Supreme Court Gets It Right in Overturning Roe v. Wade (finally)

Yesterday, June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the fifty-year abortion ruling effectively legalizing abortion in all fifty states. They simply referred abortion law back to the states, where it should have been all along, according to the majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito. What yesterday's ruling does not do is outlaw abortion. The Justices in the majority believed the states' elected representatives should make their own laws, removing from the Supreme Court the responsibility not granted to them in the Constitution. There will be continuous debate on this issue going forward into the November mid-term elections and beyond. Contrary to popular misguided opinion that is being trumpeted from the streets, this ruling will do far more to protect the rights of women nationwide than it will to curtail those rights.

What we believe about abortion determines much of who we are as individuals and as a nation. We are about evenly divided if the deadlock in the Senate over the number of Republicans and Democrats is an indicator. Abortion is carefully defined as "Pro-Choice" in one camp, and "Pro-Life" in the other. 

Truthfully, since Roe v. Wade was upheld fifty years ago, America has killed more fetuses in the womb than any other civilized nation on earth. A woman's choice begins with the decision to have unprotected sex, not when she doesn't like the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy after the fact of conception. There are exceptions that are attempted to be carved out of laws prohibiting abortion, but those laws will now be written by the individual states going forward. 

This legal concept of "states rights" is embedded in the concept of "federalism" as defined by our Founding Fathers. I have written about it extensively in the past. They held that the federal government should only be granted limited powers, while reserving to the states the broader powers that would assure the governed should have a larger voice in the local government closest to them. We must reject the loose and inflammatory rhetoric that will ramp up this summer, and anchor our public debate to the underlying core principles written in the Constitution. That is the path the Supreme Court has opted to follow, and I endorse their leadership.

The key elements of the majority opinion, in my view are these:

We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 721 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). . .

It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives. “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.” Casey, 505 U. S., at 979 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). That is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand.

You can read the entire text of the opinion here.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes in the sanctity of human life. Therefore, the Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience, and counsels its members not to submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions.

The Church allows for possible exceptions for its members when:

• Pregnancy results from rape or incest, or
• A competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy, or
• A competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.

Even these exceptions do not automatically justify abortion. Abortion is a most serious matter. It should be considered only after the persons responsible have received confirmation through prayer. Members may counsel with their bishops as part of this process.

The Church’s position on this matter remains unchanged. As states work to enact laws related to abortion, Church members may appropriately choose to participate in efforts to protect life and to preserve religious liberty.

Fathers Matter

 I have been focused this morning on the 12 fathers in our extended family in the next generation, and the three additional fathers in the generation after that. I am deeply humbled by how they have far exceeded my performance as a father, as I look back on all the years since we were married. In every particular they have excelled and continue to bless the lives of their wives and their children.

It is characteristic of this generation, perhaps, that when circumstances get difficult too many fathers abandon their families and move away from their responsibilities and seek what may appear to be easier paths. However, for those who keep after it and stay the course, there are immeasurable blessings in store both here in this life and in the life eternal beyond.

Last week we attended an endowment session in the Jordan River Temple, and then two sealing sessions after that. We were reminded by one of the sealers that perhaps we all knew each other in the pre-existence, and we may have met people who knew their time on earth would not come at a time when the fulness of the gospel ordinances would be available to them. Perhaps they approached us in the pre-existence and asked us to do that proxy ordinance work for them. We readily agreed, and week by week we go now and perform that ministering labor on their behalf. Will they accept our efforts? Of course they will. They are our progenitors. We have the fulness of the gospel among us in this dispensation, and we are their seed. Embedded in our souls is the spiritual DNA we inherited from them. In that session I offered the observation to the group that had come to me just that morning as we sat pondering the scriptures in the chapel before the endowment session began. I read in Moses in the Pearl of Great Price:

And it came to pass, as the voice was still speaking, Moses cast his eyes and beheld the earth, yea, even all of it; and there was not a particle of it which he did not behold, discerning it by the Spirit of God.

And he beheld also the inhabitants thereof, and there was not a soul which he beheld not; and he discerned them by the Spirit of God; and their numbers were great, even numberless as the sand upon the sea shore. (Moses 1:27-28).

I also suggested this process might be similar to that which the Savior surely must have experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane when He suffered alone for the sins of everyone, even for all the souls on all the worlds on which they had lived and He created, "worlds without end." The atonement is individual and it is infinite and eternal. It touches everyone with the exclusion of no one, and He knows each of us personally. He knows our names, and He knows our circumstances. He loves us and He will succor us individually as we reach out for His help. We are never left alone and we are never left comfortless. It's the reason we have a prophet in our midst who is pleading for us to cultivate our relationship with God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and to get on and to stay on the covenant path.

"For behold, this is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Moses 1:39).

So, on this Fathers Day 2022, let me offer my congratulations to all the fathers who are doing their best to honor their covenants and to help their children find and then stay on the covenant path. It is a great work in this generation to do the work of bringing to pass the mortality of children, and to work in the gospel harness with God the Father and Jesus Christ who will add to our work their work of immortality and eternal life.

If you are one who is seemingly on the brink of walking away, I encourage you to stay the course, pray for the help to sustain you, and seek professional help if needed. There is nothing "out there" to surpass your role as father in the lives of your children. They will repay you a hundred fold in the years ahead.