James Dobson, adviser to five presidents, founder of the the James Dobson Family Institute and Family Talk radio, and author of dozens of books, has praised the Alabama Supreme Court for ruling the unborn have a right to life and the Roe v. Wade decision should be reversed.
Dobson, who was an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine for 14 years and on the attending staff of Children's Hospital of Los Angeles for 17 years, has a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in in the field of child development. He also holds 17 honorary degrees and is a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame.
He cited the recent ruling by the Alabama high court that found an unborn baby is a "person" under the law, and, consequently, the death of that person can be punished with execution.
"I am truly encouraged by the Alabama Supreme Court’s opinion, which powerfully affirms the humanity of the unborn in the eyes of the law," Dobson said. "In this tragic instance, by ruling that the murder of a pregnant woman is a double homicide, God has truly done as the scriptures say: what was intended for evil ... God intended for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
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Dobson cited Justice Tom Parker's "powerful concurrence," which "has given voice to so many of us who are devoted to defending the lives of the unborn by making a declarative legal argument for why the scourge of Roe v. Wade must, once and for all, be repealed by the U.S. Supreme Court."
"I encourage everyone to read his powerful argument for themselves, and take heart as we all continue to be a voice for life."
Parker, in his concurrence, called on the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that created a "right" to abortion.
"I write specially to expound upon the principles presented in the main opinion and to note the continued legal anomaly and logical fallacy that is Roe v. Wade," Parker said. "I urge the United States Supreme Court to overrule this increasingly isolated exception to the rights of unborn children."
Parker affirmed the Alabama court's rationale that "unborn children are persons entitled to the full and equal protection of the law."
He asserted Roe v. Wade is "without historical or constitutional support, carved out an exception to the rights of unborn children and prohibited states from recognizing an unborn child's inalienable right to life when that right conflicts with a woman's 'right' to abortion."
"This judicially created exception of Roe is an aberration to the natural law ... and common law of the states," Parker said.
He noted the Alabama court's opinion stated the "obvious truth that unborn children are people and thus entitled to the full protection of the law" in its decision to reject Jessie Phillips' arguments "that the unborn child he murdered, Baby Doe, was not a 'person' under Alabama law."
In the case, Phillips was charged with the murders of his wife and unborn child, and sentenced to be executed. The state Supreme Court affirmed the sentence, rejecting claims that Phillips could not be sentenced for the unborn child's death because the child was not a "person."
The fault in the Roe decision was cited by Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion.
He said the justices didn't have the scientific evidence to determine if an unborn baby is a person, but "personhood" is the foundation of the case.
Blackmun wrote: "(If the) suggestion of personhood [of the preborn] is established, the [abortion rights] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment."
The Alabama ruling is not the only one to point out to the U.S. Supreme Court that Roe was wrongly decided.
In August, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an Alabama law banning the gruesome, second-trimester abortion procedure in which limbs are removed from a baby's body in the womb.
At the time, Chief Judge Ed Carnes lamented in his opinion that he was bound by U.S. Supreme Court precedent to rule against the state, writing that "dismemberment" is the best description of the procedure, which clinically is known as dilation and extraction.
"In our judicial system, there is only one Supreme Court, and we are not it," he wrote, calling the high court's history of abortion rulings an "aberration" of constitutional law.
And Judge Joel Dubina wrote separately to express his agreement with Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia in Gonzales v. Carhart in which Thomas wrote, "I write separately to reiterate my view that the Court's abortion jurisprudence," including in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Roe v. Wade, "has no basis in the Constitution."
"The problem I have, as noted in the Chief Judge's opinion, is that I am not on the Supreme Court, and as a federal appellate judge, I am bound by my oath to follow all of the Supreme Court’s precedents, whether I agree with them or not," Dubina wrote.
In his opinion, Parker called on the Supreme Court to act: "It is my hope and prayer that the United States Supreme Court will take note of the crescendoing chorus of the laws of the states in which unborn children are given full legal protection and allow the states to recognize and defend the inalienable right to life possessed by every unborn child, even when that right must trump the 'right' of a woman to obtain an abortion."
He said that by ensuring broad legal protections for unborn children, including under Alabama's capital murder statutes, "we affirm once again that unborn children are persons with value and dignity equal to that of all persons."
"There is a growing chorus of voices urging the Supreme Court to overrule its abortion decisions," said Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver. "The Supreme Court has created a constitutional aberration and caused incalculable harm by its abortion decisions. In 1992, Justice Kennedy voted with the majority to overrule Roe v. Wade, and then flipped his vote 30 days before the opinion was released to uphold Roe. It is time to correct course and overrule this horrible chapter in American and Supreme Court history."
He continued: "We applaud Justice Tom Parker in calling on the Supreme Court to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision and once again protect precious children, women, and families. Abortion is simply a euphemism created by activists to soften what it really is: the murder of innocent unborn children."