Difference between revisions of "Abortion Law Alabama"

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That’s right: court-recognized fact finders in every court-recognized category of fact finders are unanimous, of all who have taken a position: “when life begins” is at fertilization. No American legal authority has ruled that it begins any later. Dozens of juries and thousands of expert witnesses in “abortion prevention” cases; 38 states in their “unborn victims of violence” laws; Congress in its version of those laws, 18 USC 1841(d); and several individual judges – such as the 11th Circuit judges last year!  
 
That’s right: court-recognized fact finders in every court-recognized category of fact finders are unanimous, of all who have taken a position: “when life begins” is at fertilization. No American legal authority has ruled that it begins any later. Dozens of juries and thousands of expert witnesses in “abortion prevention” cases; 38 states in their “unborn victims of violence” laws; Congress in its version of those laws, 18 USC 1841(d); and several individual judges – such as the 11th Circuit judges last year!  
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<blockquote>The parties agree that...an unborn child is alive while its heart is beating, which usually begins around six weeks. See How Your Fetus Grows During Pregnancy, Am. Coll. of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (April 2018), http://www.acog.org/patients/faqs/ how-your-fetus-grows-during pregnancy. [http://lc.org/PDFs/Attachments2PRsLAs/2018/082218ALWomenCenterOpinionEleventhCircuit.pdf West Alabama Women's Center v. Miller], 17-15208, 8/22/2018]</blockquote>
 
 
 
This needs to be added to the defense, rather than leave the impression that ''only Alabama'' thinks like that. (Which is not much stronger a position than Texas took in 1972, when the argument implied that only Texas thinks like that.) This needs to be in the defense, to establish the ground for reversing “precedent upon precedent”. In 1973, the justices said they were “not in a position to speculate” about “when life begins”. Today, if the unanimous ruling of every American legal authority which has taken a position, in every court-recognized category of fact finders, is not enough for ''every'' judge to know “when life begins”, it is impossible for ''any'' judge to know ''anything''. That is far more than enough basis for invoking the “erroneous factual premise” exception to ''stare decisis.''  
 
This needs to be added to the defense, rather than leave the impression that ''only Alabama'' thinks like that. (Which is not much stronger a position than Texas took in 1972, when the argument implied that only Texas thinks like that.) This needs to be in the defense, to establish the ground for reversing “precedent upon precedent”. In 1973, the justices said they were “not in a position to speculate” about “when life begins”. Today, if the unanimous ruling of every American legal authority which has taken a position, in every court-recognized category of fact finders, is not enough for ''every'' judge to know “when life begins”, it is impossible for ''any'' judge to know ''anything''. That is far more than enough basis for invoking the “erroneous factual premise” exception to ''stare decisis.''  

Revision as of 20:33, 4 June 2019

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By Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa (talk) 01:58, 4 June 2019 (UTC) (Contributions, corrections, comments by other authors are separated with horizontal lines and are signed)

Alabama’s Abortion Ban: what threatens it, how we can save it

Video: See "Latest Abortion Laws: Alabama, Missouri" on the Biblewizard2 channel on Youtube.

The lead sponsor of Alabama's bill, and the author of the "Foundation for Moral Law" amicus brief, were shown this article a week before publication but chose not to interact.

Alabama is only the second state, since Rhode Island 46 years before, to outlaw virtually all abortion with stiff criminal penalties. It “makes providing an abortion a Class A felony, carrying with it a prison sentence of up to 99 years.” Alabama’s HB314, unlike any other past or imminent review of any other state prolife law since Rhode Island, is challenging federal courts to address the evidence that unborn babies of humans are humans (“persons”).

This article is about steps which, if taken, can get HB314 where it can end legal abortion. This article is about what we can do to encourage those steps to be taken. This article is also about the threats to HB314 if nothing changes.

HB314 was signed by Governor Kay Ivey Wednesday evening, May 15, 2019, the eve of the 46th anniversary of when Rhode Island’s similar law was shot down on May 16, 1973,

Strong evidence of Life. Like Rhode Island, Alabama added a “Legislative Findings” making a case for legal protection of the unborn, which courts reviewing the law will need to address:

...medical science has increasingly recognized the humanity of the unborn child. (f) Recent medical advances prove a baby's heart starts to beat at around six weeks. At about eight weeks, the heartbeat can be heard through an ultrasound examination. A fetal Doppler can detect a fetal heartbeat as early as 10 weeks. (g) Ultrasound imaging shows the developing child in utero. (h) As early as six weeks after fertilization, fetal photography shows the clear development of a human being. The Alabama Department of Public Health publication “Did You Know . . .” demonstrates through actual pictures at two-week intervals throughout the entire pregnancy the clear images of a developing human being.

But that’s irrelevant. Sadly, that isn’t enough to move the judges on the 11th Circuit federal court, where HB314 is now headed. At least it wasn’t enough last year, when the 11th Circuit wrote a stronger acknowledgment of the humanity of “a living unborn child”, with supporting medical evidence, and yet treated all that evidence as irrelevant – certainly no reason to stop murdering children by as brutal a “procedure” as has ever occurred to an evil imagination! That court said:

...dismemberment abortion [which we support]...involves tearing apart and extracting piece-by-piece from the uterus what was until then a living unborn child. This is usually done during the 15 to 18 week stage of development, at which time the unborn child’s heart is already beating. ...The parties agree that...an unborn child is alive while its heart is beating, which usually begins around six weeks. See How Your Fetus Grows During Pregnancy, Am. Coll. of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (April 2018), http://www.acog.org/patients/faqs/ how-your-fetus-grows-during pregnancy. West Alabama Women's Center v. Miller, 17-15208, 8/22/2018

The fact, agreed to by everyone, that abortion kills living children with beating hearts, is irrelevant in deciding whether to let mothers kill them?! By what logic?

The 11th Circuit didn’t mention any logic. They only said Roe made them do it. “In our judicial system, there is only one Supreme Court, and we are not it. As one of the ‘inferior Courts,’ we follow its decisions.”

But we can infer a rationale from what the federal court told Rhode Island in 1973, a rationale which was repeated in thousands of later abortion prevention trials (where prolifers prevented abortions, mostly by blocking doors) even though it is the opposite of what Roe v. Wade said.

In 1973, Rhode Island was told that babies are not people as a matter of law, according to Roe, so it is irrelevant whether babies are in fact people. Is that what courts will tell Alabama?

Roe didn’t say that. It is critical that prolifers understand that is the opposite of what Roe v. Wade said. Only when a significant portion of the population can tell when judges violate not only Scripture, morality, and common sense, but their own precedents, can judges be held accountable. The other reason prolife legal education is critical is that only to the extent of prolife consensus about the most effective legal strategies can prolife lawmakers have the support they need for the most effective prolife bills.

Before I show that Roe didn’t actually rule that babies are not “persons” or treat unborn personhood as “a matter of law”, or treat the factual nature of the unborn as irrelevent, but the opposite: that its legalization of abortion must be overturned when its factual premise is proved wrong, I need to explain why it is critical that Alabama’s law be next in line before the Supreme Court, and not displaced by a review of one of the other state prolife laws.

The Right Kind of Case: a challenge to any “right” to abortion

Which issue should prolifers place before courts:

[] “All unborn babies are humans (persons)”? That was the issue brought by Rhode Island in 1973 and by Alabama May 16. Or...

[] “Making abortionists murder humanely, or clean their murder rooms, or show girls who they are about to murder, or hurry up and murder before they can hear a heartbeat - none of those restrictions have the effect of substantially reducing abortions, and that certainly isn’t our purpose”? That’s the issue placed before courts by every state abortion restriction in between.

What a difference, legally as well as Biblically, between Alabama’s 2016 prolife law, which said that before a baby is torn limb from limb, he must be killed in a way that causes less pain, and this year’s law! The premise of Alabama’s dismemberment law was that murder ought to be humane. The premise of the current Alabama law is that murder ought to be outlawed.

Which kind of case appears most likely to get legal abortion repealed?

The second kind, according to Pat Robertson. Robertson wowed several liberal news sites with his statement about Alabama’s HB314 that “I don’t think this particular bill is the case I would want to bring into the Supreme Court. You want to get something that you know is going to win. I don’t think that will.” (Complete story: from 9:10 to 11:00.)

(The liberal spin, quoting just the first sentence, was “this is so extreme that even Pat Robertson doesn’t want abortion restricted that much!”)

In other words, don’t even try to win the war. You can’t do it. The enemy is going to invade and torture you all to death. Just try to win a crate of cyanide pills so your church can die quickly.

Prolifers need to understand why a complete challenge to abortion’s legality, like Alabama’s, is the only kind of case that can cause courts to reconsider abortion’s legality. None of the challenges from other states even raise the issue, and courts don’t normally address issues not raised.

The 11th Circuit told Alabama, last year, “The Supreme Court has interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to bestow on women a fundamental constitutional right of access to abortions.” The Court explained how that terminology from Roe morphed into: “whether ‘the purpose or effect of the (law at issue) is to place a substantial obstacle [or, “undue burden”] in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.’”

The Court said that is “The question in all abortion cases”.

Well, maybe that was true, last year.

Obviously there is no question about that with Alabama’s abortion ban this year! Abortion can face no more “substantial obstacle” than a virtually absolute ban!

But it was true last year, of all the reviews of state laws between Rhode Island and Alabama’s latest. All those state challenges to legal abortion accepted – did not challenge – the Supreme Court’s absurd premise that abortion is a “fundamental right”, and then struggled to argue that their restrictions were not an “undue burden” on baby killing.

Before courts talked about an “undue burden”, they stated almost the same rule a little differently: any restriction of a “fundamental right” must be “the least restrictive means of achieving a compelling government interest.”

That is, some other “compelling government interest” than saving human lives! Something like making abortionists murder humanely, or clean their murder rooms, or show girls who they are about to murder, or hurry up and murder before they can hear a heartbeat.

Here is how the 11th Circuit explained that “saving human lives” is not an acceptable “compelling government interest:

“B. The State’s Interest. One requirement that Casey and its progeny establish, which is carried in the “purpose or effect” language of the opinions, is that a state regulation that applies to pre-viability stage abortions must have a legitimate or valid purpose other than simply reducing the number of abortions.” P. 11-12

After May 16, the 11th Circuit can no longer say “The question in all abortion cases is whether ‘the purpose or effect of the (law at issue) is to place a substantial obstacle” before abortion. There is no question about that, when a law bans virtually all abortions! And when the law, moreover, plainly states that its purpose is to outlaw virtually all abortions! And plainly articulates a new, very different “question” (issue) for the court: unborn babies of humans are in fact humans. (Persons.) Killing them is in fact murder.

That is the legal step I have prayed for. That is what I wrote my book to encourage. (“How States can Outlaw Abortion in a Way that Survives Courts / Court recognized fact finders have unanimously established what Roe said would end legal abortion.” (Free PDF)

Before courts can acknowledge that abortion is the murder of living human beings whose right to life is “guaranteed” by the 14th Amendment, they have to have a case before them where that is the issue. That issue is not present in a case which leaves alone the assumption that murdering your baby is a fundamental right.

History

Although only Rhode Island and Alabama have, to date, been the only states to place that issue before courts, with criminal penalties for abortion, that issue was forefront in thousands of “abortion prevention” cases – where prolifers prevented abortion by “trespassing” - blocking “murder mill” doors – and arguing in court that it was “necessary” to save human lives. Whether those lives saved were “humans/persons” was the only contested issue in those cases – the actions of the life savers was seldom disputed.

Yet those thousands of judges dodged the core issue by following the lead of the judge who had shot down Rhode Island: they said that whether human lives were in fact saved was irrelevant, because Roe had ruled as a matter of law that those babies are not “persons”. Therefore, juries should not even be told about the only contested issue of the case, because juries are “finders of facts”, and “when [constitutionally protected] life begins” is a “question of law”.

(The devastating impact that had on the constitutional right to Trial By Jury is explained in an entertaining “Pee Wee TV” video series, featuring talented children, linked at Trial By Jury)

That is the opposite of what Roe or any later Supreme Court ruling said; Roe treated the issue as a “fact question” about which “the judiciary...is not in a position to speculate”, but should fact finders “establish” that babies are “recognizably human”, then “of course” abortion must be outlawed by all states.

But judges got away with that reasoning because everyone wanted them to. Prolifers were a minority of the Republican party, and those prolifers who supported “breaking the law” to save lives were a tiny minority of prolifers. Very few wanted legal abortion to end through one of those cases. Most were comfortable looking the other way when court reasoning made no sense.

That is why I have concluded it is necessary for a state to bring a “when [constitutionally protected] life begins” case to court. A case brought by lawmakers instead of “law breakers” is far more likely to have the support of most prolifers. And judges need public pressure on them or they will continue dodging Life. And the only way to mount public pressure on them is for a majority of prolifers to understand, and support, effective legal arguments that prolife lawyers place before courts, so they can recognize when judges dodge the evidence and arguments and rule unconstitutionally.

Yet it is those thousands of embarrassing cases which have provided the court records documenting the consensus of juries and expert witnesses [court-recognized fact finders] that “life begins” at fertilization, which are available for Alabama’s defense now, but were not available to Rhode Island then.

If that court-recognized evidence is added to the defense of Alabama’s law in court, I believe it will help save the law. But I am concerned it will not be, because it was not mentioned in the Legislative Findings, and because I have not seen it raised by any other prolife lawyer in any prolife case brought by a state law. That is why I am concerned that Alabama’s law is as vulnerable without that evidence as Alabama Governor Kay Ivey implied it was when she signed the bill:

Ivey, as well as the legislators who passed the bill, knew that Alabama’s abortion ban would never take effect, at least until the Supreme Court really does overturn Roe. “As citizens of this great country, we must always respect the authority of the US Supreme Court even when we disagree with their decisions,” Ivey conceded in her statement at the bill’s signing, admitting that the law was unenforceable because of Roe. And the Supreme Court isn’t likely to hear a case over the Alabama bill, or similarly extreme anti-abortion measures passed recently in other states. - MotherJones.com

Yet with this evidence, and with a few important legal arguments outlined here and in my book, I believe it is impossible for any judge to squarely address the evidence and keep abortion legal. And with the right public preparation, I believe it is impossible for any judge to get away with dodging the evidence. I do not believe Alabama lawmakers need to surrender all the hard work they have done to the vaguaries of judicial whim. I believe they can discuss these opportunities with the Alabama Attorney General who will be defending this law, and arrive at a defense which will end 46 years of legal abortion.

I am concerned that Alabama’s case must not wait until it reaches the Supreme Court before it wins. It has to win before the Federal District Court. That means these weaknesses in the apparent defense need to be strengthened immediately.

Because if Alabama loses in the District Court, the 11th Circuit has already explained that “Our role is to apply the law the Supreme Court has laid down to the facts the district court found.” So the 11th Circuit will likely affirm the district judgment. Then it will go to the Supreme Court, which this coming year will have what? a dozen? cases to pick from, none of which bring the Life issue. The Supreme Court would rather take one of those and then say that is the abortion case we will decide this year, sorry, Alabama.

Another part of Pat Robertson’s statement about Alabama’s HB314 is that the Supreme Court normally only hears cases where there is a “split in the circuits”; that is, where different circuit courts come up with opposite rulings. “And we haven’t gotten there yet.”

Certainly if HB314 wins in the district and 11th Circuit, that will be not only a “split in the circuits”, but if the Supreme Court doesn’t take the appeal it would be virtually the end of legal abortion as other states scramble to place a similar law before their circuits.

But as far as satisfying the Supreme Court’s Rule 10c which says the Court prefers cases where lower courts have “decided an important federal question in a way that conflicts with relevant decisions of this Court”, that is abundantly satisfied by the fact that virtually all courts below the Supreme Court have said the Supreme Court said the opposite of what it actually said. Roe did not actually rule that babies are not “persons”, treat unborn personhood as “a matter of law”, or treat the factual nature of the unborn as irrelevent, but the opposite: that its precedent must be overturned when its factual premise is proved wrong.

Adding these points to Alabama’s defense will help Alabama’s appeal satisfy Rule 10c and be selected by the Supreme Court, even if it loses below.

Roe did not rule that babies are not “persons”

Roe said “the judiciary...is not in a position to speculate” about “when (constitutionally protected) life begins” - that is, when babies become people – “recognizably human, or in terms of when a ‘person’ came into being, that is, infused with a ‘soul’”.

In other words Roe did not rule, one way or the other, on whether babies are “persons”.

Roe did not treat unborn personhood as “a matter of law”. Roe said the experts on whether babies are “persons” are not judges, but doctors and preachers! (“...those trained in the respective fields of medicine and theology...”)! The Supreme Court doesn’t defer to the superior expertise of doctors and preachers on a matter of law! Roe certainly didn’t treat “when [constitutionally protected] life begins” as a matter of law!

Roe did not treat the fact that all unborn babies are “recognizably human as irrelevent. Nor did the Court treat the established fact that babies are “recognizably human” as irrelevant: once “established”, Roe said, all states must “of course” outlaw abortion.

“If this suggestion of personhood [of unborn babies] is established, the...case [for legalizing abortion], of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.” Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113, 156


Those points are not made in HB314’s “Legislative Findings”. They were not made in Alabama’s dismemberment law which the 11th Circuit shot down last year. Adding them to Alabama’s defense this year would help neutralize the deadly exacerbation of Supreme Court precedent by lower courts.

These are the kinds of facts which satisfy the Supreme Court’s test of when precedent must be overturned.

Precedent must be overturned when its factual premise is proved wrong

Justice Kavanaugh explained during his Senate confirmation hearings that when the “factual premise” of a precedent is shown to be “erroneous”, that is a routine basis for overturning precedent.

Dictionary.com explains: “Stare Decisis: the doctrine that rules or principles of law on which a court rested a previous decision are authoritative in all future cases in which the facts are substantially the same.”


Kavanaugh said that, after he told Republicans that Roe v. Wade is “precedent upon precedent.” You can watch the following exchange at 4 hours, 52 minutes, 11 seconds of the hearing video. More of the transcript begins at page XXXVIII of my book.


Senator Whitehouse (concerned about a precedent that Democrats don’t like): The hypothetical problem that I have has to do with an appellate court which makes a finding of fact. Asserts a proposition of fact to be true. And upon that proposition hangs the decision that it reaches. The question is, what happens when that proposition of fact...turns out not to be true? ...
Kavanaugh: [This is about] precedent and Stare Decisis. And one of the things you could look at, one of the factors you could look at, how wrong was the decision, and if it is based on an erroneous factual premise, that is clearly one of the factors....Sometimes there are mistakes of history in decisions and mistakes of fact. 4:53:50 (End of excerpt)


What is the “factual premise” of Roe? Has it changed?

Roe’s premise was “we cannot tell if babies are humans/persons from fertilization, because the expert witnesses don’t agree.”

Now we are able to ask courts, “Does the unanimous, uncontested establishment by court-recognized finders of facts – expert witnesses, juries, state legislatures, individual judges, and Congress – that all unborn babies are humans/persons, sufficiently invoke Roe’s ruling that legislatures and courts must now protect their 14th Amendment rights?”

That’s right: court-recognized fact finders in every court-recognized category of fact finders are unanimous, of all who have taken a position: “when life begins” is at fertilization. No American legal authority has ruled that it begins any later. Dozens of juries and thousands of expert witnesses in “abortion prevention” cases; 38 states in their “unborn victims of violence” laws; Congress in its version of those laws, 18 USC 1841(d); and several individual judges – such as the 11th Circuit judges last year!

The parties agree that...an unborn child is alive while its heart is beating, which usually begins around six weeks. See How Your Fetus Grows During Pregnancy, Am. Coll. of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (April 2018), http://www.acog.org/patients/faqs/ how-your-fetus-grows-during pregnancy. West Alabama Women's Center v. Miller, 17-15208, 8/22/2018]

This needs to be added to the defense, rather than leave the impression that only Alabama thinks like that. (Which is not much stronger a position than Texas took in 1972, when the argument implied that only Texas thinks like that.) This needs to be in the defense, to establish the ground for reversing “precedent upon precedent”. In 1973, the justices said they were “not in a position to speculate” about “when life begins”. Today, if the unanimous ruling of every American legal authority which has taken a position, in every court-recognized category of fact finders, is not enough for every judge to know “when life begins”, it is impossible for any judge to know anything. That is far more than enough basis for invoking the “erroneous factual premise” exception to stare decisis.

In fact, this legally recognizable consensus is so powerful, that it is incomprehensible that it was not included in Alabama’s “Legislative Findings”, and is unlikely to be included in Alabama’s defense in court.

Imagine that a Life Amendment has already been added to the U.S. Constitution, and nobody bothers to cite that Amendment in defense of an abortion ban! How insane that would be!

And yet consider how much more settled a fact is, by the consensus of court-recognized fact finders, than by a Constitutional Amendment. No other Constitutional Amendment states a fact.

Imagine if one did. Suppose an Amendment said “no life ever evolved.” Although that would make me happy, do you see how people would look at that who think that collides with the evidence? Consider the difference between stating a fact in a Constitutional Amendment, and enacting a law, for example, “evolution shall not be taught in any federally supported school.” Evolutionists would still hate it, and say “that amendment is based on a lie”, but they couldn’t logically say “that amendment is a lie”.

It is the fact that unborn babies are living human children that makes killing them murder, not what any law says about it. That’s what makes the consensus of court-recognized fact finders a stronger legal reason to end legal abortion than a Life Amendment.

Which makes it insane for prolifers to not even mention this legally recognizable evidence in each and every prolife case!

To be fair to the courts, the 11th Circuit couldn’t consider the overwhelming consensus of fact finders because judges are ethically bound to consider only those arguments and that evidence which the parties to the case have submitted, and no party to the case mentioned the overwhelming consensus of fact finders. That’s why it is so critical for prolifers to understand and discuss legal strategies in depth. Lawmakers can’t introduce bills that no one understands, or that no one wants to study so they can understand.

Precedent must be overturned when a holding is outdated by the criteria of an adjacent holding