On April 7, the US Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the latest new Supreme Court Justice. Jackson is highly qualified, but many of her prior rulings have been so controversial as to make her nomination appear to be related to an extreme left wing world view. However, Biden made it clear that he picked her based on race and gender, she being black and a woman. Sadly, that obscures her stellar career, albeit that some of her rulings have been said to be “outrageously radical.”

Nevertheless, in her opening statement before the senate Judiciary Committee, she thanked Biden and Congress and then went on to “reaffirm my thanks to God, for it is faith that sustains me…” This gives us hope that she will not support the attacks on religious freedom that we have seen under the Biden administration. But, her record is not encouraging. See my post March 25, 2022.

The Spring 2022 edition of Day 41, a publication of 40 Days for Life, carries an especially noteworthy story about Sue Thayer (1959–2021). Ms. Thayer died 12-24-21 after a brief battle with a rare and very aggressive form of kidney cancer. She worked at a Planned Parenthood location in Storm Lake, Iowa for 17 years from 1991, rising to a management position before she converted to the Pro-Life movement.

Her Planned Parenthood location did not perform abortions, but PP began “an outrageous webcam abortion scheme” in which a doctor would see a woman on a webcam and prescribe abortion pills without a physical exam or even verifying pregnancy. Sue was very troubled because she knew about women who had been injured and even killed by the abortion pills. However, her job paid very well and had exceptional benefits, and her family needed the income, so she “buried her head in the sand” for a while.

Ultimately, she was required to do shifts at an abortion clinic and then to go watch a day of surgical abortions. That left her even more troubled as she thought of “all those babies in the sewer system.” Then, although not trained and licensed to do so, she was required to perform ultrasounds before abortions with a machine that clearly showed the features of a developing baby. She was fired after she declared, “I’m not going to do this!”

It was not long afterwards that she joined 40 Days for Life campaigns and began to lead others. She exposed the PP webcam scheme, accused PP of Medicaid fraud, and testified before Congress. Whereas there is not enough space here to give justice to her efforts, it will have to suffice to say that she also opened Cornerstone for Life Pregnancy Resource Center https://cornerstoneforlifeprc.com/about-us/ which continues to serve the community. She later joined the staff of 40 Days for Life and was tireless in both national and international work, often with a grueling schedule. Ironically, just a week before her death, the Biden administration approved mail-order abortion pills for do-it-yourself chemical abortions. In a previous post, I cited a 500% increase in ER visits due to chemical abortions. https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/new-study-finds-chemical-abortion-leads-to-higher-rate-of-er-visits/

In Washington, DC, anti-abortion activists known as Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) obtained a box from the driver of a medical waste disposal company outside an abortion clinic. Within the box were the remains of 115 babies. Of these, 110 were given a funeral mass and were buried. However, 5 of the bodies appear to be late term abortions. On April 8, nearly 70 lawmakers lead by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) have requested the Dept of Justice and the FBI to investigate the deaths to determine whether they occurred in violation of the “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.” PAAU and other pro-life groups are maintaining a vigil and demanding “Justice for the Five!”

In 2013, the pro-life group Live Action released a video in which the abortionist at this clinic said, regarding any baby that survived an abortion attempt and was born alive, that he would allow the baby to die. This is what happened to Melissa Ohden who was born alive at 30 weeks gestation after an attempted abortion and put aside to die. She was rescued by a nurse and lived. Read her story in “You Carried Me” (available everywhere). https://abortionsurvivors.org/

The Vermont legislature has passed Proposal 5 to amend the Vermont Constitution to add: “That an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course and shall not be denied or infringed unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means.” If that has you saying “What???,” then you are in good company with many people in Vermont. The people of Vermont will vote on this in November 2022.

As people wonder what that means, it is being discussed that it would appear to permit a minor child to obtain an abortion, puberty-blocking hormones, and gender-changing surgery without parental consent or even notification. The state already allows minor girls to consent for an abortion without parental approval. Vermont is the most abortion-friendly state in the country. In 2019, the state enacted an “all -nine-months” bill which declared a fundamental right to have an abortion and stated that an unborn baby “shall not have independent rights under Vermont law.”

One of the issues which I have discussed in prior posts concerning Roe and Dobbs is that of the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution, which leaves to the individual states all matters not explicitly given in the Constitution to Congress. Obviously, that includes abortion. Some legal scholars say that the Supreme Court should never have taken the Roe case because of the 10th Amendment. Many comments made in the case of Dobbs concern themselves with the prospects of returning decisions regarding all manner of reproductive health to the individual states pursuant to the 10th Amendment. Indeed, the central issue in Dobbs is whether the people of Mississippi have the right to enact laws regulating abortion according to the values of the people of Mississippi.

As we await the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has organized an ecumenical initiative called the “Pray for Dobbs” campaign. Pro-Life organizations around the country have been discussing the “what-if’s” and preparing for various contingencies. https://www.prayfordobbs.com/ Indeed, we should continue to “Pray for Dobbs.”