Constitution Party presidential candidate Michael A. Peroutka is making an extraordinary campaign promise: He vows to end abortion on his “first day in office.”
Describing himself as 100 percent pro-life with “no exceptions,” Peroutka, a lawyer by profession, explained his plan to WorldNetDaily.
Peroutka claims that, despite the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, abortion is “already against the law.”
“What is lacking is really a commitment to end abortion, not the tools and the ability to do it,” he told WND.
 Michael A. Peroutka |
To end abortion “immediately,” he said, the president would simply have to declare the personhood of the unborn from the moment of conception. The executive branch, which holds the law-enforcement function of government, could then enforce that personhood through the U.S. attorneys, he says.
After making the declaration of personhood, Peroutka explains, he would then appoint new U.S. attorneys throughout the nation, as did President Clinton upon entering the presidency.
“U.S. Attorneys could be appointed who understood that the unborn child is a person under the Fifth Amendment and shall not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process,” he said. “So I believe that it is doable on Day 1.”
The candidate says the new government lawyers would then “prosecute those who would deny that personhood,” such as operators of abortion clinics.
The personhood declaration could be accomplished, he said, through an executive order.
Regarding the Roe v. Wade decision, Peroutka said, “[Majority opinion writer Justice] Blackmun said that if the unborn were declared to be a person, that would be the end of the issue – they couldn’t be deprived of life without due process.”
Since abortion, according to Peroutka, is already against the law, he says a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution is not needed.
“What we need to do is return to a proper understanding of what the Constitution already says,” he stated.
Peroutka declared his position on abortion in a speech announcing his candidacy in February: “As president, I would do everything in my power to end the national disgrace of abortion.”
Claiming President Bush has failed to do enough for the unborn, Peroutka declared: “On abortion, a president – particularly a Christian president – should use his bully pulpit to change public and congressional opinion. And as president, I would do this.”
But some fellow pro-life attorneys are skeptical of Peroutka’s plan to combat abortion, including Mathew Staver, president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit legal-defense group currently in the forefront of the court battles against same-sex marriage.
“Certainly the president could issue an executive order, but I don’t think that will end abortion on the first day,” Staver told WND. “What it would end up doing is causing a constitutional clash between the different powers of government.”
Staver also says he’s not convinced Peroutka could get enough U.S. attorneys who would be willing to follow through with his plan.
“They would have to be in a similar mindset to [Peroutka],” he said.
Staver mentioned, however, there is historical precedent for presidents not following Supreme Court case law, citing Abraham Lincoln, who advocated disobeying the Dred Scott decision regarding black slaves, and Thomas Jefferson, who refused to enforce the Sedition Act as president.
Peroutka’s plan would not be as simple as it sounds, Staver said.
“It would automatically cause a huge controversy,” he said. “It wouldn’t be something that would happen overnight, but it would certainly raise the issue to a public debate – where it needs to be.”
Brad Dacus is president of Pacific Justice Institute, a religious-freedom legal organization, who describes himself as “very, very strongly pro-life.” He says he also questions the plausibility of Peroutka’s plan to end abortion.
“What is more immediately plausible is for Congress to adopt legislation that limits the powers of the Supreme Court on issues of defining personhood while at the same time enacting legislation defining personhood to include the unborn,” he told WND. “That is pragmatically a much more viable alternative to the president engaging in unilateral action outside the voice of Congress and the Supreme Court.”
‘Honor God, defend the family, restore the republic’
Those three goals make up Peroutka’s campaign theme. The candidate hopes disenchantment with the two major parties will drive voters to his camp in November.
“If I am elected president, I will, like our forefathers, acknowledge and honor God as the source of law, liberty and government,” the candidate declared in his announcement speech.
Peroutka, 51, is the founder of the Institute on the Constitution, a nation-wide program teaching the principles incorporated in the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution.
He believes in analyzing everything through the lens of the United States Constitution. Peroutka left a position with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, he says, when he recognized that none of the programs on which he was working were constitutionally permissible.
A homeschooling Christian, Peroutka talks openly about his faith and the need to honor God in both society and government. Early in his announcement speech, Peroutka quoted from the Bible, Psalm 11:3: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
“David did not choose to flee to the mountains but to stand and fight,” Peroutka told supporters. “He realized that his mission – his calling from God – his vocation – was to rebuild the foundations. My fellow Americans, this is our mission and our calling as well.”
Peroutka emphasized that the two major political parties “do not represent the ideas and principles upon which our country was founded. I am saying that they are not American in their approach to law and government. They have thus broken covenant with the American people.”
He continued, “This is why our federal bureaucracies have parasitically devoured the resources and the liberty of a people to whom they are pledged to be accountable. This is why the federal courts have forsaken the rule of law and rule illegally and unconstitutionally by the fiat of judicial oligarchs who have been methodically eliminating all acknowledgment and memory of our Christian history and heritage.”
Emphasizing the Founding Fathers’ acknowledgement of God, Peroutka argues that when the Creator and government are separated, disaster results.
“The denial of God’s sovereignty is the root cause of every major dictatorship of the 20th century, the bloodiest century in all recorded history,” he stated. “It was godless government that resulted in the mass murders committed by the Chinese and Soviet Communists, the Nazis, the Cambodian Communists and countless other petty, God-hating tyrants.”
On the issue of the family, Peroutka plainly states his vehement opposition to homosexual matrimony, saying marriage “is defined by God alone.”
He slams President Bush for promoting “safe sodomy” and doling out tax dollars to Planned Parenthood.
In discussing foreign policy and trade, Peroutka advocates disengagement from all global bodies.
“As president, I will support trade policies which favor American manufacturers, American workers and American consumers. I will withdraw the United States from the World Trade Organization and NAFTA.
“Because I agree with George Washington that ours should be an independent republic, I will withdraw our government from the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the whole panoply of New World Order institutions which suck up our taxes and expend them in a manner which, in violation of our Constitution, is not accountable to our Senate, our House of Representatives or our people.”
No financial aid for Israel
In contrast with President Reagan’s oft-repeated statement that the U.S. has a “special relationship” with Israel – a core policy with which subsequent presidents have generally agreed – a President Peroutka would not treat the Jewish state any differently than other sovereign nations.
“Israel is a foreign country; it’s not the United States of America,” he told WND, “and it would be treated with respect and dignity just like any other foreign power. But it would not receive foreign aid because no other country would receive foreign aid from the U.S. either.”
Saying the president is not the “president of the world,” Peroutka stressed that Israel would not get preferential treatment over Arab countries in the Middle East.
“Protecting American interests … is the point, not being the world’s policeman or Big Brother.”
A shrinking Cabinet
Peroutka said he would actively work to dismantle certain parts of the federal government.
“Certainly the Department of Education is one where there is no federal role,” he said, noting Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution lays out what Congress has the authority to spend money on, “and education is not one of those things.”
Other items on the Peroutka chopping block would be health-care funding, arts funding and Social Security, though regarding the latter he emphasized he would “be in favor of keeping promises to those we’ve made promises to.”
Peroutka says the process of paring down the federal behemoth would not be a gradual or phased-in program, but would be more of a cold-turkey action.
“A president would only have four years to enact his program, and he’d have to do it quickly. I’m not in favor of 40-year plans to do this,” he quipped.
Turning to his competitors, Peroutka says he sees a Bush presidency and a Kerry presidency as two peas in a pod.
“Both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry ignore the Constitution,” he said, saying they both “promote and enact unlawful programs.”
Peroutka emphasized that the terms “liberal” and “conservative” have lost their meaning. He prefers the term “constitutional.”
“What was liberal 10 years ago is now considered conservative, or maybe five years ago,” he speculated, “or maybe last summer!
“‘Conservative’ is just kind of following ‘liberal’ off the cliff,” he said. “The conservatives are only conserving yesterday’s liberalism.”
Discussing the appointment of people to the bench, Peroutka emphasized he would make sure any potential judicial nominee would acknowledge God as the giver of rights.
“I wouldn’t appoint anybody to the federal judiciary who didn’t first of all understand and acknowledge that it’s God from whom all blessings flow and who is the source of law and liberty and government,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I’m in favor of a theocracy; it means that we have to, as a starting point, start right where our forefathers did … and that’s that there is a creator God and the reason we’re able to worship as we see fit is because our God gives us that freedom.”
The Constitution Party convention is June 23-26 in Valley Forge, Pa., during which the party will choose its nominee. Though one other candidate has announced his intention to seek the nomination, Peroutka is confident he will receive the party’s blessing. On the Constitution Party website, there is a prominent graphic that links to Peroutka’s site.
His vice presidential running mate is Baptist pastor, columnist and talk-show host Chuck Baldwin.
Peroutka says the party is working to get its nominee on the ballot in all 50 states, but he states the ticket will be included in at least 40 states.
The constitutionalist says he thinks he may attract some Democrats as well as Republicans to his candidacy – “anybody who cares about the Constitution,” he said.
Peroutka dismisses the idea that voting for a third-party candidate is “wasting their vote.”
“I tell people, ‘What could be more of a waste than to vote for people who have demonstrated their lack of fidelity to the Constitution over and over again,'” he said.
“I’m proud to be part of a party that wants to bring a real constitutional choice to people. They don’t have to vote for the lesser of two evils.”
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