This morning the US Supreme Court, in a decision that was not unexpected, due to a leak from the Court a few weeks back, overturned the landmark 1973, Roe v. Wade decision that granted a “federal right” to abortion.
It has been argued that Roe was a bad decision and needed to be overturned. I agree with that argument. Beyond that, looking at Roe thru the lens of federalism, there was not/is not a right to an abortion in the Constitution. It should have always been left to the states and their respective legislatures to decide.
Because the burden of protecting life now falls back to the states. People of faith need to step up and fight for life, and Latter-day Saints need lead the way on this. The church’s stand on abortion and the sanctity of life is very clear. (See this search page for more information from the Church on abortion HERE). That fight starts with re-emphasizing the Law of Chastity.
I live in the abortion tourism state of New Mexico, where anyone can come to the state and seek and receive and abortion at anytime, for any reason, up to and including the day of birth. This was codified this year and celebrated by our governor and legislature. She has also been screeching on social media that abortion is and will be protected in New Mexico. These things have placed a dark pall over this state, and the fact that during the month of May we were on fire, is not a coincidence in my mind. God is sending New Mexico, and the United States a message: time to repent and return to the commandments.
I expect today will be a hard day in our country. There will be riots, and probably a lot of damage done to churches, pro-life and pregnancy centers, and those that support the culture of life. Say some prayers, because we’re going to need them!
And fear not, part two of my fire story is on its way. We had a family reunion, a road trip, a stay in a seedy motel, and a medical emergency over the last few weeks — it’s celestial living!
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Understanding is a utah has a trigger law saying that if RvW is overturned the state will automatically ban aboiryin in the first 12 weeks. John Curtis and Be my Edward’s don’t like this trigger law. Mike Lee and Chris Herrod do. Utahans, make your vote count!
I just learned about Utah’s trigger law yesterday. Becky got caught telling the truth on secret camera:
My understanding is that the trigger law should go into effect in Utah soon.
The legislative general counsel must certify that the legislature can ban abortion before it goes into effect. Anyone who performs an abortion will be charged with a second-degree felony, except if a pregnant woman’s life is in danger or at risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function, lethal fetal abnormality is found, or the mother is a rape or incest victim.
In Idaho, the trigger law criminalizing abortion goes into effect 30 days after Roe is overturned. Anyone who provides or attempts to provide an abortion will be charged with a felony, punishable by two to five years in prison. Any health care professional who performs or attempts to perform an abortion will have their license suspended for at least six months after a first offense and permanently revoked after a second offense.
Exceptions cover a provider who performs medical treatment that accidentally terminates a pregnancy.
Colorado is also an abortion tourism state, like New Mexico.
Overall, I predict the number of abortions in the United States will go down only slightly with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. You will see nationwide GoFundMe campaigns and even government-funded programs from states like California paying for poor people to fly to these states to have their abortions performed.
Moloch will continue to be pleased with all of the babies killed in the coming years in the United States.
I have a gut feel that churches known to be pro-life will be attacked along with crisis-pregnancy centers. The latter have already been attacked.
May I suggest that those who set up chairs in your gym (“cultural hall” in Restoration-speak), that you pay attention to fire-codes that mandate a minium aisle width of 36″ leading to/from all exits/doors.
Also be advised that the joining/opening point of those accordian folding partitions are _doors/exits_ when the partition is closed. Therefore, you must have a minimum 36″ wide path/aisle to/from that closure point on both sides.
The YM leaders (who supervise YM setting up chairs) in our local wards seem to be unaware of that, and usually have a solid line/row of chairs abutting the partition on one side.
Chairs or other objects blocking a 36″ path or aisle to a door are also fire code violations. So keep chairs/tables at least 36″ away from doorways.
I can easily envision protestors disrupting Sunday meetings such that a quick exit would be needed, and you don’t want to waste time by having to remove a row (or aisle) of chairs in the heat of the moment.
I think ultimately this won’t decrease the number of abortions, but it will VERY effectively separate those who think abortion is a barbaric atrocity from those who think it is an holy rite.
There are a lot of viscerally upset people in my social media – they claim to be super depressed, scream-crying, and nauseated to the point of throwing up. I think they feel that way because they *have* to feel that way – if they had an abortion themselves or encouraged someone else to do so, they need others to tell them what they did wasn’t wrong.
Abortion represents an interesting nexus between life and death – we are a very death negative culture, and even in our funerals we don’t want to have much contact with the dead bodies, or see them, or care for the bodies ourselves as families used to do. At my grandfather’s funeral, they didn’t even bury the casket until after we left! And at the same time, we are also birth negative – hop on twitter and check out the discussion of how awful pregnancy and childbirth are. There are millions of people who literally believe pregnancy is a death sentence. When you have a culture that is so terrified of death and just as terrified of birth to the point that it understands neither, what you get is a culture that doesn’t understand why anyone would think abortion is wrong.
Interesting you mention chair set up Bookslinger. Since we’ve returned from Covid to regular meetings, but because my ward is still scared of Covid, chair placement has been dreadful. After weeks of the men and boys just setting up chairs to be socially distanced, I pointed out that the ingress and egress to the cultural hall was blocked and that we were violating the fire codes. The next week it was fixed. I don’t know if our small chapel will be under assault. Our next door neighbors are the Unitarians, who make it a point to fly their pride flag so that it can be seen from our chapel window. I wonder if that would quell any mischief that may occur. But, the Dept of Homeland Security did issue a warning to Catholic churches and pregnancy centers this week that they should expect attacks. It’s a sad day in our country when that is the warning — but then again, evil is angry and will strike out. I hope that we’re all praying for every church in our community to be safe.
Momof6: thank you for your comments about our death culture in the US. I have to admit, before my own mother passed away I would avoid looking into the casket at a funeral and usually stay in the back corner of the room. That all changed when she passed and the job of dressing her for burial fell to me and my sister. Along with our Aunts who showed us what to do, we dressed her and prepared her for burial. I was nervous about it, but when I saw her on the dressing table waiting for us, my fears immediately left me. It was just like she was sleeping. As many of my friends have begun to lose parents over the last few years (because we’re at that age in our late 40s and early 50s), I have encouraged my friends to dress their parent for burial and not to leave that to the mortuary staff. The ones that have done that have reported back that it was a healthy and holy experience.
Momof6 makes good points.
The people saying they feel physically sick, are ‘scream-crying’, etc., are the product of taking large-scale things personally – things that, mostly, have nothing to do with you (i.e. one of these people), but you can feel righteous about defending or protesting. So that when something happens that’s contrary to your very specific and set-in-stone perspective (which you take as fact and the only truth), you feel it as a personal attack on your very existence and legitimacy, and treat it as though it’s a terrible, dark monster come to destroy you and all goodness. Therefore, anyone who supports that change is working with the evil, dark monster, or is personified with it, and deserves awful vitriol, death threats, etc.
It’s a really childish thing, and scary because a person with a tantrum does illogical things. A large group all with tantrums is a scary thought. And it happens all the time, these days. A tantrum is the way to show that you’re just. Revealing that this response is a feature of modern-day socialism/progressivism.
My other thought is that people talking about how terrible this decision is (in another example of not actually taking the very small amount of time to understand what it is, which is logical and fair, like Joyce has explained, and instead making it into the end of the civilised world) are only talking about what Michelle Grisham has, in the Tweet included here – ‘women’s right to choose’. It’s so obviously only part of the issue. It ignores the very fact that pregnancy involves more than a woman! Two others, in fact, most basically, and many others, more widely. Yes, it’s about a woman’s right to choose – but that’s one portion of a complex issue. It also sounds very selfish, to me, whenever I hear it. ‘It’s all about me’. No one else can (well, they have tried to, with the pandemic, haven’t they?*) tell you what to do with your body, but the complexities here run so much deeper than just that. It should be acknowledged in any debate, and it’s unethical and dissembling to restrict statements and messages only to this.
* The same people wanting to force others to do something to their body they consider harmful think stricter abortion laws abnegate a woman’s right to choose what medical interventions she allows for herself. The same people wishing those first people would ‘just die’, for example. There’s a pattern here, and it smells tiringly fishy.
Edit: ‘Revealing this response…’ is meant in the sense that it is revealing that this is so, not that the previous statements reveal that it’s a response of this ideological group.