On July 29, 2021 Judicial Action Group filed a brief, with co-counsel, William J. Olson, in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Intercessors for American in the pro-life Dobbs case.
Read the full brief here.
Intercessors for American ("IFA") is a national prayer movement that began shortly after the 1973 Supreme Court decision to create a so-called "right to abortion." IFA and JAG argued that the Supreme Court should use this case to "review and repudiate Roe, relegating it and its progeny to the dustbin of history."
IFA and JAG went beyond the normal legal arguments and sought to make the Supreme Court accountable for the spiritual roots of the abortion battle, as well as to the spiritual judgments brought upon this Nation because of the Supreme Court's abortion decisions.
We argued:
The Supreme Court's Abortion Jurisprudence is Built Upon a Pagan Foundation,
The Supreme Court has Constitutionalized Moral Issues and Undermined Morality.
The Supreme Court's Decisions have De Facto Established Paganism as Our Nation's Religion, and
The Supreme Court's Decisions to Embrace Paganism have Opened The People to God's Righteous Temporal Judgments.
The following is a summary of the argument, taken directly from the Supreme Court brief:
Today, abortion may seem to have been normalized among some in this country, but it cannot be disputed that when Roe was decided 47 years ago, most Americans were profoundly shocked. They were astonished that this Court would create a right to abortion — an induced termination of a pregnancy with the destruction of the unborn baby. They simply could not believe that this Court would claim to be interpreting the Constitution while purporting to create a right out of whole cloth, in disregard of the Declaration of Independence’s recognition that all Americans were both “created” and “endowed” with the“unalienable” Right to “Life,” also protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Petitioners have asked this Court to “overrule Roe and Casey” for being “egregiously wrong,” “hopelessly unworkable,” and having “inflicted profound damage.” Brief for Petitioners at 14. These amici support that request.
First, the narrow focus of the court below on“viability” is badly misplaced. A baby in the womb is completely viable, unless and until it is removed from its natural surroundings. Second, how a society treats a pre-born baby is a quintessentially religious matter — fact which cannot be avoided by claiming the issue is secular. In fact, in Roe v. Wade, Justice Blackmun implicitly acknowledged this to be a religious issue when he juxtaposed the ways in which paganism and Christianity viewed abortion, and in the end, sided with the pagan position.
Third, the constitutionalization of the abortion issue was a profound mistake made by this Court. This was yet another instance where this Court placed a veneer of legalism over its own policy preferences and creatively identified a place in the Constitution where it could find this un-enumerated right. Fourth, this Court’s treatment of the abortion issue cannot be viewed in isolation. Although this Court’s jurisprudence on other moral and religious issues is not before this Court, it provides an important backdrop to understand how comprehensively prior Courts have embraced pagan views over Biblical views.
Lastly, the Court should be aware that the fabric of the nation seems to many to be unraveling. The point is that God rules in the affairs of men, and He cannot ignore the shedding of innocent blood. Holy Writ provides many illustrations of how the righteous judgment of a Holy God can be triggered against the people of a land.
In sum, the Intercessors amici are fully in agreement with Justice Thomas’ assertion: “Roe is grievously wrong for many reasons, but the most fundamental is that its core holding — that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to abort her unborn child — finds no support in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment.” June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo, 140 S. Ct. 2103, 2150 (2020).
These are serious and consequential arguments that must be heard by the Supreme Court. IFA should be commended for the understanding and the courage to articulate these arguments and present them to the Court. It is our honor to work with IFA and our co-counsel, William J. Olson. Mr. Olson is an American treasure, a visionary, and an instrument in the hand of Almighty God in this case.