Conscience. Conscience. Conscience. If America stands for one thing, it should be conscience rights. Here we are on the 239th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, and yet conscience rights are at risk in some places where the left has full sway.
Consider a few recent cases.
In Massachusetts, the defense attorney in the world-famous Lindsay Clancey trial tried to belittle the one jury holdout who caused the trial to collapse into a mistrial. Clancey was a mother who systematically strangled her three children (ages 5, 3 and 8 months) in 2023 in Duxbury. She then tried to commit suicide.
The defense tried to find her not guilty because of insanity. Her trial was very long and intense. But one man on the jury refused to go along with the other 11.
Clancey’s defense attorney said of the jury, after the mistrial ruling on Sept. 4: “They know they were robbed by one man, for whatever his agenda was, who stole seven weeks of the life of these other jurors that were so attentive, so beautiful, so wonderful. … You could see how defeated they were sitting there. I got a funny feeling they would have gone on for another week if they had to. So I hope that guy can sleep well at night.”
I’m not a lawyer, but that and other remarks by the defense seem like a terrible precedent. Serve on the jury, and if you are a non-conformist who sticks to your conscience against the rest, we’ll crucify you.
As Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School noted on Fox News regarding Reddington’s comments: “It was outrageous and reckless. He just put a target on [the lone juror].”
In Illinois, the left wants to stick it to Catholic nuns for being unwilling to assist in suicides. It’s bad enough for the state to use its force to engage in assisting suicide in the medical field. Historically, the key principle for doctors was “do no harm.” But to go the next step and try and force nuns, who have dedicated their lives to God and therefore to a pro-life perspective of human life, to engage in practices totally anathema to them is unconscionable.
As Ryan Colby writes in LifeNews.com: “For nearly 175 years, Catholic healthcare ministries have been a refuge for the sick, elderly, and dying across Illinois. … All of them serve patients according to their Catholic faith, which calls them to heal and protect human life, not end it.”
The Becket Fund, based in Washington, D.C., defended the Illinois nuns’ rights not to have to participate in assisting with suicides.
Mark Rienzi, Becket’s president remarked: “It’s hard to imagine a more blatant attack on religious freedom than forcing Catholic nuns to help people commit suicide.”
In New York, after centuries of essentially being unbothered by political winds, Amish families are considering uprooting to move elsewhere for conscience’s sake. The controversial vaccine mandates are at issue. I’ll be honest – I didn’t even realize there were any Amish in the Empire State. Who knew?
The New York Post writes of this case: “New York’s Amish community is issuing an ultimatum to state bureaucrats: leave us alone or we’re packing up our buggies for greener pastures. The threat has been sparked by a vaccine mandate fight that the 25,000 strong religious community is taking all the way to the Supreme Court.”
You mean the “No jab, no job” mentality is still with us? Hiram Sasser, an attorney with First Liberty Institute, based in the Dallas area, is handling this case. Sasser remarked: “Have we gotten to a place where we aren’t going to make room for the Amish anymore?”
And on it goes.
All of these and other seemingly unrelated cases have this in common: Conscience rights are at stake. But America was born to protect conscience rights. In 1620, the Pilgrims came here so they could worship Jesus in the purity of their conscience. Same with the massive migration of Puritans 10 years later.
Jump ahead to 1787, when the Constitution was written. Again, conscience rights were sacrosanct. James Madison, a key architect and prime mover of the Constitution said that conscience is “the most sacred of all property.”
America is all about conscience rights. But at the end of the day, some power-hungry Americans are willing to run roughshod over others. If conscience rights be darned in the process, so be it. Thankfully, the framers of the Constitution thought otherwise. And we are still blessed because of the Biblical worldview they infused into our governing document.
At this time of year, we remember the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, which was on Sept. 17, 1787. And may we all agree: Long may conscience rights in America be protected.
