Revision as of 15:49, 16 September 2023

Saving Babies from judges & voters
Saving Souls from ‘Scrupulous Neutrality’ about Religion

by proving in courts of law and in the Court of Public Opinion that:

 The right to live of a baby and of a judge are equal
 The Bible & reality-challenged religions are NOT equal

A strategy of Life that relies on the Author of Life
for pro-life, pro-Bible Lawmakers, Leaders, Lawyers, and Laymen

by Dave Leach

Introduction

This book offers twelve statements of fact about babies and abortion which I challenge any voter, lawyer, lawmaker, or judge to refute. Their footnotes contain nuggets from the 140 "Amicus" briefs filed in Dobbs v. Jackson (2022), the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. These statements are designed to soften the resistance of voters to outlawing baby murder, when presented in public, and to force judges to outlaw abortion in every state, when presented in court.

They are truths designed to be so unignorable, that when any lawmaker includes them in the “findings of facts” of a prolife law, in any state, prodeath fury will help publicize them with each advance through legislative deadlines. When friends of babies see them survive scrutiny, the force of these truths will grow like a snowball rolling down a hill.

But murdering babies is only the most egregious of many Landmark Abomination Cases. Their common thread is usurping authority which the Constitution assigns to others, and equating the Bible with spurious religions. “Never let a crisis go to waste”, say the enemies of God, but God is the true master of turning evil into an opportunity for good. It’s time. Let’s end the Supreme Court’s war against God.

The very fact that abortion is the worst of the ways the United States Supreme Court has turned American law upside down creates an opportunity to heal that branch of our government, and heal all the harm to our nation and its culture and morals that has been done. As Professor Nathan Schluetter at Hillsdale College observes, “We must not let this opportunity pass to boldly challenge the prevailing jurisprudence and its attendant epistemological and moral skepticism with respect to abortion.”

It is the fact that unborn babies are living human children that makes killing them murder. It’s not what any law says about it, or even what the Constitution says about it. That’s what leaves Dobbs v. Jackson on the edge of reality, by treating this fact as something for voters to figure out, not on the basis of whether babies are in fact people but on the basis of some “value” they place on little people.

That fact is what makes the consensus of court-recognized fact finders a stronger legal reason to end legal abortion than a Life Amendment, and a powerful social reason in the Court of Public Opinion able to soften hearts to the silent screams of Jesus' little brothers and His quiet knocking on hearts' doors. Which makes it insane for prolifers to not even mention this legally dispositive consensus in each and every prolife court case, and every “finding of fact” in prolife legislation, along with leveling with the public about the Scriptures which are the real reason we even care.

Ending legal abortion everywhere in close to a year

(the goal of the following bill language)
requires a law whose Findings of Facts:

contain evidence which no judge can squarely address and keep abortion legal anywhere: that unborn babies are real people – established by the (unanimous) consensus of court-recognized factfinders: juries, expert witnesses, 38 states, judges, and Congress;

present its evidence in a way that is clear and persuasive to voters, to help them resist judicial and media gaslighting; (See below for “Why court-recognized fact finders persuade Voters”)

address misunderstandings about abortion jurisprudence that divide prolifers, intimidate lawyers, and blind judges;

AND WHOSE PENALTIES

restrict some aspect of abortion substantially enough that THEY can't be defended as a mere regulation with some other legitimate government purpose than saving lives. The restriction must be profound enough that its only possible defense is that it saves human lives. That will force courts to address the evidence that babies are fully human;

provide no distractions that let judges rule on some technicality and ignore the evidence that the law would save lives. A perfect law that addresses everything from exceptions to contraception multiplies a judge’s opportunity to say “we don’t need to reach the issue of when life begins because the law fails on a lesser issue.” A simple yet substantial restriction, with “findings” that address the legal obstacles, will survive courts, which will get courts out of the way of saving life, which will free lawmakers to work out the challenging details with time to get a comprehensive solution right and with hope that they won’t waste their time;

list specific penalties for specific situations, rather than broadly stated goals such as “babies are to be protected as much as adults”, leaving prosecutors and judges to guess what to punish, or how, in situations where evidence and culpability are different;

contain a “life of the mother” exception whose applicability is clear enough that mothers are not denied life-saving care until doctors are assured by lawyers that said care will not put the doctors in jail; and

THE LAW SHOULD ALSO order courts to “expedite” any review, “because lives are lost with each day that courts delay”.

(A grant of expedited review will constitute tacit agreement that babies are people. To deny expedited review a judge would have to claim that lives are NOT lost with each day that courts delay; but there is simply no evidence to support such a claim! No American legal fact-finding authority in 50 years has dared such a claim! SCOTUS, from Roe to Dobbs, claims that even Supreme Court judges are incompetent to know - will a lower court judge claim superior knowledge?! Checkmate!)

More ideas: Judicial_Accountability_Act:_How_Legislatures_can_stop_judges_from_legislating

(A grant of expedited review will constitute tacit agreement that babies are people. To deny expedited review a judge would have to claim that lives are NOT lost with each day that courts delay; but there is simply no evidence to support such a claim! No American legal fact-finding authority in 50 years has dared such a claim! SCOTUS, from Roe to Dobbs, claims that even Supreme Court judges are incompetent to know - will a lower court judge claim superior knowledge?! Checkmate! See below for Expedited Review federal rules.)

WORD COUNTS: Using only the first boldfaced paragraph of each of these 12 Findings, in the “findings of facts” of a prolife law, will total about 200 words. The complete Findings, without footnotes, total nearly 3000 words. For the advantages of including enough information in a prolife law for the Findings to defend themselves, see “Too Lengthy?” below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: I am not a lawyer. But writing about prolife legal defenses designed to bring legal abortion to an end, and Scriptures calling for that goal, for 25 years in my Prayer * Action News, being uncertified as a lawyer, has created the opportunity for a remarkable interaction with Planned Barrenhoods priciest lawyers. Because news reporters wouldn’t report that my reasoning was designed as legal defenses in court, or that they were grounded in the Bible, what that left was their accusation that I advocated crime; whereas had my defenses been successful they would have allowed citizens to stop murderers legally, putting an end to the reason citizens took action.

If you are not satisfied with life less abundantly – ongoing slaughter of innocents – you won’t be satisfied now that the fate of babies is decided by the “value” that voters place on little people. You will keep searching for a strategy to end all the slaughter: to both outlaw it, and make it unthinkable to all but the worst of murderers.

If you believe you will reach every good goal you pursue with all your being, Matthew 21:21-22, you won’t be turned from ending the slaughter in every state by experts who tell you that is impossible which rules out a strategy for achieving it. You will search until you find God’s way to do God’s will.

You won’t say “I'm not smart enough to question prolife legal authorities who advise giving up”, if you believe James 1:5 which promises you all the wisdom you need to do good. Nor will you ever say you are not smart enough to read and understand legal briefs, court rulings, or to reason with lawmakers, lawyers, and prolife leaders, as necessary.

If you believe God, you will not excuse yourself from God’s call because you can’t talk well, like Moses, whom God answered “Who made mouths?” Exodus 4:11. Nor will you excuse yourself to God, saying you are but a child against the world’s superbrains, like Jeremiah, whom God answered, “Stop saying that! It is MY words you will speak, and I am no child!” Jeremiah 1:6-8.

If you believe God, you will shine God’s light wherever you find Darkness, Matthew 5:13-16. Since nothing is darker than murdering your own baby, you will seek God’s help as you oppose this evil, and none of these excuses will withdraw you from action.

Final Warning: read this at your own risk

Warning: read at your own risk. Rough reading Ahead, that may knock you from your TV chair.

Findings of Facts which No Judge can Squarely Address and Keep Abortion Legal

Part 1: Authority of Court-Recognized Fact Finders

Try to imagine how a judge, reviewing a prolife law with these Findings of Facts, would be able to dodge this evidence:

Statement of Fact #1. Court-recognized, court-tested Finders of Facts unanimously establish that unborn babies are fully human

Court-recognized, court-tested Finders of Facts unanimously establish that unborn babies are fully human, which makes killing them legally recognizable as murder, which the 14th Amendment doesn’t let any state legalize. ^[1]

No fact can be more legally established than the fact that “life begins” at fertilization, being the consensus of every American legal authority who has taken a position, in every category of court-recognized finders of facts: juries, ^[2] thousands of expert witnesses who were not contested, ^[3] 38 state legislatures, ^[4] individual judges, ^[5] and Congress. ^[6]

No legal authority has ruled that any unborn baby of a human is not in fact a human person, or that “life begins” any later than fertilization. ^[7]

No state can keep abortion legal now that this fact is established. This is so obvious that even Roe v. Wade said “of course”, and the lawyer for the abortionists agreed. ^[8]

For other public issues, disagreement is over facts. ^[9] The only disagreement about abortion is between unanimous fact finders and those who don't care about facts. ^[10] Courts that won’t address the facts that justify and necessitate a law, or hear evidence of those facts, violates Due Process and forfeits jurisdiction to review that law. ^[11]

FOOTNOTES

↑ More about “...murder, which the 14th Amendment doesn’t let any state legalize”
     The legal goal of outlawing abortion in every state is dismissed by every SCOTUS justice and by most prolife lawyers, (quotes follow), but that goal has failed only by ignoring this consensus of fact finders - “the Mammoth in the Room”. It has been successfully ignored only because prolife lawmakers have not placed it in Findings of Facts where judges were forced to address it.
     The Constitution isn’t as bad as prolifers think: Schluetter.
     Debating with Judge Bork, Law professor Nathan Schluetter at Hillsdale College wrote in 2003: “It is surprising...that on this most central constitutional and moral issue [that babies are in fact people so we shouldn’t murder them] a preponderance of pro-life advocates and legal scholars continually misinterpret the Constitution. According to them, a proper reading of the Constitution would [go no farther than to] reject [Roe’s] concept of a privacy right to abortion, and thus return the nation to the pre-Roe status quo in which the decision of when, whether, and how to regulate [murder] was left to the states. In offering this “restoration interpretation,” they ignore or reject the proper interpretation, which would extend the [right to life] of the Fourteenth Amendment to unborn persons [which will outlaw baby killing in every state]. This is what I will call in this essay the ‘unborn person interpretation.’
     “They continue to do this despite the fact that both the majority in  Roe  and the appellants to the case conceded that if the personhood of the unborn [or, the fact that babies of people are real people] could be established, ‘the [abortionist’s] case, [for legalizing baby killing in every state] of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment [thus outlawing abortion in EVERY state].’
     “To gauge the pervasiveness of the restoration interpretation among life advocates, one need only consult [a past issue of this publication]. Forty-five leading pro-life advocates, including Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Clarke Forsythe of Americans United for Life, Wanda Franz of the National Right to Life Committee, and Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition, signed a much heralded joint ‘Statement of Pro-Life Principle and Concern’ published in First Things in 1996 in which the primary legal complaint was made that  Roe  ‘wounded American democracy’ by removing the issue of abortion from “democratic concern.”
     “The statement suggested two legal remedies: first, the Supreme Court could reverse  Roe , returning the issue to the states; second, the nation could pass a constitutional amendment that would extend Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process protection to unborn persons.
     “The statement does not even hint at the possibility of a Supreme Court ruling that would extend due process and equal protection to unborn persons [based on the indisputable fact that babies are real people, requiring no additional legal recognition of their right to life]. The First Things statement seems to reflect the unanimous opinion of those Justices on the Supreme Court who have urged reversing Roe , not one of whom has attempted to make or even respond in their opinions to the unborn person interpretation. [Not even the most liberal justices have denied that babies are real people, yet not even the most conservative justices consider the indisputable evidence worth mentioning.]
     This misunderstanding doesn’t just threaten babies. “However well-intentioned, the arguments of the restoration advocates are usually grounded in an epistemological skepticism that is alien to normal constitutional interpretation and harmful to the political morality on which free government is based.”
↑ More about “Juries/court-recognized Finders of Facts”
     When juries ruled that babies are real people. When prolifers blocked abortionists’ doors before 1993, the only seriously disputed fact issue at trial was whether human lives were saved. The earliest juries ruled that they were, and acquitted, so judges stopped letting juries hear that defense. Abortionists were so scared of juries thinking babies are people, that when a judge decided to let the jury hear that defense, the abortionist would drop the prosecution.
     A law school journal reports: “After the court ruled that it would allow the [Necessity] Defense to go to the jury, the Women for Women Clinic dropped the prosecution. If the defense is permitted, evidence is introduced that life begins at conception. This evidence is rarely contradicted by the prosecution, which is merely proving the elements of criminal trespass. [Except for the one element that matters, and the only contested trial issue: whether lives were saved.] Rather than risk such a precedent, many clinics prefer to dismiss. In fact, defense counsel have admitted that their intent is to bring the abortion issue back before the United States Supreme Court to consider the very question of when life begins, an issue on which the Court refused to rule in Roe...” (The Cincinnati Law Review footnote analyzes the case of Ohio v. Rinear, No. 78999CRB-3706 (Mun. Ct. Hamilton County, Ohio, dismissed May 2, 1978)
     Juries don’t usually give reasons for their verdicts. I (Dave Leach, author) was a defendant in such a trial, where the judge allowed the jury to hear the defense, the abortionist let the case proceed, and the jury acquitted. State v. Brouillette, et al, Johnson County, Iowa, 1989. 155 of us were arrested January 26, 1989 for blocking the doors of the Emma Goldman clinic in Iowa City, Iowa. Rather than pack all 155 in the court room, 16 of us were tried in the first batch. It was assumed that what happened to them would drive what happened later to the rest; especially since J. Patrick White, the prosecuting county attorney, had told newspapers that if the first 16 were acquitted there is no way he would prosecute the others.
     How God provided an official record of the jury’s reasons. But after the jury acquitted the first 16, White refused to dismiss, and that is the only reason we have an official court record documenting that the Defense of Justification was the only issue before the jury. The jury didn’t say so, but the judge did, in his ruling dismissing the remaining charges. That ruling is so helpful, and the difficulty of getting an official record of a jury’s reasons so great, that God must be credited and thanked for presumably hardening the heart of the prosecutor so the judge had to rule.
     The judge wrote that both sides stipulated to (officially agreed about) the facts. “Each Defendant stipulated to his or her identity; to entering and remaining upon public property; and to failing to leave said public property after being notified and requested to vacate by persons whose duty it was to supervise the use and maintenance of this property. By this stipulation, the sole element of the offense of Criminal Trespass which remained to be proven was whether each defendant acted without justification. [Violating a minor offense, like trespassing, is “justified” when it is “necessary” to save lives.] The verdict of the jury indicates the State failed to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, the one essential element of the charge which remained in issue.
     In a trial of the remaining 138 Defendants, [one of the 155 arrested was juvenile and was not charged], a jury would be presented with this identical issue. So the remaining charges should be dropped by the theory of Issue Preclusion - if Joe is found innocent after doing something, Jack should be after doing the same thing.)”
     Another such case may be Northern Virginia Women's Medical Center v. Balch, 617 F.2d 1045, 1048-49 (4th Cir. 1980) which refers to two unreported cases where “necessity” led to acquittals. But it is not clear whether it was a jury or “bench” trial.
↑ More about “Expert Witnesses/court-recognized Fact Finders’”
     Doctors & geneticists routinely testified in “Operation Rescue”-type door-blocking trials. See footnote #4: “If the defense is permitted, evidence is introduced that life begins at conception. This evidence is rarely contradicted by the prosecution,” The evidence is presented by expert witnesses – doctors, geneticists, etc.
     When a world famous geneticist flew from France to Wichita. A case widely reported among prolifers was when Elizabeth Tilson, a defendant who blocked an abortion door so mothers couldn’t go inside to kill their babies, flew in a world famous geneticist from France to Judge Paul Clark’s Wichita court. There was no jury, but a “bench” trial over which Clark presided. His lengthy ruling, acquitting Tilson, is reported in Appendix H of “How States can Outlaw Abortion in a Way that Survives Courts”. A paperback is available at Amazon; a free PDF is posted at www.Saltshaker.us.
     How Courts Dodged Overwhelming Evidence of Life. The defense raised in virtually all those trials of all those 60,000+ arrested life savers was based on American law, not religion. I know of no case where anyone asked for a religious exemption from letting the slaughter continue, or who gave Bible verses as the reason they should be acquitted. And yet courts routinely dismissed legitimate legal defenses as being exclusively religious.
     Surely the most notorious example was Elizabeth Tilson’s defense on July 20, 1992. She even flew in the world’s top geneticist from France, Dr. LeJeune, to testify about “when life begins”. District Judge Paul Clark, summarizing the defense and ruling in her favor, did not indicate religion was any part of the defense. (See excerpts in Appendix H, p. 145.) Yet the Kansas Court dismissed all that world-class scientific evidence as a “moral or ethical belief” of some dowdy no-account religious kook housewife who expects law to bow to her superstitions.

If recognized as [a] defense in [a] criminal case, justification by necessity defense only applies when [the] harm or evil which [the] defendant seeks to prevent by his or her own criminal conduct is legal[ly recognized] harm or evil as opposed to moral or ethical belief of individual defendant....defendants did not engage in illegal conduct because they were faced with a choice of evils. Rather, they intentionally trespassed on complainant's property in order to interfere with the rights of others....

     But what about the world-class testimony that human beings were being slaughtered? Completely irrelevant, the court said. We have to follow “law”, not some frowsy housewife’s “moral or ethical belief”:


In a criminal prosecution for trespass upon the property of an abortion clinic, the defense of justification by necessity is inapplicable and evidence of when life begins is irrelevant. The admission of evidence of when life begins in such an action was error by the trial court....Judge Paul Clark held that...the defendant was absolved of any criminal liability for her actions, based upon the necessity defense [which] justified her trespassing upon the Clinic property for the purpose of saving a human life. At trial, over the objections of the City, the defendant was allowed to introduce expert testimony on the question of when life begins. The City did not attempt to controvert such evidence but instead took the position that the evidence was inadmissible because it was irrelevant.

     Her REAL motive, said the Court, was not “saving a human life” as documented by the world’s leading expert on genetics at all, but was “to interfere with the rights of others” according to some individual’s “moral or ethical belief”
     This is not an isolated “straw man” misconstruction of a serious legal defense. Appellate courts did it routinely. Appendix F of my book, linked in Note 3, gives examples. If we could trust courts to never do that again, this book could be a lot shorter.
     Doctors testifying as official Expert Witnesses in “rescue” trials was so routine that even I had one in my own trial. I found a doctor to testify in my own trial after I was arrested for sitting in front of a Planned Barrenhood door to prevent mothers from coming in to murder their babies. It was after a workshop put on by “rescuers” to educate people who had never been inside a courtroom how to conduct ourselves in court, since few of us could afford a lawyer and lawyers successful in such cases could not be found. Doctors willing to testify for free were plentiful. Their testimony was routine in “rescue” trials, even after judges stopped allowing juries to hear them. There were not just a few trials. In about 1992 Operation Rescue reported that there had been over 60,000 arrests of door-blockers.
     After judges stopped letting juries listen to the witnesses, doctors still testified, but after sending the jury out. It is called a “proffer” of evidence; the judge rules that it is irrelevant, but he will let the evidence go into the record so that it will be there for any appeal.
     Updated science is summarized by the Illinois Right to Life in their amicus brief filed in Dobbs v. Jackson. “Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in his testimony in connection with the 1981 hearing on Senate Bill 158, the Human Life Bill, see infra at 15-16, concluded, ‘I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty . . . is not a human being. This is human life at every stage.’ Cited in House Resolution No. 214, https://perma. cc/6XRG-L2C8.
     The Consensus of Biologists. “b. A n over whelming majority of biologists recognize that a human’s life begins at fertilization. A recent international study involving 5,577 biologists from 86 countries who work at 1,061 top-ranked academic institutions confirmed the scientific consensus on when life begins. The study asked biologists to confirm or reject five statements that represent the view that a human’s life begins at fertilization. The majority of the biologists in the study identified as liberal (89%), pro#choice (85%), and non-religious (63%). 5,337 biologists (96%) affirmed at least one of the statements and only 240 participants declined to affirm any statements (4%).
     The study participants were also asked to answer an essay question: “From a biological perspective, how would you answer the question, ‘When does a human’s life begin?’” Most biologists (68%) indicated fertilization. Thus, while in Roe, the Court found that experts could not arrive at any consensus at that point in the development of man’s knowledge, that is no longer the case.” [American participants included biologists from Harvard University, Princeton University, Stanford University, and Yale University. See When Does Life Begin?, Illinois Right to Life, https://perma.cc/U99P-4Y6C. Steven A. Jacobs, Balancing Abortion Rights and Fetal Rights: A Mixed Methods Mediation of the U.S. Abortion Debate, Knowledge@Uchicago, 2019, https://perma.cc/GZT2-8JDN
     An Official Senate Report. “c. Legislative hearings on when life begins marshalled scientific evidence that life begins at fertilization. During hearings conducted by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Senate Bill 158, the “Human Life Bill”, numerous scientific experts testified regarding when life begins. The Official Senate Report concluded that: “Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being - a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.” [Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981, 7] In the hearings, Dr. Jerome Lejeune testified that “[l]ife has a very, very long history, but each individual has a very neat beginning – the moment of its conception” because “[t]o accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence.” S-158 Hearings, April 23, 1981 transcript, 18. [ S-158 Hearings, April 23, 1981 Transcript, https://perma. cc/6DCT-UT4P.]
     No alternative theories on when a human’s life begins in scientific literature. “Experts from leading institutions have testified that there are no alternative theories on when a human’s life begins in the scientific literature. Dr. Hymie Gordon, Professor of Medical Genetics and physician at the Mayo Clinic, testified: “I have never ever seen in my own scientific reading, long before I became concerned with issues of life of this nature, that anyone has ever argued that life did not begin at the moment of conception and that it was a human conception if it resulted from the fertilization of the human egg by a human sperm. As far as I know, these have never been argued against.” Id. at 52. This lack of any published, let alone generally accepted, alternative scientific theories was also attested to by Dr. Micheline Matthew-Roth, a principal research associate in the Department of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Id. at 41-42. ...
     A few disagree but without even trying to invoke science, medicine, or facts. “While some oppose the consensus view that human life begins at fertilization, the few counter-arguments made are philosophical or ideological, rather than scientific or fact-driven. In point of fact, no viable alternative to the consensus view has been propounded.”
↑ More about “State Legislatures/court-recognized Fact Finders”
     “At least 38 states”, (enough to enact a Constitutional Amendment), “have enacted fetal-homicide statutes, and 28 of those statutes protect life from conception.” Hamilton v. Scott, 97 So. 3d 728 (Ala. 2012) The ruling’s basis: “State v. Courchesne, 296 Conn. 622, 689 n. 46, 998 A.2d 1, 50 n.46 (2010) (‘[As of March 2010], at least [thirty-eight] states have fetal homicide laws.’ (quoting the National Conference of State Legislatures, Fetal Homicide Laws (March 2010) (alterations in Courchesne)”
     Amicus filed in Dobbs by Illinois Right to Life:
     LIFE%20IN%20SUPPORT%20OF%20PETITIONERS.pdf “Fetuses are recognized as human persons in numerous contexts: (1) laws that restrict abortion at some point in fetal development, (2) fetal homicide laws, (3) prohibitions against capital punishment imposed upon pregnant women, (4) recovery for fetal deaths under wrongful death statutes, (5) the rights of preborn children under property law, (6) legal guardianship of prenatal humans, [See Paul Benjamin Linton, The Legal Status of the Unborn Child Under State Law, 6 U. St. Thomas J.L. & Pub. Pol’y, 2011, https://perma.cc/XB8E-G375. ] (7) the rights of preborn children to a deceased parent’s Social Security and Disability benefits[SSR 68-22: SECTION 216(h)(3)(C). – Relationship – Status of Illegitimate Posthumous Child, Social Security Administration, https://perma.cc/W3TR-89L9. ], and (8) the rights of inheritance of posthumously born children.[. Alea Roberts, Where’s My Share?: Inheritance Rights of Posthumous Children, American Bar Association, Jun. 13, 2019, https://perma.cc/36VN-HZZ8 ] Despite the plethora of contexts in which fetuses are recognized as persons under the law, this Court has yet to recognize the personhood of preborn humans.
     “b. States are increasingly proposing and enacting laws protective of unborn human beings even when abortion is curtailed as a result.
     “Today, 43 states have enacted laws protecting prenatal humans although abortion is thereby restricted. All but one restrict abortion access at the earliest point permissible by Roe (viability), and states have recently more emphatically asserted a state interest in the lives of previable human beings by seeking to protect them: (1) after the sixth week since that is known to be the point at which a fetus’ heart first beats (AL HB314; IA SF359) and (2) after the twentieth week since that has been found to be the point at which a fetus can first feel pain (OH SB 127).”
     States don’t unanimously protect the unborn, but no state finds that unborn babies are not human persons. Plus, 38 states is enough to ratify a Constitutional Amendment. (Not that they should: as other Findings observe, there is already more than enough consensus of fact finders to require outlawing of abortion in every state; and the consensus of fact finders is actually a stronger legal reason than a constitutional amendment, since no other Amendment was ratified to establish a fact.
↑ More about “Judges/Fact Finders”
     One example is Judge Paul Clark: see footnote 3. Another is Justice Dimond in Alaska: Cleveland v. Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska, 631 P.2d 1073, 1084:
     (Concurring:) "I empathize with the defendants' sorrow over the loss of human lives caused by abortions. I believe the United States Supreme Court burdened this court with a tragic decision when it held in Roe...that the word “person, as used in the fourteenth amendment, does not include the unborn...”, and that states cannot “override the rights of the pregnant woman” by “adopting one theory of life.”
     "I do not agree with the Court's conclusion that a state's interest in potential life does not become “compelling” until the fetus has attained viability. It stated its explanation for this conclusion as follows:
     "With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the ‘compelling’ point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications.” ~ "(410 U.S. at 163, 93 S.Ct. 731-32, 35 L.Ed.2d at 183) As Professor Tribe indicates, “One reads the court's explanation [of the magic line called “viability”] several times before becoming convinced that nothing has inadvertently been omitted.” (Tribe, Forward to The Supreme Court 1972 Term, 87 Harv.L.Rev. 1. 4 (1973](footnote omitted]). I agree with Professor Tribe when he states, “Clearly, this (analysis] mistakes a definition for a syllogism”, and offers no reason at all for what the Court has held. (Id., quoting Ely, The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade, 82 Yale L.J. 920, 924 (1973](footnotes omitted]).
     "In effect, the Supreme Court held that because there is no consensus as to when human life begins it can act as if it were proven that human life does not begin until birth so as to preserve to women the right to make their own decision whether an abortion takes a human life or not. It would make more sense to me if, in the face of uncertainty, any error made were side in favor of the fetus, which many believe to be human life.
     "The development of a zygote into a human child is a continual, progressive development. No one suggests that the born child is not a human being. It seems undeniable, however, that human life begins before birth. As Professor Curran states:
     “[T]he fetus one day before birth and the child one day after birth are not that significantly or qualitatively different – in any respect; Even outside the womb the newborn child is not independent but remains greatly dependent on the mother and others. Birth in fact does not really tell much about the individual as such but only where the individual is--either outside the womb or still Inside the womb.' (C. Curran, Transition and Tradition in Moral Theology, p. 209 (1919]). Similarly, viability does not mark the beginning of the truly human being.
     "[V]iability again indicates more about where the fetus can live than what it is. The fetus immediately before viability is not that qualitatively different from the viable fetus. In addition viability is a very inexact criterion because it is intimately connected with medical and scientific advances. In the future it might very well be possible for the fetus to live in an artificial womb or even with an artificial placenta from a very early stage in fetal development.
     "I join with those persons who believe that truly human life begins sometime between the second and third week after conception...."
     A dissent by Justice Mahoney said
     “Until the Court decides when a fetus is a person, I see no reason to deny the defense of necessity to those who believe that the fetus is viable and is a person...At least it would get the issue squarely before the U.S. Supreme Court....” Detwiler v. Akron, C.A. No. 14385 at 22 (9th App. Dist. 1990)
↑ More about “Congress/court-recognized Fact Finder
18 U.S.C. 1841(d) “...the term “unborn child” means a child in utero, and the term “child in utero” or “child, who is in utero” means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
Finding #7 explains why this Personhood statement is as powerful as a Constitutional Amendment, and is NOT mitigated by section (c), as alleged by the National Right to Life Committee and by Republican Congressmen.
↑ More about “No American legal authority has ruled that constitutionally protected ‘life begins’ any later than conception.”
     No American legal authority has ruled that constitutionally protected “life begins” any later than conception. Not even New York’s January 22, 2019 law.
     This needs to be clarified because conservative news reported as if New York became an exception. Not that the law was harmless. It legalized abortions through birth when the abortionist alleged the baby would die soon anyway. It allowed non-doctors to kill babies. It repealed a law requiring a second physician to be present in case an infant was born alive and needdobbs v jacksoned care.
     But it didn’t define “person” to only mean human beings who are born, leaving unborn humans defined as non-persons. The articles I found didn’t exactly say that, but they implied that by reporting the definition of “persons”, without reporting that the definition was not added by the new law but had been in the law for years, and without reporting the context of the definition which simply means that when the coroner investigates dead bodies found in his county, or in a jail, he will not investigate unborn babies. It also means a judge, when excluding the public from divorce or rape trials, will not exclude unborn babies.
     The definition: “ ‘Person,’ when referring to the victim of a homicide, means a human being who has been born and is alive.” As I said, the conservative reports didn’t directly say the definition meant that unborn babies were defined as nonpersons, so most readers might not have thought about it. But because I had been claiming that no American legal authority had ever ruled that babies become real people at any later time than fertilization, I wanted to look into it to see if New York had created an exception.
     You can verify that the definition was already in the law by reading the bill, and noting that the phrase is not underlined, which is how additions to laws are indicated. See &Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Committee%26nbspVotes=Y&Floor%26nbspVotes=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y You can also verify it by reading the law as of 2016, which includes that definition. [1]
     You can read the Breitbart report at 2019/01/24/8-shocking-facts-about-new-yorks-radical-abortion-law/
     You can read the Townhall report at laurettabrown/2 019/01/23/new-york-passes-extreme-abortion-legislation-on-the-anniversary-of-roe-v-wade-n2539902hh The law had previously read “Homicide means conduct which causes the death of a person [or an unborn child....]” The 2019 law deleted the part in brackets.
     The definition previously had two more paragraphs which the 2019 law deleted. They defined the terms “abortional act” and “justifiable abortional act” which had been used in the now deleted law against late term abortion.
     This point is worth clearing up because it is a very strong, important argument for the legal recognizability of all unborn babies as humans/persons, and of all abortions as murder, that no American legal authority has ruled that constitutionally protected “life begins” any later than conception. Not one.
     Not even foreign legal authorities support any right to abortion. 141 International Legal Scholars submitted an amicus brief in the Dobbs v. Jackson case declaring that “Whatever role international law plays in evaluating abortion regulations in the United States, it offers no basis for the existence of a human right to abortion.” (http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185170/20210729071535904_19-1392%20Amicus%20Brief%20of%20141%20International%20Legal%20Scholars.pdf) “The minority of States that choose to allow elective abortion impose a standard gestational limit of twelve weeks, which is more restrictive than Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act.”
     “If the Court chooses to consult international law in this case, it will find there is no treaty that recognizes a so-called human right to abortion, nor has such a right been established through customary law. To the contrary, the practice across all regions demonstrates a consistent State prerogative to protect unborn life. Nor has any international court declared the existence of an international right to abortion, even in regions with the most permissive abortion regimes. Thirdparty actors seeking to invent a new right to abortion err when interpreting key international instruments, such as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Rome Statute, and the International Conference on Population and Development. The clear language in those documents defies any attempt to repurpose them to create an international human right to abortion.
     “On the other hand, provisions recognizing the unborn child as a rights-holder can be found in many international human rights instruments, including the American Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Most States choose to exercise the prerogative to protect unborn life by regulating abortion much more strictly than in the United States. Even in the minority of States that permit elective abortions, most specify a gestational limit of twelve weeks. That limit is more restrictive than Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, which allows elective abortion until fifteen weeks’ gestation, and then permits abortion only for medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormality.”
     Their conclusions were echoed by another international group, Center for Family and Human Rights (www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185123/20210728132729071_CFam Amicus Brief Filed.pdf)
     “The 2018 Mississippi Gestational Age Act banning most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, when the child in utero is known to suffer pain from common abortion procedures, is fully consistent with International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ratified by the United States, which presumptively protects the right to life of children in the womb (hereinafter, the “Covenant”), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Dec. 16, 1966, S. EXEC. DOC. E, 95-2 (1978), 999 U.N.T.S. 171 (entered into force Mar. 23, 1976), as well as other human rights commitments and obligations of the United States.
     “A careful reading of the text and history of the Covenant reveals that children in the womb were never excluded from the right to life, and that, more broadly, international law does not establish a human right to abortion in any circumstance, either through treaty obligation or by custom....
     “Treaty law is the supreme Law of the Land and the Court has a constitutional responsibility to declare what the law is. The Court should make a finding of law that children in the womb are not excluded from the right to life under the Covenant, given the plain meaning of the text of the Covenant when it was ratified by the U.S., the interpretation of the Covenant by the Executive branch, and its implementation by other States who are party to the treaty, therefore, laws to protect children in the womb from being arbitrarily deprived of their right to life, regardless of viability, are consistent with the international human rights obligations of the United States.”
↑ More about “Even Roe v. Wade said ‘of course’, and even the lawyer for the abortionists agreed, that no state could keep abortion legal now that this fact is established.”
     If there are 39 witnesses to a murder, should a prosecutor bring forward only one? But legislatures have supported abortion bans with only their own testimony in their Findings. No 37 other states. No Congress. No thousands of uncontradicted expert witnesses. No dozens of juries. Only a trace of the overwhelming evidence for the claim that constitutionally protected “life begins” at fertilization.
     For as long as prolifers do not justify their restrictions of abortion with the full range of evidence available from all states, it seems unlikely, indeed not fully rational, that the Supreme Court will end the right of women to take care of their own health for the sake of embryonic pigs and rabbits – which is how human embryos were depicted in the illustration cited by Roe, published in Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary. (See Appendix I in the book cited in Footnote #3.)
     The amicus brief filed in Dobbs v. Jackson by Illinois Right to Life _19-1392 BRIEF FOR AMICUS CURIAE ILLINOIS RIGHT TO LIFE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS.pdf:
     "In Roe, the Court based its “viability” standard on: (a) lack of a scientific consensus on when human life begins...It recognized that if a human fetus is a “person” under the Fourteenth Amendment, the case for unrestricted abortion would be untenable “for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.” Id. at 157.
     "....Roe’s recognition of a right to abort a previable pregnancy rests on the belief that the termination would not extinguish the life of a human person. That belief is no longer factually tenable given the current state of scientific knowledge concerning the origin and development of the human fetus. Roe also rests on a determination that the humanity and personhood of a human fetus was not generally recognized in law. That legal context has changed as well. Among other changes in the law, fetuses are now protected as human beings under laws prohibiting fetal homicide. Other laws, such as “heartbeat” laws and laws protecting against fetal pain, which are increasingly being enacted by the states, demonstrate their interest in protecting the youngest and most vulnerable humans. Finally, changes in the laws and the availability of social services that support and protect pregnant women have ameliorated the plight of pregnancy and lessened the burden of child-rearing. All of these changes rob Roe of its factual and legal underpinnings...
     "Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in his testimony in connection with the 1981 hearing on Senate Bill 158, the “Human Life Bill, see infra at 15-16, concluded, “I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty . . . is not a human being. This is human life at every stage.” Cited in House Resolution No. 214, https://perma. cc/6XRG-L2C8.
     "An over whelming majority of biologists recognize that a human’s life begins at fertilization. A recent international study involving 5,577 biologists from 86 countries who work at 1,061 top-ranked academic institutions22 confirmed the scientific consensus on when life begins.23 The study asked biologists to confirm or reject five statements that represent the view that a human’s life begins at fertilization. The majority of the biologists in the study identified as liberal (89%), prochoice (85%), and non-religious (63%). 5,337 biologists (96%) affirmed at least one of the statements and only 240 participants declined to affirm any statements (4%). The study participants were also asked to answer an essay question: “From a biological perspective, how would you answer the question, ‘When does a human’s life begin?’” Most biologists (68%) indicated fertilization. Thus, while in Roe, the Court found that experts could not arrive at any consensus at that point in the development of man’s knowledge, that is no longer the case.
     "c. Legislative hearings on when life begins marshalled scientific evidence that life begins at fertilization. During hearings conducted by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Senate Bill 158, the “Human Life Bill”, numerous scientific experts testified regarding when life begins. The Official Senate Report concluded that: “Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being - a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.”24 In the hearings, Dr. Jerome Lejeune testified that “[l]ife has a very, very long history, but each individual has a very neat beginning – the moment of its conception” because “[t]o accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence.” S-158 Hearings, April 23, 1981 transcript, 18.25
     "Experts from leading institutions have testified that there are no alternative theories on when a human’s life begins in the scientific literature. Dr. Hymie Gordon, Professor of Medical Genetics and physician at the Mayo Clinic, testified: “I have never ever seen in my own scientific reading, long before I became concerned with issues of life of this nature, that anyone has ever argued that life did not begin at the moment of conception and that it was a human conception if it resulted from the fertilization of the human egg by a human sperm. As far as I know, these have never been argued against.” Id. at 52. This lack of any published, let alone generally accepted, alternative scientific theories was also attested to by Dr. Micheline Matthew-Roth, a principal research associate in the Department of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Id. at 41-42.
     "d. Even doctors who perform abortions and proponents of abortion rights admit fetuses are human beings. Many practitioners of abortion and supporters of abortion rights acknowledge human life begins at conception.26 For example, when abortion doctor Dr. Curtis Boyd was interviewed, he acknowledged with respect to abortion: “Am I killing? Yes, I am. I know that.”27 Abortion rights supporter and ethicist Peter Singer has written that being “a member of a given species is something that
     26. Derek Smith, Pro-Choice Concedes: Prominent Abortion Proponents Concede The Barbarity Of Abortion, Human Defense Initiative, Nov. 7, 2018, https://perma.cc/GXH8-MAUU. See also, A New Ethic for Medicine and Society, California Medicine, Sep. 1970. 27. KVUE Austin Interview of Dr. Curtis Boyd, at 0:23, YouTube, Nov. 6, 2009, https://perma.cc/GYB2-3YFY.
can be determined scientifically, by an examination of the nature of the chromosomes in the cells of living organisms. In this sense there is no doubt that from the first moments of its existence an embryo conceived from human sperm and eggs is a human being.”
     e. Views opposing the position that human life starts at fertilization are unscientific and ideological.
     While some oppose the consensus view that human life begins at fertilization, the few counter-arguments made are philosophical or ideological, rather than scientific or fact-driven. In point of fact, no viable alternative to the consensus view has been propounded.29
     ....Ultimately, opposing arguments to the scientific consensus that a human’s life begins at fertilization are fallacious or focus on aspects of biology that are not relevant to the biological classification of human beings.
↑ More about “For other public issues, division is over facts.”
     Climate Change activists treat it as an emergency which is significantly affected by human activity. Their opponents say climate change is in fact no emergency, and even if it were, human activity has negligible impact on it. Both sides rely on “science”. (Of course pollution h
     arms our health and quality of life, especially in the locality of the CRT controversy is entirely over facts. A very different set of facts of American history competes sometimes violently with the
     Immigration policy is a tug of war between claims of groups like NumbersUSA and Center for Immigration Studies that so much immigration drives up prices, drives down wages, destroys national security, etc. and peer-reviewed economics studies claiming economic benefit to citizens at most levels, from a slight increase in immigration.
     Division over covid was all about facts. Masks work, no they don’t. Vaccines save lives, no they cause millions of “excess deaths”.
     Can boys who want to be girls join girls sports team and compete fairly? Concern for Biblical morality is in the background, but the public arguing is over the factual differences between boy and girl bodies, and how much of that is equalized by drugs and surgeries.
     Legalization of marijuana starts and sputters as facts emerge and are alleged about the impact on crime, auto accidents, on the health of users, and on the impact on holding down a job, which affects the whole economy.
     Abortion controversy knows no comparable issue-driving dispute over whether babies of humans are real humans. There are practical difficulties in writing a “life of the mother” exception that will leave doctors free to save mothers who are truly endangered by their pregnancies without creating a loophole which babykillers will exploit, but there is no factual controversy about the full humanity of both mothers and their babies.
↑ More about “Disagreement about abortion is between unanimous fact finders and those who don't care about facts.”
     See Finding #2.
     It is for very good reasons like these that the findings of court-recognized fact finders are not just persuasive in court, but also in the Court of Public Opinion – in our culture in general. “Trust” and “Congress” aren’t a perfect fit, but compared to public trust in other human authorities it ranks high, while trust in juries and in experts ranks higher. We scrutinize the trustworthiness of political authorities more than that of authorities on other subjects because what political authorities rule affects our choices in life.
     But the willingness of most of society to live by most of the rules imposed by our government is an important measure of society’s trust in its authorities to create rules which mostly conform to reality. Which in turn is an important measure of society’s trust in the expertise of its authorities to grasp reality to a reasonable level.
↑ More about "Courts that won’t address the facts that...necessitate a law...forfeits jurisdiction to review that law."
     Thus courts have no business reviewing abortion laws, for as long as they refuse to address the irrefutable evidence that babies of people are people. Such a court’s only legitimate business is to enforce them.
     But is that what Dobbs v. Jackson has already done?
     ’t SCOTUS gotten out of the abortion business and allowed states to outlaw abortion as thoroughly as their voters will permit?
     Maybe SCOTUS will stay out of the way of saving lives. We should not assume they will stay out of the way when “life of the mother” exceptions come before them, where the right of mothers to live is not balanced by the right of babies to live because states are still not irrefutably establishing the full humanity of babies, while also not clearly defining the degree of danger to a mother where the doctor may remove the child without legal consequences.
     Meanwhile state courts, even in prolife states, remain solidly in the way of saving lives, defying Dobbs which said courts should not block the choice of voters. Yet neither will state courts address the fact which justifies abortion restrictions: babies are people. Nor will state lawmakers, so far as I have read, make that a central defense. Those courts have no business blocking prolife laws for as long as they dodge the fact which demands them.
     Now let’s consider longer range strategy, of how to get courts to outlaw abortion even in “blue states” (where abortion-supporting Democrats hold the majority). How is that goal advanced by excusing blue state courts from ruling on abortion laws as long as they ignore Life?
     Well, of course blue state courts won’t have any prolife laws to overturn. One possible way to get courts to outlaw abortion in blue states is for a red state to sue a blue state for slaughtering its citizens. A controversy between states goes directly to SCOTUS, as provided in the Constitution.
     Another way would be if blue states still try to prosecute life savers for “sidewalk counseling” or for blocking doors, and the defendants raise these defenses. Prolife defendants have consistently made the humanity of babies central to their defense, but the arguments here are stronger than I have seen raised in any court.
     The way provided in the Constitution is that courts stay out of deciding which humans get to murder and which must be slaughtered, but let Congress enact a “remedial” law (not a “substantive” law) and demand courts exercise their constitutional role of enforcing it.
     Short of that, an indirect way abortion would be outlawed even in blue states through these arguments is simply that as they prevail in red states, they will educate lawmakers, judges, and the public, until hearts soften and murder becomes unthinkable again, and the Democrat party retires to “the ash heap of history”.
     The same principles apply to freedom of religious expression which courts outlaw, calling it “establishment of religion”. Statements that are true should never be prosecuted, no matter how much they favor the Bible. Courts have no business challenging Christian expression if they are unwilling to investigate evidence of whether it is true.
     Will this open the floodgates to pagan expression? Yes, the forum will open wide, where Christians will be free to defend themselves and the public will hear both sides. Maybe Christians will finally turn their gatherings into their own media as the Bible calls for.
     Unfortunately prolife legislatures have not cited this overwhelming evidence in court. Some cite the expertise of new authorities that have not yet been tested in court, but not the tested evidence. This is a powerful resource that prolifers should use. In both kinds of courts: courts of law, and the "court of public opinion".

Matthew 16:24 If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Huh? How do we fit this with Jesus coming so we could have Life “more abundantly”?

How from our Cross is Life discovered?

How from such pain, can come such joy?

The Gospel tracts say Jesus suffered

so we’d need no works to employ.

Then what’s this Cross we take and follow?

Is there no “work” for us to do?

My Cup of Love I’ll lift and swallow.

I’ll “lose” false life, and find Life True.

[1] More about “...murder, which the 14th Amendment doesn’t let any state legalize”
The legal goal of outlawing abortion in every state is dismissed by every SCOTUS justice and by most prolife lawyers, (quotes follow), but that goal has failed only by ignoring this consensus of fact finders - “the Mammoth in the Room”. It has been successfully ignored only because prolife lawmakers have not placed it in Findings of Facts where judges were forced to address it.
The Constitution isn’t as bad as prolifers think: Schluetter.
Debating with Judge Bork, Law professor Nathan Schluetter at Hillsdale College wrote in 2003: “It is surprising...that on this most central constitutional and moral issue [that babies are in fact people so we shouldn’t murder them] a preponderance of pro-life advocates and legal scholars continually misinterpret the Constitution. According to them, a proper reading of the Constitution would [go no farther than to] reject [Roe’s] concept of a privacy right to abortion, and thus return the nation to the pre-Roe status quo in which the decision of when, whether, and how to regulate [murder] was left to the states. In offering this “restoration interpretation,” they ignore or reject the proper interpretation, which would extend the [right to life] of the Fourteenth Amendment to unborn persons [which will outlaw baby killing in every state]. This is what I will call in this essay the ‘unborn person interpretation.’
“They continue to do this despite the fact that both the majority in Roe and the appellants to the case conceded that if the personhood of the unborn [or, the fact that babies of people are real people] could be established, ‘the [abortionist’s] case, [for legalizing baby killing in every state] of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment [thus outlawing abortion in EVERY state].’
“To gauge the pervasiveness of the restoration interpretation among life advocates, one need only consult [a past issue of this publication]. Forty-five leading pro-life advocates, including Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Clarke Forsythe of Americans United for Life, Wanda Franz of the National Right to Life Committee, and Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition, signed a much heralded joint ‘Statement of Pro-Life Principle and Concern’ published in First Things in 1996 in which the primary legal complaint was made that Roe ‘wounded American democracy’ by removing the issue of abortion from “democratic concern.”
“The statement suggested two legal remedies: first, the Supreme Court could reverse Roe , returning the issue to the states; second, the nation could pass a constitutional amendment that would extend Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process protection to unborn persons.
“The statement does not even hint at the possibility of a Supreme Court ruling that would extend due process and equal protection to unborn persons [based on the indisputable fact that babies are real people, requiring no additional legal recognition of their right to life]. The First Things statement seems to reflect the unanimous opinion of those Justices on the Supreme Court who have urged reversing Roe , not one of whom has attempted to make or even respond in their opinions to the unborn person interpretation. [Not even the most liberal justices have denied that babies are real people, yet not even the most conservative justices consider the indisputable evidence worth mentioning.]
This misunderstanding doesn’t just threaten babies. “However well-intentioned, the arguments of the restoration advocates are usually grounded in an epistemological skepticism that is alien to normal constitutional interpretation and harmful to the political morality on which free government is based.”

[2] More about “Juries/court-recognized Finders of Facts”
When juries ruled that babies are real people. When prolifers blocked abortionists’ doors before 1993, the only seriously disputed fact issue at trial was whether human lives were saved. The earliest juries ruled that they were, and acquitted, so judges stopped letting juries hear that defense. Abortionists were so scared of juries thinking babies are people, that when a judge decided to let the jury hear that defense, the abortionist would drop the prosecution.
A law school journal reports: “After the court ruled that it would allow the [Necessity] Defense to go to the jury, the Women for Women Clinic dropped the prosecution. If the defense is permitted, evidence is introduced that life begins at conception. This evidence is rarely contradicted by the prosecution, which is merely proving the elements of criminal trespass. [Except for the one element that matters, and the only contested trial issue: whether lives were saved.] Rather than risk such a precedent, many clinics prefer to dismiss. In fact, defense counsel have admitted that their intent is to bring the abortion issue back before the United States Supreme Court to consider the very question of when life begins, an issue on which the Court refused to rule in Roe...” (The Cincinnati Law Review footnote analyzes the case of Ohio v. Rinear, No. 78999CRB-3706 (Mun. Ct. Hamilton County, Ohio, dismissed May 2, 1978)
Juries don’t usually give reasons for their verdicts. I (Dave Leach, author) was a defendant in such a trial, where the judge allowed the jury to hear the defense, the abortionist let the case proceed, and the jury acquitted. State v. Brouillette, et al, Johnson County, Iowa, 1989. 155 of us were arrested January 26, 1989 for blocking the doors of the Emma Goldman clinic in Iowa City, Iowa. Rather than pack all 155 in the court room, 16 of us were tried in the first batch. It was assumed that what happened to them would drive what happened later to the rest; especially since J. Patrick White, the prosecuting county attorney, had told newspapers that if the first 16 were acquitted there is no way he would prosecute the others.
How God provided an official record of the jury’s reasons. But after the jury acquitted the first 16, White refused to dismiss, and that is the only reason we have an official court record documenting that the Defense of Justification was the only issue before the jury. The jury didn’t say so, but the judge did, in his ruling dismissing the remaining charges. That ruling is so helpful, and the difficulty of getting an official record of a jury’s reasons so great, that God must be credited and thanked for presumably hardening the heart of the prosecutor so the judge had to rule.
The judge wrote that both sides stipulated to (officially agreed about) the facts. “Each Defendant stipulated to his or her identity; to entering and remaining upon public property; and to failing to leave said public property after being notified and requested to vacate by persons whose duty it was to supervise the use and maintenance of this property. By this stipulation, the sole element of the offense of Criminal Trespass which remained to be proven was whether each defendant acted without justification. [Violating a minor offense, like trespassing, is “justified” when it is “necessary” to save lives.] The verdict of the jury indicates the State failed to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, the one essential element of the charge which remained in issue.
In a trial of the remaining 138 Defendants, [one of the 155 arrested was juvenile and was not charged], a jury would be presented with this identical issue. So the remaining charges should be dropped by the theory of Issue Preclusion - if Joe is found innocent after doing something, Jack should be after doing the same thing.)”
Another such case may be Northern Virginia Women's Medical Center v. Balch, 617 F.2d 1045, 1048-49 (4th Cir. 1980) which refers to two unreported cases where “necessity” led to acquittals. But it is not clear whether it was a jury or “bench” trial.

[3] More about “Expert Witnesses/court-recognized Fact Finders’”
Doctors & geneticists routinely testified in “Operation Rescue”-type door-blocking trials. See footnote #4: “If the defense is permitted, evidence is introduced that life begins at conception. This evidence is rarely contradicted by the prosecution,” The evidence is presented by expert witnesses – doctors, geneticists, etc.
When a world famous geneticist flew from France to Wichita. A case widely reported among prolifers was when Elizabeth Tilson, a defendant who blocked an abortion door so mothers couldn’t go inside to kill their babies, flew in a world famous geneticist from France to Judge Paul Clark’s Wichita court. There was no jury, but a “bench” trial over which Clark presided. His lengthy ruling, acquitting Tilson, is reported in Appendix H of “How States can Outlaw Abortion in a Way that Survives Courts”. A paperback is available at Amazon; a free PDF is posted at www.Saltshaker.us.
How Courts Dodged Overwhelming Evidence of Life. The defense raised in virtually all those trials of all those 60,000+ arrested life savers was based on American law, not religion. I know of no case where anyone asked for a religious exemption from letting the slaughter continue, or who gave Bible verses as the reason they should be acquitted. And yet courts routinely dismissed legitimate legal defenses as being exclusively religious.
Surely the most notorious example was Elizabeth Tilson’s defense on July 20, 1992. She even flew in the world’s top geneticist from France, Dr. LeJeune, to testify about “when life begins”. District Judge Paul Clark, summarizing the defense and ruling in her favor, did not indicate religion was any part of the defense. (See excerpts in Appendix H, p. 145.) Yet the Kansas Court dismissed all that world-class scientific evidence as a “moral or ethical belief” of some dowdy no-account religious kook housewife who expects law to bow to her superstitions.

If recognized as [a] defense in [a] criminal case, justification by necessity defense only applies when [the] harm or evil which [the] defendant seeks to prevent by his or her own criminal conduct is legal[ly recognized] harm or evil as opposed to moral or ethical belief of individual defendant....defendants did not engage in illegal conduct because they were faced with a choice of evils. Rather, they intentionally trespassed on complainant's property in order to interfere with the rights of others....

But what about the world-class testimony that human beings were being slaughtered? Completely irrelevant, the court said. We have to follow “law”, not some frowsy housewife’s “moral or ethical belief”:

In a criminal prosecution for trespass upon the property of an abortion clinic, the defense of justification by necessity is inapplicable and evidence of when life begins is irrelevant. The admission of evidence of when life begins in such an action was error by the trial court....Judge Paul Clark held that...the defendant was absolved of any criminal liability for her actions, based upon the necessity defense [which] justified her trespassing upon the Clinic property for the purpose of saving a human life. At trial, over the objections of the City, the defendant was allowed to introduce expert testimony on the question of when life begins. The City did not attempt to controvert such evidence but instead took the position that the evidence was inadmissible because it was irrelevant.

Her REAL motive, said the Court, was not “saving a human life” as documented by the world’s leading expert on genetics at all, but was “to interfere with the rights of others” according to some individual’s “moral or ethical belief”
This is not an isolated “straw man” misconstruction of a serious legal defense. Appellate courts did it routinely. Appendix F of my book, linked in Note 3, gives examples. If we could trust courts to never do that again, this book could be a lot shorter.
Doctors testifying as official Expert Witnesses in “rescue” trials was so routine that even I had one in my own trial. I found a doctor to testify in my own trial after I was arrested for sitting in front of a Planned Barrenhood door to prevent mothers from coming in to murder their babies. It was after a workshop put on by “rescuers” to educate people who had never been inside a courtroom how to conduct ourselves in court, since few of us could afford a lawyer and lawyers successful in such cases could not be found. Doctors willing to testify for free were plentiful. Their testimony was routine in “rescue” trials, even after judges stopped allowing juries to hear them. There were not just a few trials. In about 1992 Operation Rescue reported that there had been over 60,000 arrests of door-blockers.
After judges stopped letting juries listen to the witnesses, doctors still testified, but after sending the jury out. It is called a “proffer” of evidence; the judge rules that it is irrelevant, but he will let the evidence go into the record so that it will be there for any appeal.
Updated science is summarized by the Illinois Right to Life in their amicus brief filed in Dobbs v. Jackson. “Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in his testimony in connection with the 1981 hearing on Senate Bill 158, the Human Life Bill, see infra at 15-16, concluded, ‘I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty . . . is not a human being. This is human life at every stage.’ Cited in House Resolution No. 214, https://perma. cc/6XRG-L2C8.
The Consensus of Biologists. “b. A n over whelming majority of biologists recognize that a human’s life begins at fertilization. A recent international study involving 5,577 biologists from 86 countries who work at 1,061 top-ranked academic institutions confirmed the scientific consensus on when life begins. The study asked biologists to confirm or reject five statements that represent the view that a human’s life begins at fertilization. The majority of the biologists in the study identified as liberal (89%), pro#choice (85%), and non-religious (63%). 5,337 biologists (96%) affirmed at least one of the statements and only 240 participants declined to affirm any statements (4%).
The study participants were also asked to answer an essay question: “From a biological perspective, how would you answer the question, ‘When does a human’s life begin?’” Most biologists (68%) indicated fertilization. Thus, while in Roe, the Court found that experts could not arrive at any consensus at that point in the development of man’s knowledge, that is no longer the case.” [American participants included biologists from Harvard University, Princeton University, Stanford University, and Yale University. See When Does Life Begin?, Illinois Right to Life, https://perma.cc/U99P-4Y6C. Steven A. Jacobs, Balancing Abortion Rights and Fetal Rights: A Mixed Methods Mediation of the U.S. Abortion Debate, Knowledge@Uchicago, 2019, https://perma.cc/GZT2-8JDN
An Official Senate Report. “c. Legislative hearings on when life begins marshalled scientific evidence that life begins at fertilization. During hearings conducted by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Senate Bill 158, the “Human Life Bill”, numerous scientific experts testified regarding when life begins. The Official Senate Report concluded that: “Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being - a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.” [Report, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981, 7] In the hearings, Dr. Jerome Lejeune testified that “[l]ife has a very, very long history, but each individual has a very neat beginning – the moment of its conception” because “[t]o accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence.” S-158 Hearings, April 23, 1981 transcript, 18. [ S-158 Hearings, April 23, 1981 Transcript, https://perma. cc/6DCT-UT4P.]
No alternative theories on when a human’s life begins in scientific literature. “Experts from leading institutions have testified that there are no alternative theories on when a human’s life begins in the scientific literature. Dr. Hymie Gordon, Professor of Medical Genetics and physician at the Mayo Clinic, testified: “I have never ever seen in my own scientific reading, long before I became concerned with issues of life of this nature, that anyone has ever argued that life did not begin at the moment of conception and that it was a human conception if it resulted from the fertilization of the human egg by a human sperm. As far as I know, these have never been argued against.” Id. at 52. This lack of any published, let alone generally accepted, alternative scientific theories was also attested to by Dr. Micheline Matthew-Roth, a principal research associate in the Department of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Id. at 41-42. ...
A few disagree but without even trying to invoke science, medicine, or facts. “While some oppose the consensus view that human life begins at fertilization, the few counter-arguments made are philosophical or ideological, rather than scientific or fact-driven. In point of fact, no viable alternative to the consensus view has been propounded.”

[4] More about “State Legislatures/court-recognized Fact Finders”
“At least 38 states”, (enough to enact a Constitutional Amendment), “have enacted fetal-homicide statutes, and 28 of those statutes protect life from conception.” Hamilton v. Scott, 97 So. 3d 728 (Ala. 2012) The ruling’s basis: “State v. Courchesne, 296 Conn. 622, 689 n. 46, 998 A.2d 1, 50 n.46 (2010) (‘[As of March 2010], at least [thirty-eight] states have fetal homicide laws.’ (quoting the National Conference of State Legislatures, Fetal Homicide Laws (March 2010) (alterations in Courchesne)”
Amicus filed in Dobbs by Illinois Right to Life:
LIFE%20IN%20SUPPORT%20OF%20PETITIONERS.pdf “Fetuses are recognized as human persons in numerous contexts: (1) laws that restrict abortion at some point in fetal development, (2) fetal homicide laws, (3) prohibitions against capital punishment imposed upon pregnant women, (4) recovery for fetal deaths under wrongful death statutes, (5) the rights of preborn children under property law, (6) legal guardianship of prenatal humans, [See Paul Benjamin Linton, The Legal Status of the Unborn Child Under State Law, 6 U. St. Thomas J.L. & Pub. Pol’y, 2011, https://perma.cc/XB8E-G375. ] (7) the rights of preborn children to a deceased parent’s Social Security and Disability benefits[SSR 68-22: SECTION 216(h)(3)(C). – Relationship – Status of Illegitimate Posthumous Child, Social Security Administration, https://perma.cc/W3TR-89L9. ], and (8) the rights of inheritance of posthumously born children.[. Alea Roberts, Where’s My Share?: Inheritance Rights of Posthumous Children, American Bar Association, Jun. 13, 2019, https://perma.cc/36VN-HZZ8 ] Despite the plethora of contexts in which fetuses are recognized as persons under the law, this Court has yet to recognize the personhood of preborn humans.
“b. States are increasingly proposing and enacting laws protective of unborn human beings even when abortion is curtailed as a result.
“Today, 43 states have enacted laws protecting prenatal humans although abortion is thereby restricted. All but one restrict abortion access at the earliest point permissible by Roe (viability), and states have recently more emphatically asserted a state interest in the lives of previable human beings by seeking to protect them: (1) after the sixth week since that is known to be the point at which a fetus’ heart first beats (AL HB314; IA SF359) and (2) after the twentieth week since that has been found to be the point at which a fetus can first feel pain (OH SB 127).”
States don’t unanimously protect the unborn, but no state finds that unborn babies are not human persons. Plus, 38 states is enough to ratify a Constitutional Amendment. (Not that they should: as other Findings observe, there is already more than enough consensus of fact finders to require outlawing of abortion in every state; and the consensus of fact finders is actually a stronger legal reason than a constitutional amendment, since no other Amendment was ratified to establish a fact.

[5] More about “Judges/Fact Finders”
One example is Judge Paul Clark: see footnote 3. Another is Justice Dimond in Alaska: Cleveland v. Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska, 631 P.2d 1073, 1084:
(Concurring:) "I empathize with the defendants' sorrow over the loss of human lives caused by abortions. I believe the United States Supreme Court burdened this court with a tragic decision when it held in Roe...that the word “person, as used in the fourteenth amendment, does not include the unborn...”, and that states cannot “override the rights of the pregnant woman” by “adopting one theory of life.”
"I do not agree with the Court's conclusion that a state's interest in potential life does not become “compelling” until the fetus has attained viability. It stated its explanation for this conclusion as follows:
"With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the ‘compelling’ point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications.” ~ "(410 U.S. at 163, 93 S.Ct. 731-32, 35 L.Ed.2d at 183) As Professor Tribe indicates, “One reads the court's explanation [of the magic line called “viability”] several times before becoming convinced that nothing has inadvertently been omitted.” (Tribe, Forward to The Supreme Court 1972 Term, 87 Harv.L.Rev. 1. 4 (1973](footnote omitted]). I agree with Professor Tribe when he states, “Clearly, this (analysis] mistakes a definition for a syllogism”, and offers no reason at all for what the Court has held. (Id., quoting Ely, The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade, 82 Yale L.J. 920, 924 (1973](footnotes omitted]).
"In effect, the Supreme Court held that because there is no consensus as to when human life begins it can act as if it were proven that human life does not begin until birth so as to preserve to women the right to make their own decision whether an abortion takes a human life or not. It would make more sense to me if, in the face of uncertainty, any error made were side in favor of the fetus, which many believe to be human life.
"The development of a zygote into a human child is a continual, progressive development. No one suggests that the born child is not a human being. It seems undeniable, however, that human life begins before birth. As Professor Curran states:
“[T]he fetus one day before birth and the child one day after birth are not that significantly or qualitatively different – in any respect; Even outside the womb the newborn child is not independent but remains greatly dependent on the mother and others. Birth in fact does not really tell much about the individual as such but only where the individual is--either outside the womb or still Inside the womb.' (C. Curran, Transition and Tradition in Moral Theology, p. 209 (1919]). Similarly, viability does not mark the beginning of the truly human being.
"[V]iability again indicates more about where the fetus can live than what it is. The fetus immediately before viability is not that qualitatively different from the viable fetus. In addition viability is a very inexact criterion because it is intimately connected with medical and scientific advances. In the future it might very well be possible for the fetus to live in an artificial womb or even with an artificial placenta from a very early stage in fetal development.
"I join with those persons who believe that truly human life begins sometime between the second and third week after conception...."
A dissent by Justice Mahoney said
“Until the Court decides when a fetus is a person, I see no reason to deny the defense of necessity to those who believe that the fetus is viable and is a person...At least it would get the issue squarely before the U.S. Supreme Court....” Detwiler v. Akron, C.A. No. 14385 at 22 (9th App. Dist. 1990)

[6] More about “Congress/court-recognized Fact Finder
18 U.S.C. 1841(d) “...the term “unborn child” means a child in utero, and the term “child in utero” or “child, who is in utero” means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
Finding #7 explains why this Personhood statement is as powerful as a Constitutional Amendment, and is NOT mitigated by section (c), as alleged by the National Right to Life Committee and by Republican Congressmen.

[7] More about “No American legal authority has ruled that constitutionally protected ‘life begins’ any later than conception.”
No American legal authority has ruled that constitutionally protected “life begins” any later than conception. Not even New York’s January 22, 2019 law.
This needs to be clarified because conservative news reported as if New York became an exception. Not that the law was harmless. It legalized abortions through birth when the abortionist alleged the baby would die soon anyway. It allowed non-doctors to kill babies. It repealed a law requiring a second physician to be present in case an infant was born alive and needdobbs v jacksoned care.
But it didn’t define “person” to only mean human beings who are born, leaving unborn humans defined as non-persons. The articles I found didn’t exactly say that, but they implied that by reporting the definition of “persons”, without reporting that the definition was not added by the new law but had been in the law for years, and without reporting the context of the definition which simply means that when the coroner investigates dead bodies found in his county, or in a jail, he will not investigate unborn babies. It also means a judge, when excluding the public from divorce or rape trials, will not exclude unborn babies.
The definition: “ ‘Person,’ when referring to the victim of a homicide, means a human being who has been born and is alive.” As I said, the conservative reports didn’t directly say the definition meant that unborn babies were defined as nonpersons, so most readers might not have thought about it. But because I had been claiming that no American legal authority had ever ruled that babies become real people at any later time than fertilization, I wanted to look into it to see if New York had created an exception.
You can verify that the definition was already in the law by reading the bill, and noting that the phrase is not underlined, which is how additions to laws are indicated. See &Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Committee%26nbspVotes=Y&Floor%26nbspVotes=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y You can also verify it by reading the law as of 2016, which includes that definition. [1]
You can read the Breitbart report at 2019/01/24/8-shocking-facts-about-new-yorks-radical-abortion-law/
You can read the Townhall report at laurettabrown/2 019/01/23/new-york-passes-extreme-abortion-legislation-on-the-anniversary-of-roe-v-wade-n2539902hh The law had previously read “Homicide means conduct which causes the death of a person [or an unborn child....]” The 2019 law deleted the part in brackets.
The definition previously had two more paragraphs which the 2019 law deleted. They defined the terms “abortional act” and “justifiable abortional act” which had been used in the now deleted law against late term abortion.
This point is worth clearing up because it is a very strong, important argument for the legal recognizability of all unborn babies as humans/persons, and of all abortions as murder, that no American legal authority has ruled that constitutionally protected “life begins” any later than conception. Not one.
Not even foreign legal authorities support any right to abortion. 141 International Legal Scholars submitted an amicus brief in the Dobbs v. Jackson case declaring that “Whatever role international law plays in evaluating abortion regulations in the United States, it offers no basis for the existence of a human right to abortion.” (http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185170/20210729071535904_19-1392%20Amicus%20Brief%20of%20141%20International%20Legal%20Scholars.pdf) “The minority of States that choose to allow elective abortion impose a standard gestational limit of twelve weeks, which is more restrictive than Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act.”
“If the Court chooses to consult international law in this case, it will find there is no treaty that recognizes a so-called human right to abortion, nor has such a right been established through customary law. To the contrary, the practice across all regions demonstrates a consistent State prerogative to protect unborn life. Nor has any international court declared the existence of an international right to abortion, even in regions with the most permissive abortion regimes. Thirdparty actors seeking to invent a new right to abortion err when interpreting key international instruments, such as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Rome Statute, and the International Conference on Population and Development. The clear language in those documents defies any attempt to repurpose them to create an international human right to abortion.
“On the other hand, provisions recognizing the unborn child as a rights-holder can be found in many international human rights instruments, including the American Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Most States choose to exercise the prerogative to protect unborn life by regulating abortion much more strictly than in the United States. Even in the minority of States that permit elective abortions, most specify a gestational limit of twelve weeks. That limit is more restrictive than Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, which allows elective abortion until fifteen weeks’ gestation, and then permits abortion only for medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormality.”
Their conclusions were echoed by another international group, Center for Family and Human Rights (www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/185123/20210728132729071_CFam Amicus Brief Filed.pdf)
“The 2018 Mississippi Gestational Age Act banning most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, when the child in utero is known to suffer pain from common abortion procedures, is fully consistent with International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ratified by the United States, which presumptively protects the right to life of children in the womb (hereinafter, the “Covenant”), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Dec. 16, 1966, S. EXEC. DOC. E, 95-2 (1978), 999 U.N.T.S. 171 (entered into force Mar. 23, 1976), as well as other human rights commitments and obligations of the United States.
“A careful reading of the text and history of the Covenant reveals that children in the womb were never excluded from the right to life, and that, more broadly, international law does not establish a human right to abortion in any circumstance, either through treaty obligation or by custom....
“Treaty law is the supreme Law of the Land and the Court has a constitutional responsibility to declare what the law is. The Court should make a finding of law that children in the womb are not excluded from the right to life under the Covenant, given the plain meaning of the text of the Covenant when it was ratified by the U.S., the interpretation of the Covenant by the Executive branch, and its implementation by other States who are party to the treaty, therefore, laws to protect children in the womb from being arbitrarily deprived of their right to life, regardless of viability, are consistent with the international human rights obligations of the United States.”

[8] More about “Even Roe v. Wade said ‘of course’, and even the lawyer for the abortionists agreed, that no state could keep abortion legal now that this fact is established.”
If there are 39 witnesses to a murder, should a prosecutor bring forward only one? But legislatures have supported abortion bans with only their own testimony in their Findings. No 37 other states. No Congress. No thousands of uncontradicted expert witnesses. No dozens of juries. Only a trace of the overwhelming evidence for the claim that constitutionally protected “life begins” at fertilization.
For as long as prolifers do not justify their restrictions of abortion with the full range of evidence available from all states, it seems unlikely, indeed not fully rational, that the Supreme Court will end the right of women to take care of their own health for the sake of embryonic pigs and rabbits – which is how human embryos were depicted in the illustration cited by Roe, published in Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary. (See Appendix I in the book cited in Footnote #3.)
The amicus brief filed in Dobbs v. Jackson by Illinois Right to Life _19-1392 BRIEF FOR AMICUS CURIAE ILLINOIS RIGHT TO LIFE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS.pdf:
"In Roe, the Court based its “viability” standard on: (a) lack of a scientific consensus on when human life begins...It recognized that if a human fetus is a “person” under the Fourteenth Amendment, the case for unrestricted abortion would be untenable “for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.” Id. at 157.
"....Roe’s recognition of a right to abort a previable pregnancy rests on the belief that the termination would not extinguish the life of a human person. That belief is no longer factually tenable given the current state of scientific knowledge concerning the origin and development of the human fetus. Roe also rests on a determination that the humanity and personhood of a human fetus was not generally recognized in law. That legal context has changed as well. Among other changes in the law, fetuses are now protected as human beings under laws prohibiting fetal homicide. Other laws, such as “heartbeat” laws and laws protecting against fetal pain, which are increasingly being enacted by the states, demonstrate their interest in protecting the youngest and most vulnerable humans. Finally, changes in the laws and the availability of social services that support and protect pregnant women have ameliorated the plight of pregnancy and lessened the burden of child-rearing. All of these changes rob Roe of its factual and legal underpinnings...
"Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in his testimony in connection with the 1981 hearing on Senate Bill 158, the “Human Life Bill, see infra at 15-16, concluded, “I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty . . . is not a human being. This is human life at every stage.” Cited in House Resolution No. 214, https://perma. cc/6XRG-L2C8.
"An over whelming majority of biologists recognize that a human’s life begins at fertilization. A recent international study involving 5,577 biologists from 86 countries who work at 1,061 top-ranked academic institutions22 confirmed the scientific consensus on when life begins.23 The study asked biologists to confirm or reject five statements that represent the view that a human’s life begins at fertilization. The majority of the biologists in the study identified as liberal (89%), prochoice (85%), and non-religious (63%). 5,337 biologists (96%) affirmed at least one of the statements and only 240 participants declined to affirm any statements (4%). The study participants were also asked to answer an essay question: “From a biological perspective, how would you answer the question, ‘When does a human’s life begin?’” Most biologists (68%) indicated fertilization. Thus, while in Roe, the Court found that experts could not arrive at any consensus at that point in the development of man’s knowledge, that is no longer the case.
"c. Legislative hearings on when life begins marshalled scientific evidence that life begins at fertilization. During hearings conducted by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Senate Bill 158, the “Human Life Bill”, numerous scientific experts testified regarding when life begins. The Official Senate Report concluded that: “Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being - a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.”24 In the hearings, Dr. Jerome Lejeune testified that “[l]ife has a very, very long history, but each individual has a very neat beginning – the moment of its conception” because “[t]o accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence.” S-158 Hearings, April 23, 1981 transcript, 18.25
"Experts from leading institutions have testified that there are no alternative theories on when a human’s life begins in the scientific literature. Dr. Hymie Gordon, Professor of Medical Genetics and physician at the Mayo Clinic, testified: “I have never ever seen in my own scientific reading, long before I became concerned with issues of life of this nature, that anyone has ever argued that life did not begin at the moment of conception and that it was a human conception if it resulted from the fertilization of the human egg by a human sperm. As far as I know, these have never been argued against.” Id. at 52. This lack of any published, let alone generally accepted, alternative scientific theories was also attested to by Dr. Micheline Matthew-Roth, a principal research associate in the Department of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. Id. at 41-42.
"d. Even doctors who perform abortions and proponents of abortion rights admit fetuses are human beings. Many practitioners of abortion and supporters of abortion rights acknowledge human life begins at conception.26 For example, when abortion doctor Dr. Curtis Boyd was interviewed, he acknowledged with respect to abortion: “Am I killing? Yes, I am. I know that.”27 Abortion rights supporter and ethicist Peter Singer has written that being “a member of a given species is something that
26. Derek Smith, Pro-Choice Concedes: Prominent Abortion Proponents Concede The Barbarity Of Abortion, Human Defense Initiative, Nov. 7, 2018, https://perma.cc/GXH8-MAUU. See also, A New Ethic for Medicine and Society, California Medicine, Sep. 1970. 27. KVUE Austin Interview of Dr. Curtis Boyd, at 0:23, YouTube, Nov. 6, 2009, https://perma.cc/GYB2-3YFY.
can be determined scientifically, by an examination of the nature of the chromosomes in the cells of living organisms. In this sense there is no doubt that from the first moments of its existence an embryo conceived from human sperm and eggs is a human being.”
e. Views opposing the position that human life starts at fertilization are unscientific and ideological.
While some oppose the consensus view that human life begins at fertilization, the few counter-arguments made are philosophical or ideological, rather than scientific or fact-driven. In point of fact, no viable alternative to the consensus view has been propounded.29
....Ultimately, opposing arguments to the scientific consensus that a human’s life begins at fertilization are fallacious or focus on aspects of biology that are not relevant to the biological classification of human beings.

[9] More about “For other public issues, division is over facts.”
Climate Change activists treat it as an emergency which is significantly affected by human activity. Their opponents say climate change is in fact no emergency, and even if it were, human activity has negligible impact on it. Both sides rely on “science”. (Of course pollution h
arms our health and quality of life, especially in the locality of the CRT controversy is entirely over facts. A very different set of facts of American history competes sometimes violently with the
Immigration policy is a tug of war between claims of groups like NumbersUSA and Center for Immigration Studies that so much immigration drives up prices, drives down wages, destroys national security, etc. and peer-reviewed economics studies claiming economic benefit to citizens at most levels, from a slight increase in immigration.
Division over covid was all about facts. Masks work, no they don’t. Vaccines save lives, no they cause millions of “excess deaths”.
Can boys who want to be girls join girls sports team and compete fairly? Concern for Biblical morality is in the background, but the public arguing is over the factual differences between boy and girl bodies, and how much of that is equalized by drugs and surgeries.
Legalization of marijuana starts and sputters as facts emerge and are alleged about the impact on crime, auto accidents, on the health of users, and on the impact on holding down a job, which affects the whole economy.
Abortion controversy knows no comparable issue-driving dispute over whether babies of humans are real humans. There are practical difficulties in writing a “life of the mother” exception that will leave doctors free to save mothers who are truly endangered by their pregnancies without creating a loophole which babykillers will exploit, but there is no factual controversy about the full humanity of both mothers and their babies.

[10] More about “Disagreement about abortion is between unanimous fact finders and those who don't care about facts.”
See Finding #2.
It is for very good reasons like these that the findings of court-recognized fact finders are not just persuasive in court, but also in the Court of Public Opinion – in our culture in general. “Trust” and “Congress” aren’t a perfect fit, but compared to public trust in other human authorities it ranks high, while trust in juries and in experts ranks higher. We scrutinize the trustworthiness of political authorities more than that of authorities on other subjects because what political authorities rule affects our choices in life.
But the willingness of most of society to live by most of the rules imposed by our government is an important measure of society’s trust in its authorities to create rules which mostly conform to reality. Which in turn is an important measure of society’s trust in the expertise of its authorities to grasp reality to a reasonable level.

[11] More about "Courts that won’t address the facts that...necessitate a law...forfeits jurisdiction to review that law."
Thus courts have no business reviewing abortion laws, for as long as they refuse to address the irrefutable evidence that babies of people are people. Such a court’s only legitimate business is to enforce them.
But is that what Dobbs v. Jackson has already done?
’t SCOTUS gotten out of the abortion business and allowed states to outlaw abortion as thoroughly as their voters will permit?
Maybe SCOTUS will stay out of the way of saving lives. We should not assume they will stay out of the way when “life of the mother” exceptions come before them, where the right of mothers to live is not balanced by the right of babies to live because states are still not irrefutably establishing the full humanity of babies, while also not clearly defining the degree of danger to a mother where the doctor may remove the child without legal consequences.
Meanwhile state courts, even in prolife states, remain solidly in the way of saving lives, defying Dobbs which said courts should not block the choice of voters. Yet neither will state courts address the fact which justifies abortion restrictions: babies are people. Nor will state lawmakers, so far as I have read, make that a central defense. Those courts have no business blocking prolife laws for as long as they dodge the fact which demands them.
Now let’s consider longer range strategy, of how to get courts to outlaw abortion even in “blue states” (where abortion-supporting Democrats hold the majority). How is that goal advanced by excusing blue state courts from ruling on abortion laws as long as they ignore Life?
Well, of course blue state courts won’t have any prolife laws to overturn. One possible way to get courts to outlaw abortion in blue states is for a red state to sue a blue state for slaughtering its citizens. A controversy between states goes directly to SCOTUS, as provided in the Constitution.
Another way would be if blue states still try to prosecute life savers for “sidewalk counseling” or for blocking doors, and the defendants raise these defenses. Prolife defendants have consistently made the humanity of babies central to their defense, but the arguments here are stronger than I have seen raised in any court.
The way provided in the Constitution is that courts stay out of deciding which humans get to murder and which must be slaughtered, but let Congress enact a “remedial” law (not a “substantive” law) and demand courts exercise their constitutional role of enforcing it.
Short of that, an indirect way abortion would be outlawed even in blue states through these arguments is simply that as they prevail in red states, they will educate lawmakers, judges, and the public, until hearts soften and murder becomes unthinkable again, and the Democrat party retires to “the ash heap of history”.
The same principles apply to freedom of religious expression which courts outlaw, calling it “establishment of religion”. Statements that are true should never be prosecuted, no matter how much they favor the Bible. Courts have no business challenging Christian expression if they are unwilling to investigate evidence of whether it is true.
Will this open the floodgates to pagan expression? Yes, the forum will open wide, where Christians will be free to defend themselves and the public will hear both sides. Maybe Christians will finally turn their gatherings into their own media as the Bible calls for.
Unfortunately prolife legislatures have not cited this overwhelming evidence in court. Some cite the expertise of new authorities that have not yet been tested in court, but not the tested evidence. This is a powerful resource that prolifers should use. In both kinds of courts: courts of law, and the "court of public opinion".

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@@ Line 241: / Line 241: @@
 <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Short of that, an indirect way abortion would be outlawed even in blue states through these arguments is simply that as they prevail in red states, they will educate lawmakers, judges, and the public, until hearts soften and murder becomes unthinkable again, and the Democrat party retires to “the ash heap of history”.
 <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The same principles apply to freedom of religious expression which courts outlaw, calling it “establishment of religion”. Statements that are true should never be prosecuted, no matter how much they favor the Bible. Courts have no business challenging Christian expression if they are unwilling to investigate evidence of whether it is true.
-<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Will this open the floodgates to pagan expression? Yes, the forum will open wide, where Christians will be free to defend themselves and the public will hear both sides. Maybe Christians will finally turn their gatherings into their own media as the Bible calls for. </ref>
+<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Will this open the floodgates to pagan expression? Yes, the forum will open wide, where Christians will be free to defend themselves and the public will hear both sides. Maybe Christians will finally turn their gatherings into their own media as the Bible calls for.
+<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Unfortunately prolife legislatures have not cited this overwhelming evidence in court. Some cite the expertise of new authorities that have not yet been tested in court, but not the tested evidence. This is a powerful resource that prolifers should use. In both kinds of courts: courts of law, and the "court of public opinion".</ref>
-Unfortunately prolife legislatures have not cited this overwhelming evidence in court. Some cite the expertise of new authorities that have not yet been tested in court, but not the tested evidence. This is a powerful resource that prolifers should use. In both kinds of courts.
 ----

Difference between revisions of "Reversing Landmark Abomination Cases"

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Introduction

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Bible study: free wisdom, guaranteed success

Final Warning: read this at your own risk

Part 1: Authority of Court-Recognized Fact Finders

Statement of Fact #1. Court-recognized, court-tested Finders of Facts unanimously establish that unborn babies are fully human

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Difference between revisions of "Reversing Landmark Abomination Cases"

Revision as of 15:49, 16 September 2023

Introduction

Contents

Bible study: free wisdom, guaranteed success

Final Warning: read this at your own risk

Part 1: Authority of Court-Recognized Fact Finders

Statement of Fact #1. Court­-recognized, court-tested Finders of Facts unanimously establish that unborn babies are fully human

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Statement of Fact #1. Court-recognized, court-tested Finders of Facts unanimously establish that unborn babies are fully human