Lux Lucet

With the release of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision on Friday, June 24, 2022, the reign of the Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in all 50 states was overturned.

This was a decision Christians have long hoped for but one that at times seems far from ever coming to pass.

A great deal has been written on this topic over the past two days, and it is not my intention here to recap all of it.  But despite the volume of commentary about abortion, there are, I think, some important topics that are touched on but rarely, if they are discussed at all.  It is to these topics that I now turn.

Dobbs v. Jackson Does Not Outlaw Abortion

The Supreme Court’s decision does not outlaw abortion in America.  What it does is remove the Constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion, a right not found in the Constitution at all, but one invented by the Court in 1973. 

When the Constitution was written, the intention of the framers was to establish a federal government of enumerated powers.  That is, the Constitution spelled out in detail the powers of the federal government.  Apart from these enumerated powers, the federal government had no authority.  The 10^th Amendment puts it this way, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” 

The logic here is the same as the logic behind the Regulative Principle of Worship.  God alone tells us in his Word how he is to be worshipped.  If the Bible does not specifically sanction a worship activity, that activity is prohibited.  In like fashion, if the Constitution does not specifically spell out a governmental function as belonging to the federal government, that function is prohibited to it, and is, “reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Following this line of thinking, we need to ask ourselves, does the Constitution have anything to say about abortion?  This answer is, no it does not. Writing in Liberty Defined, Ron Paul noted,

[T]he Constitution says nothing about abortion, murder, manslaughter, or any other acts of violence.  There are only four crimes listed in the Constitution: counterfeiting, piracy, treason, and slavery.  Criminal and civil laws were deliberately left to the states.

Paul, Liberty Defined, 2

Those who believe the Supreme Court should ban all abortion in America likely are disappointed by the Dobbs ruling.  For example, a tweet from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) read, “Following the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a patchwork of state laws means abortion access will vary widely depending on where someone lives.”  But what some would call a “patchwork” is simply the result of our federal system of government.  As much as Christians would like to see abortion banned in all 50 states, that is probably not a possibility at this time.  Some areas of the nation take a more biblical view of abortion, and some will be less Christian in their thinking. 

While Christians can pray and work for the day when abortion is banned in all 50 states, we can receive with thanks the Court’s ruling that holds out the promise that abortions will now be banned or severely restricted in some parts of the nation.

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