Shouldn't Celebrate Dobbs
At the end of June, many pro-life organizations will be publicly celebrating the 2nd anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, the case that overturned the horrendous Roe v. Wade decision, which had then stood for nearly fifty years. However, in this article, I want to help clarify what Dobbs v. Jackson did, and make the case that Dobbs v. Jackson should not be celebrated by Christians.
What Dobbs Did
First, to understand the significance of Dobbs, we have to understand the significance of Roe (1973) and Casey (1992). Roe established a constitutional right to an abortion, which Casey reaffirmed and strengthened. Roe erected a three-trimester framework, where states were prevented from regulating abortion until the second trimester, and prevented from prohibiting abortion until the third.1 Although it rejected this framework, Casey upheld that the states could not prohibit abortion prior to viability.2 In summary, Roe and Casey were judicial rulings that prevented states from abolishing abortion.
In Dobbs, the Supreme Court revisited Roe and Casey. The court found that “[L]ike the infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe was also egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided.”3 Dobbs overruled Roe and Casey. The Court decided that “[T]he Constitution does not confer a right to abortion…and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”4
Where Dobbs Went Wrong
Upon initial consideration, the reader may find no issue with the Dobbs decision. After all, isn’t it good that Roe and Casey were overturned? The Dobbs decision represents an egregious error for two reasons:
Dobbs failed to establish justice for the preborn.
Dobbs feigns moral neutrality on an issue where no such neutrality can be had.
Let’s look at #1 first. The key significance of Dobbs was that it returned the ability to regulate or abolish abortion back to the states. However, the decision should have never been returned to the states. Just as Roe and Casey ruled that there was a Constitutional right to abortion, Dobbs should have ruled that the Constitution prohibits abortion. However, Dobbs failed to acknowledge this. Indeed, in the majority opinion, Justice Alito wrote, “[T]he Constitution makes no reference to abortion.”5 Contra Alito, abolitionists argue that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that “no state...shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”, rightly interpreted, applies to preborn persons. Thus, the Supreme Court failed to correctly interpret the Constitution, and in doing so, the Court failed to uphold personhood for a whole class of people. The Court had once again failed to grant equal rights to the preborn. And by failing to do this, the Court had continued to permit the slaughter of the preborn. This has had disastrous consequences, most notably enabling the surge of state by state ballot initiatives to enshrine abortion rights in state constitutions, arguably a more difficult obstacle for abolitionists to overcome than Roe.
Next is #2. The utter impossibility of neutrality on abortion is made clear when one considers the duty of the government. The Declaration of Independence testifies that “[W]e hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights…” The purpose and duty of the government is to secure for its people their God-given rights, foremost among those rights is the right to life (cf., Gen 8:21, 9:6, Exod 21:12, Ps 82:2–4, Jer 22:3, Rom 13:1–7). Dobbs represents an evasion of duty on the part of the Judicial Branch. In Dobbs, the Court played the role of Pontius Pilate, who tried to wash his hands of innocent blood, as he gave Christ over to the blood-lust of the crowd. The Court had no license to forego its duty of ruling in favor of equal protection by claiming neutrality. The Court cannot claim neutrality in regards to its duty. It must do its duty, or it must fail to do so, and so violate one of its key purposes for existence. Just as Pilate was unable to wash his hands clean of innocent blood, so the Court is unable to do so.
What We Can and Can’t Celebrate
There are things that we can celebrate with the Dobbs decision, such as the correction of several errors that Roe and Casey were founded upon, including the history6 of abortion in common law and in American history, Roe’s ‘privacy’, and Casey’s ‘liberty’.7 Certainly, we can celebrate that Roe and Casey are no longer in play. However, we should not celebrate the means by which they were done away with, namely, the Dobbs v. Jackson decision. We should abstain from celebrating a decision which failed to establish justice, and feigned moral neutrality on the shedding of innocent blood. Our God possesses no such neutrality on the issues of bloodguilt. Instead, amid the cheers and exultation, we ought to continue what we have always been doing: calling our nation to whole-hearted repentance. We must proclaim that there can be no compromise with the shedding of innocent blood. We must call for the immediate and total abolition of abortion, without exception, and without compromise.
2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/planned_parenthood_of_southeastern_pennsylvania_v_casey_(1992)
3 https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf (pg. 5)
4 Ibid. (pg. 1)
5 Ibid. (pg. 5)
6 See pages 16–25 in the majority decision: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
7 For ‘privacy’ see https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/contraception-marriage-and-the-right-to-privacy; for ‘liberty’ see http://law2.umkc.edu
