Hogue: Dobbs Falls Short

Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Care Didn’t Go Far Enough

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled there is no constitutional right to abortion in last year’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling it handed down. 

Since then the subject has been a topic of extreme controversy, political angst, as well as legal and judicial interpretation.

While this was a tremendous victory for anti-abortion advocates, and certainly a step in the right direction, the ruling didn’t go far enough.

It in essence leaves the legality of abortion up to individual states and thus public vote.

That's wrong. 

Certain moral issues rise far above the scope of majority rule — abortion being one of them. Though one side argues that women should not be told what they can or can't do regarding their own bodies, this writer would maintain that no humans have the right to decide which other humans enjoy the right to life.

Dare we presume to ignore the bodies of the unborn and their rights?

The United States is not a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic.

When authoring the U.S. Constitution, our Founders wisely understood that pure majority rule could subject any minority to tyranny.

A government whose power derives from the consent of the governed must protect all those governed, not just half plus one.

Much as a church congregation sets its policies while maintaining obedience to the eternal truth of God, our government must hew to the Constitution before yielding to the potentially fickle will of the majority.

As we are guaranteed the right to life, no majority should have the power to strip that right from any minority.

And make no mistake about it, the unborn are human beings.

Unable to speak for themselves, they are as equally deserving of protection as any other minority.

No matter how much lip service is paid to abortion laws citing choice, control over one’s body or privacy between a woman and her doctor, in the end, the result of abortion is to deny the right to life to the minority of the unborn.

These days, the clamor to claim rights, both real and imagined, is endless.

But we cannot vote, eat, get an education, buy a home, borrow a book, choose a spouse or pick an identity, unless first we are allowed to be born.

What more basic expression can there be than our genes developing from human fetus to human infant?

The unborn minority includes members of both sexes, all races and every ethnicity.

Since 1973, when the Court crafted a right to abortion out of thin air, in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), it’s estimated there’ve been nearly 65 million abortions in the U.S.

As a nation, we are less without those unexpressed souls among us. Without decisive action, how many more souls will be oppressed out of existence?

Yet in the post-Dobbs world, renewed efforts continue to strip away the rights of the unborn by majority vote.

Last year, a majority of voters in both Michigan and Kansas passed initiatives enabling one human to take the life of another for no more reason than convenience.

This year, Ohio is on course to lock this same atrocity into law.

Fortunately, the current Supreme Court has refreshingly returned to decisions based on practical findings rather than legalistic conjuring.

As we saw this year with the ruling on Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the court applied common sense to decide that no matter how cunningly crafted, race-based standards are irredeemably racist.

This is in line with rulings such as Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), when the Court determined "separate but equal" segregation laws actually denied equality.

Today, no popular majority vote can restore segregation; the Constitution prevails over democracy — so should it be with abortion.

The seeds of tyranny are sown when one group labels members of another group to be less than human. Humanity has learned the bitter lessons of lives and cultures destroyed when wrong-headed humans assert such supremacy.

We shouldn’t get to vote on which human lives are worthy, just like we don’t get to decide who should be a slave, which disabled people deserve to live, or which unwelcome tribe is subject to exclusion or extinction.

It’s one thing to punish those convicted of heinous crimes.

It's quite another for one group to arbitrarily deny life to another.

Our government is obligated to protect life, not to find excuses to flush it away.

The plain and simple right to life outweighs any majority’s wish to end life, whether based on convenience, choice, claims of personal dominion, or privacy.

It's no great leap to believe that when the right case is made, the court will sweep away the nonsense and apply our constitutionally guaranteed right to life to the minority of the unborn.

Eric Hogue is the current president of Colorado Christian University, where he previously served as vice president of University Advancement. He has a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Liberty University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from William Jessup University. Mr. Hgoue is also a former political candidate, practicing theologian, pastor, and a long-tenured radio, television and media professional.