Tom Hoefling

As a general rule, I'm not much of a fan of sports metaphors, because they always seem to fall short. However, once in awhile I will indulge in the practice. My apologies ahead of time.

For half a century, pro-life elected officials across the land have been running bad plays. Instead of simply invoking the self-evident humanity of the unborn child, and the Constitution's explicit requirement that they be equally-protected, in every state, they have come up with a dizzying array of immoral, unconstitutional, counter-productive regulatory gimmicks that are really nothing more than bad substitutes for doing the right thing.

Here in my home state, a decade ago, with the help of my friend Tom Shaw, we offered those pro-lifers a moral, constitutional, clean equal protection bill to end abortion in Iowa once and for all. They buried that bill before it could even be considered in committee, or have a single public hearing.

Five years ago, with full control of the Iowa legislature and the Governor's office, they passed an immoral, unconstitutional, counter-productive "heartbeat" bill, which was, predictably shot down immediately by the liberal state supreme court. Then, Dobbs came down from the US Supreme Court, and the pro-lifers thought that they would simply begin to enforce their "six week" "heartbeat" bill. Again, predictably, the state's highest court said "no."

And so, how do the pro-lifers who completely control the law-making process respond? Tomorrow, in special session, they're going to make the exact same immoral, unconstitutional, counter-productive, oath-breaking error that they've been making for fifty years. They're going to meet in special session and pass another awful "heartbeat" bill.

It's overtime. The other team is ahead. It's fourth down, and the ball is on the two yard line. The ball has been snapped. The pro-lifers are rolling out to the right, with not a single defender between them and the goal line and the win. And what are they determined to do? Spike the ball and lose again.

Except, this isn't a game. Thousands, nay millions, of innocent lives are on the line. The very basis of our form of government and our claim to liberty is at stake.

Why do they refuse to stop this holocaust when they have the governmental power to do so?

If it really was a sports team, you'd think they'd been paid off by the bookies, and they would be forever banned from playing the game. Seriously.

Tom Hoefling

After the birth of her second child, in the wake of severe post partum depression, a young woman in her twenties was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She spent most the next decade in the mental institution, but two years into her commitment, on a short visit home, she and her husband conceived another child.

Since there was no way that she or her husband was going to be able to care for this child, should he have been aborted?

That woman was my mother. The child was me.

Seven years into her commitment, my mom was raped in the hospital and conceived child number four.

Should that child have been aborted?

That child was my half-sister.

If my sister and I had been aborted, our 25 amazing, wonderful children and grandchildren would not exist.

You see, when you exterminate a helpless child, for any reason at all, you exterminate posterity too. 

Tom Hoefling

What does Dobbs v. Jackson, the recent Supreme Court opinion that supposedly “overturns Roe v. Wade” actually do? Not much. The decision is deeply un-American, and it allows the abortion holocaust to continue.

“The Court’s decision today does not outlaw abortion throughout the United States,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his concurring opinion to Dobbs.

Just as in Roe, the court failed to do its primary duty, which is to acknowledge the self-evident humanity of the unborn child, and the child’s protection by the Fourteenth Amendment’s explicit requirement that the right to life of every innocent person be protected within every state.

The Fourteenth Amendment states, “No State shall…deprive any person of life…without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Contrary to those crystal-clear words, Dobbs leaves the legal disposition of our supreme God-given, individual right – the right to live – up to the arbitrary whims of a democratic majority, either in the Congress, or in the state legislatures.

“It is time to…return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives…. That is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand,” Justice Alito wrote in the majority opinion.

What could be more un-American or unconstitutional? What could stand more in opposition to the clear words of our Declaration of Independence than to make our supreme right subject to a vote?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.”

Our God-given rights, starting with the right to life, precede and supersede all mere man-made laws and constitutions. Therefore, those rights are unalienable. This is the cornerstone principle of the American republic, the main principle we celebrate every July Fourth, for goodness’ sake.

But, contrary to those principles, if Dobbs is to be heeded, every single child conceived in this country is still in danger of being slaughtered, by the abortionists or the pharmacists, if his or her murder-minded mother is willing to order up some pills, or to simply change locations.

“[A]s I see it, some of the other abortion-related legal questions raised by today’s decision are not especially difficult as a constitutional matter,” Kavanaugh said in his concurring opinion. “For example, may a state bar a resident of that state from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no [sic] based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.”

You don’t need a law degree to understand that, in America, our most sacred, essential rights are supposed to be protected by our laws, not merely by travel inconvenience. 

You may ask me, as others already have, “Aren’t you happy that Roe has been overturned?” To which I reply that I can’t be happy about a dangerous, destructive myth. According to the principles upon which our republic was founded, Roe v. Wade was a legal nullity from the moment the court promulgated it in 1973. It should have been ignored from the beginning. It was nothing but a vile vapor, an illicit court opinion, not a law, and certainly not in accord with the laws of nature and nature’s God, or our Constitution.

In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton said, “There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void.”

In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln declared: “The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court…in ordinary litigation between parties…the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having…resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”

So, forget about Roe and Dobbs. They are, in legal reality, as irrelevant to the question of abortion as Dred Scott v. Sandford is to the question of slavery.

I’m submitting this article for publication on July 5th, 170 years to the day since the great Frederick Douglass, former slave, delivered his historic address in Rochester, NY, on July 5th, 1852, entitled “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” Hence the title of this piece.

Douglass had freed himself some years before – voting with his feet – and had trained himself to become, almost certainly, the most eloquent spokesman for his brothers and sisters who were still being held fast in slavery.

You may notice that Douglass, by use of the word, “your,” didn’t at that time refer to America’s Independence Day as his own, being a black man in America, more than a decade before the end of slavery in the United States.

He said, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”

In this great speech, Douglass expresses his admiration for the founders of this American Republic. He eloquently speaks of his love for the principles they expressed in our great national charter, the Declaration of Independence: “The Fourth of July is the first great fact in your nation’s history – the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism… prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. …[T]he Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny… The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”

He declares the Constitution to be a fundamentally anti-slavery document, in part because of the fact that slavery (like abortion) violates all of its stated purposes.

And then, he righteously lambastes his generation, especially the Christians, for their gross hypocrisy: “I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and  independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me…This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

Do you not see, my fellow American, my point? Blacks were not being protected, as they should have been, and today, our generation is guilty in just the same way when it comes to the protection of innocent unborn children. Except, perhaps, our guilt is even greater in scope, with more than seventy million innocents dead.

“What have I, or those I represent (the enslaved), to do with your national independence?” Douglass asked. “Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?” 

Ask yourself, in our day, are the great principles of natural justice embodied in the Declaration of Independence being extended to our posterity? The obvious answer, even in the wake of Dobbs, is NO. Absolutely not. Again, any child conceived in America today can still be murdered under the color of “law.”

This Independence Day, millions of “pro-life” Americans celebrated what they thought was a great victory for life, when, in fact, they should be mourning continued abject defeat.

They think they have “overturned Roe” with little or no understanding of what that means or doesn’t mean.

By far the greatest threat to the existence of our republic has always come from those who would dehumanize some portion of humanity, and thereby strip them of their rights. The ultimate destruction of many great nations throughout history can be traced to the injustices brought about by their abject failure to recognize and respect the God-given rights of all. If all are not equal before the law, no one’s rights are secure. 

No matter what the Supreme Court says, there can be no moral or constitutional neutrality when it comes to genocide.

​

More of Justice Alito's Gross Hypocrisy in Dobbs v. Jackson
Tom Hoefling
June 27, 2022

Our natural rights adhere to us because of who and what we are, not because of our location. We are, each of us, made in the image and likeness of God. (See Genesis 1:26). Our value derives from that fact, from that reality, not from where we might happen to be today.

When God said, "You shall not murder," He meant that you shall not murder anyone, obviously. When He said, "You shall not steal," He meant that you shall not steal from anyone, obviously. These are the simple moral premises of decent, just human government. I have a right, granted by God, not to be murdered or stolen from. And you have an equal right not to be murdered or stolen from. It's simple. This is American Civics 101.

He never said, "You shall not murder or steal, unless your victim is over there rather than over here." No. Everyone has an intrinsic God-given, unalienable right to not be murdered or stolen from, no matter where they are. These rights precede and supersede all manmade laws and constitutions. They apply to all human beings, all persons, everywhere, in all ages. We are ALL supposed to be protected by our laws, not by our location.

These natural law principles were the very foundation stones of the American republic.

In Dobbs v. Jackson, "Justice" Samuel Alito rightly points out the arbitrary nature of Roe v. Wade, and how foolish it was for the Blackmun court to determine whether a child would be protected based on their location in relation to a hospital. But, then, hypocritically, he and his colleagues ruled that innocent babies would henceforth be protected based SOLELY on their location, i.e., what state they happen to be in today. And, very poor protection that is, in light of the fact that any murder-minded mother can still simply change her location in order to slaughter her offspring, at any time, under the color of "law."

The phrase "overturning Roe" is utterly meaningless when any and all unborn children can still be murdered in our country, as long as they are murdered in the government-approved place.

It's not supposed to be that way in America. Our republic was founded and established on the principle that government - all government, at all levels - exists to provide equal protection for the God-given, unalienable, individual right to life.

Our Constitution's ultimate stated purpose is "to secure the Blessings of Liberty to our Posterity."

And that Constitution, which every officer of government in this country is required to swear an oath to support and defend, absolutely requires equal protection under the law for every innocent person, in every state. It's not optional. It's not "up to the states to decide." Please, America, stop pretending that it is. And, stop doing the wicked things that these foolish, hypocritical judges tell you to do. 

By Tom Hoefling

Abortion costs a helpless, defenseless, innocent little boy or girl their life. But it is also a dagger in the heart of American republican, constitutional self-government in liberty.

Abortion utterly destroys the natural law moral principles spelled out in our national charter, the Declaration of Independence. It represents the total denial of our Creator, of the concept of God-ordained equality and God-given unalienable rights, and of the very raison d'etre of human government, which is to secure that equality and those rights to every person.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED EQUAL, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men."

Abortion destroys every stated principle of our Constitution. Our national Union is attacked by abortion at the most fundamental level: the natural bond between the mother and her child, which is the essential first building block of our entire civilization and society. Instead of establishing Justice, abortion establishes the worst kind of injustice. What greater wrong can be committed in the physical sense against the individual person than that you murder them? How can you have any sort of true domestic Tranquility, i.e. peace at home, when you have entered into the very heart of that home and annihilated the children? Our society is supposed to assure the common Defense, or the defense of all. How can anybody consider themselves to be safe when certain disfavored classes of human beings are declared to be the "legal" prey of hired mass murderers? How can you claim to be defending the Welfare of all, when you are sacrificing the most innocent and helpless among us on the altar of ease and convenience? How can a nation possibly claim to be securing the Blessings of Liberty to a Posterity that they are slaughtering by the tens of millions?

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The Democrats and the Republicans both claim to stand for the Constitution. When elected, they all swear the Article VI oath, as they are required to do, to support and defend that Constitution. How many of them are actually doing it? None. Not as long as a single innocent child is being destroyed under the color of "law" in this country.

"No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law."

"No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Here is the stark truth: unless and until equal protection is restored to the little children, in compliance with the explicit, imperative requirements of our Constitution, all hope is gone for this country's survival. Union, Justice, Tranquility, our national security, the good of the entire nation, Posterity itself, is gone, trampled into the dust because the people were too immoral, and too stupid to understand what it was that they inherited from their much wiser forefathers.

Obey the Lord, and live. Disobey the Lord, and keep destroying the innocents He made in His image, and you will be destroyed. It's as certain as the sun rising.

That's your choice, America.

"You shall not murder."

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever."

-- Thomas Jefferson

Tom Hoefling
Originally published on November 19, 2016

We are all CREATED equal by God at the moment of our conception. This is self-evident. At that precise moment of time God has declared His divine intent, which is to bring a unique individual human person, made in His image and likeness, into physical existence. From that moment onward, until natural death, His command, "you shall not murder," fully applies.

Our national creed, as expressed so well in our national charter, the instrument that brought this nation into existence, perfectly conforms to this understanding:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."

The U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of our land, in its wording, has also always fully conformed to God's stated intent in this matter. In that great document's original statement of purpose, it was made crystal clear that all were to be protected in their God-given rights, including those persons who were not yet born, or even as yet conceived, i.e. posterity.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union (that is the union of ALL), establish Justice (that is justice for ALL), insure domestic Tranquility (that is peace and tranquility for ALL), provide for the common defense (that is the defense of ALL), promote the general Welfare (that is the welfare or well-being of ALL), and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves (that is ALL of us who are now living) and our Posterity (that is ALL who are yet unborn or unconceived), do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The first round of amendments to the Constitution, which we call the Bill of Rights, in its wording conformed fully to God's will and command as well, specifically in the Fifth Amendment, in which it was made explicit that no innocent person could - at least legally, legitimately - be stripped of their God-given, unalienable right to live.

"No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law."

In the wake of the terrible civil war which nearly tore our national union apart - a war that was fought, whether everybody wants to face that fact or not, over the intrinsic rights of persons, and the intrinsic obligations of states to respect the intrinsic rights of all persons - the Fourteenth Amendment was debated, passed, and ratified. This amendment not only reiterated the protection for every person which was already required by the Fifth Amendment, it also made quite explicit the absolute obligation each of the states has to provide equal protection for the right to life of every human person within their jurisdictional bounds.

"No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

All fifty of our state constitutions not only acknowledge God as the Provider of all of the blessings of our liberty, they recognize the unalienable rights of all persons, and require equal protection for those rights, beginning with the right to live.

My state's constitution:

"WE THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF IOWA, grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of those blessings, do ordain and establish a free and independent government, by the name of the State of Iowa...All men are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights - among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness."

By far the greatest threat to the existence of our republic came from those who would dehumanize, depersonify, some portion of humanity, and strip them of all of their rights. The ultimate destruction and demise of many great nations throughout history can be traced to the injustices brought about by the abject failure to recognize and respect the God-given rights of all.

The dehumanization, the depersonification, of any portion of humanity can only lead, inexorably, to hell on earth.

If all are not equal before the law, the rights of none are any longer secure.
Do you see your precious rights as an American slipping away, one by one?

Do you see your country slowly but steadily being destroyed around you?
You would have to be willfully blind not to see it.

Do you care enough about your children and grandchildren, your posterity, to do what it takes to save this great republic for them, as our forebears fought to save it for us?

Then you must do whatever it takes to reestablish respect, in principle and in practice, for the supreme right of the unborn child, the God-given, intrinsic, unalienable right to live.

Before it is too late. 

Tom Hoefling

Please hold me up in prayer this week as I prepare for Saturday's abolition vs. regulation debate with Scott Mahurin.

If you're near Des Moines, come join us at 2 pm at 315 SW 14th St, Des Moines, IA 50309-4311.

If you're not able to come, the live stream will be on the Des Moines Patriots for Christ page, starting at 2 pm Central time.

You have to go hit like on their page here if you want to see the event live:

https://www.facebook.com/PatriotsForChristDSM/

The event page on Facebook is here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/418818738660911/ 

by Tom Hoefling

In 1729, Jonathan Swift anonymously wrote an intensely satirical piece entitled "A Modest Proposal," in which he wryly proposed cannibalism for the public good. And those who were to be eaten were unwanted, poor children. Children who were "unwanted," not necessarily by their parents, but by the intelligentsia of his day.

So, let's jump forward almost three hundred years to our present time. And this is no satire. The bodies of aborted, i.e. murdered, children - children who are not only unwanted by the intelligentsia, but unwanted by their own flesh and blood, by their own parents - are being cannibalized, with their plundered cells being used to make vaccines.

To make matters even worse, the intelligentsia of our time not only insist on making these products of cannibalism AVAILABLE to the general public, they INSIST on making the injections MANDATORY.

We're now beyond the ghastly point of them saying that you MAY be a cannibal if you would like, to them saying that, to be a responsible citizen, you and your (unaborted) children MUST BE CANNIBALS.

My comments here have nothing to do with any argument over the morality of vaccinations themselves. It's not even about the dubious morality of governments forcing people to receive inoculations in general. This is about CANNIBALISM, and, I repeat, not just about cannibalism, but FORCED CANNIBALISM.

There can be little doubt that modern medicine has, in many respects, been a blessing to humanity. Mortality rates have fallen with the increase of our scientific knowledge about sanitation, human physiology, and health.

But, when science abandons decent moral considerations, nothing can be more of a curse for humanity. Nothing can be more of a plague. When doctors insist on going down the cursed path of a Mengele, the only thing that can follow, inevitably, is a curse on our nation.

These inhuman abominations must be stopped, once and for all, for the sake of our children, for the sake of our posterity.

"But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties."

-- Winston Churchill, Finest Hour speech, June 18, 1940

List of vaccines that contain the cells of cannibalized babies, as of Feb. 2019.

Click the image:

Data courtesy of cogforlife.org.

Kristine Harhoef:

How our pro-life regulatory laws are helping Janey's baby right now in FL at 25 weeks gestation:

-- "Must be in a hospital." (Her abortionist doesn't care. He has hospital privileges just like any other Ob/Gyn. Janey's father, like most pro-aborts, would prefer to have it done in a safe, clean, professional location anyway. Oh, wait. Florida law just changed again and he can get back to late-term kills in his private office.)

-- "Must have a sono." (I've seen the sono. Janey's seen the sono. Her doctors have seen the sono. In fact, they all know it's a girl. The sono is what will give them the best info. to determine the most effective killing method and to guide the hands and tools of the abortionist.)

-- 24 week limit, unless for "health of the mother." (Easy-peasy. Get the mother to sign off that she'll have mental health problems after the birth or fudge the sono a bit. Exaggerate any medical history the mother has.)

-- "Must be performed by a licensed physician." (Does nothing. The abortionist is a licensed Ob/Gyn. Pro-aborts WANT a trained, licensed killer for their little ones.)

-- "Second physician must participate if baby is at viability." (Does nothing. Janey's daughter's potential abortionist has buddy-abortionists and they do not care about her viability.)

Let's say she was in a state that required:

-- Mandatory counseling about supposed "breast cancer risk." (That comes across to Janey -- a chain smoker -- like it comes across to you when you read on the Tylenol bottle that swallowing a pill for your migraine might cause liver damage.)

-- "Parental Involvement," if she was a minor. ("Parental involvement" is actually the problem here. Her father wants his grand daughter DEAD.)

-- "No dismemberment d&e while the baby's alive." (This is a real law that pro-lifers in Texas tried to pass. Easy work-around: stab the baby in the heart with poison, inducing a heart attack before dismembering.)

-- "No auctioning this baby girl's body parts." (Does nothing to help Janey's daughter from being butchered by two big bullies in the first place.)

-- "Must bury the baby." (Does nothing to prevent her potential dismemberment and murder today.)

-- "Defund Planned Parenthood/no taxpayer money for abortions." (Janey's father is flat-out volunteering to pay in full, and the abortionist is chipping in as well -- offering a steep discount to get his hands on Janey's child. If all else fails, the pro-aborts will just tap into their abortion charities to pay for it.)

Do you see how this game works? 

It's similar to laws being passed to regulate rape!...
saying how, when, and where a rapist might commit his evil.

That's why you need to GET BEHIND Abolish Abortion Texas and similar initiatives in other states.

It is our Christian duty to love our tiniest of neighbors as ourselves by supporting efforts to pass laws that will restrain the sin of grandfathers and mothers like Janey and her father today.

Siena Hoefling
June 7, 2018

News outlets say Iowa has passed “the nation’s strictest legislation,” that “bans most abortions.” One report called it a “total abortion ban.” Iowa’s fetal heartbeat bill, S.F. 359, supposedly prohibits abortions after six weeks. Upon signing the bill, Governor Kim Reynolds said, “I understand and anticipate that this will likely be challenged in court.”

Lawmakers welcomed the legal battle. Some said the law was designed to “take a run at” “overturning” Roe v. Wade.

Three years ago, another heartbeat law from North Dakota met defeat in the 8th Circuit, which covers Iowa. The Supreme Court declined to hear that case.
Supporters of the Iowa law say this time is different, because Antonin Scalia has been replaced by Neil Gorsuch. The junior justice, however, has indicated a respect for abortion precedent. In his U.S. Senate hearing, Gorsuch called Roe v. Wade “the law of the land,” and emphatically asserted its doctrine that “a fetus is not a person.” “That’s the law of the land,” insisted Gorsuch. “I respect the law of the land.”

Legal experts predict the Iowa heartbeat law will die in the courts at the hands of precedent. Since 1992, state-level abortion regulations have been judged by the “undue burden” test that sprang out of the Republican-led Rehnquist court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. An undue burden, according to Casey, is a “substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion.” Based on that precedent, the Iowa heartbeat law “is likely to be struck down,” says Drake law professor Renee Cramer, because she said it prohibits abortion before most women know they are carrying a child.

But imagine that the Supreme Court hears the case, Gorsuch changes his view of precedent, and the majority sides with the heartbeat law. Is that a victory for life? Are babies now protected? Is Roe “overturned”?

No.

The Iowa heartbeat law does not challenge Roe. It simply replaces one arbitrary standard with another. Even if the courts embrace the heartbeat law, we are no better off — perhaps we’re worse — and the destructive jurisprudence of Roe is left in place.

To be victorious against Roe and all its mischief, the Iowa law would have to go to the heart of the matter, which is not the heartbeat.

Iowa’s S.B. 359, now codified, cheapens life and enables abortion without restraint. Reports of a prohibition on “almost all abortions” are false. The heartbeat law is a mishmash of baseless exceptions and exploitable loopholes that effectively grant abortion to anyone willing to play around with a little paperwork. The whole ordeal can take place privately, without any accountability or consequence.

The rape and incest exceptions enable a woman to kill her child upon a bare, unsubstantiated report to her doctor. No trial, no adjudication is required. No due process is given the child. Authorities need not be involved. The supposed perpetrator can remain anonymous, and get away with the alleged “crime.” All the doctor has to do is say that the woman notified him within forty-five days of a claimed rape, and the baby can be killed up to twenty weeks. (Or later. Who would know?) For “incest,” one-hundred-forty days are granted to the woman to report the alleged incident to the doctor — again, without proof.

This is abortion without restraint. Not only are doctors allowed to fib on the paperwork without consequence, they suffer no penalty for bending the “rules” to commit an abortion on their own terms. (This is true of the Iowa heartbeat bill, even without the exceptions.) Mothers of the dead children are specifically exempt from prosecution — free to destroy their precious offspring and to lie.

But it gets worse. Not only do these loopholes discard the lives of children upon hearsay regarding the status of their fathers, but shockingly, the Iowa heartbeat law adds an exception that echos the first Nazi eugenics program, Aktion T4, which gave physicians godlike power over life and death.

By a provision targeted at killing the disabled, the Iowa code now empowers doctors to identify and then destroy any child in the womb they label “incompatible with life.” Although some outlets claim that this exception is designed to kill off babies who would die anyway, the superfluous exception is a violation of the right to life, by grotesque excuse. The label can be attached arbitrarily, without due process of law, to kill any baby and make the community complicit in euthanasia.

The Nazis called it administering Gnadentod (gracious death) to the incurably sick, whose lives were considered worthless. Technologies for mass-murdering these disabled victims later found implementation on a larger scale in the concentration camps. The T4 program emboldened the Nazis to violate the right to life, sanitize murder, and enable the wider Holocaust by the deadened conscience of a nation.

Similarly to the Iowa heartbeat law, the Germans labeled their “incurable” victims “Lebensunwertes Leben”: “life unworthy of life.”

Strangely, the Iowa law echos the Nazi program in another indefensible way. Now the euthanasia of Iowa babies with “fetal abnormalities,” along with the killing of babies of alleged rape and incest parentage, is codified as “medically necessary.”

Medically necessary? “Necessary” is a dangerous word to toss around in a code book. When the government uses that terminology for killing a child, you know we are walking in territory foreign to human rights.
By defining the lives of some children as “incompatible with life,” and codifying their killings as “medically necessary,” Iowa’s heartbeat law is a closer champion of eugenics than a foe of Roe.

Once Iowa determined to exempt some children from protection, none were safe. It’s an inevitable consequence.

But even supposing a heartbeat law exists without added exceptions, the bare proposition that we shall exclude the smallest babies from protection is an indefensible, man-made exception to the right to life. Detached from claim that we are all endowed with rights by our Creator, and due the equal protection of government in our lives, the “heartbeat” concept is intrinsically immoral.

The smallest human life must be protected because to do otherwise is an offense to God. “Thou shalt not kill,” said the Lord. For killing the “least of these,” we do it unto Him. (Matthew 25:32–46)

A heartbeat law, in any iteration, sanctions killing the “least.” When the “least” is your own offspring as a nation, and you have no heart for them, your land deserves the curses that come. (Malachi 4:6)

Even before the Iowa bill was amended with new exceptions, its arbitrary standard, like Roe, treated the smallest children as non-human beings, unworthy of equal protection and due process. The right to life was discarded for a doctor’s perception of “repetitive” and “rhythmic” contractions of the heart. Excluded, for no reason, are those children whose heartbeats aren’t detected — or, more accurately, weren’t “repetitive” or “rhythmic” enough to suit the abortion doctor, whose own heart is hardened against the womb-bound child.

Contrary to the hope that this is a worthy counter to Roe, the heartbeat standard is its regurgitation, lapped up again. (Proverbs 26:11) Rather than assert the right to life of every child, the heartbeat standard accepts the core error of Roe: that unborn persons are not due equal protection of the laws.

American government owes its existence to the unassailable truth that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” including the right to life. “To secure these rights,” equally among the weak and strong, the disabled and able-bodied, the young and old, “Governments are instituted among men.” Although our nation ignored the requirements of that universal principle in its tolerance and practice of slavery, over time the demands of justice prevailed. We ceased our infidelity, and renewed our vows to the Declaration of Independence.

Like the American slave system of bygone days, Roe v. Wade trampled underfoot the eternal, moral law of human equality. Rather than change course, the heartbeat standard follows Roe’s deadly footsteps, and treats the right to life as an uncertain right, to be bestowed by the whims of men. Substituted for equality is the counterfeit design of tyrants who treat human beings as unequal subjects, unendowed by God with fixed rights that are the only guard against an ever-shifting, capricious government.

In its invention of a trimester system that pretends to know which children shall live and which shall die, Roe presents an iniquitous favoritism. The heartbeat standard likewise assumes the lie that the right to life is variable and man-made — as if government can protect life for some and not others — and joins Roe in treating the unborn child as unequal to ourselves.

Beyond logic, many opponents of Roe claim to believe in the Declaration of Independence while they violate its precepts in such legislation as the Iowa heartbeat law. They claim to “save some,” by offering laws that explicitly and implicitly exclude others. But making a detectable heartbeat determinative of the right to life only joins Roe in creating a tool of arbitrary oppression. By discarding the smallest babies, heartbeat laws grant permission for their deaths. Even if the hidden intent was to de facto “ban” abortion without providing full protection, as some headlines supposed of the Iowa law, the abandonment of equality is not worth the price of clever obliqueness.

As soon as you abandon equality under the law, and you grant governmental permission to murder some of the babies, you have removed the basis for protecting any. Before you know it, those you aimed to protect are exposed to harm, because rights bestowed by government today are gone tomorrow.

Regulationists of abortion, who wish to “chip away” at Roe v. Wade rather than immediately apply the justice described in the Declaration, say that they have no choice but to compromise. Yet “compromise” suggests a gain for both sides.
But nothing is gained by the “pro-life” side when it crafts statutes that dehumanize the child, promote inequality, deny the God-given rights that our Declaration calls certain, embolden doctors to commit atrocities, and grant permission in our statutes to kill babies — as does the Iowa heartbeat law.
Due to its lack of restraint on human behavior, the Iowa heartbeat law does nothing but cover for abortion. At worst, it might be called a toothless fraud, or at best, an act of timidity.

To its sincere advocates, we might ask the scriptural question: shall we “do evil, that good may come?” Can injustice fight injustice? We should recall that the scripture commands, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)

And, “Depart from evil and do good.” (Psalm 34:14)

And, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.” (James 1:22)

The great abolitionist Frederick Douglass said that one of the greatest obstacles to ending slavery was the “heresy” that “slavery will be abolished just when the Lord shall will its abolition.” That complacent attitude delayed slavery’s end and needlessly extended the suffering. “It is a delusion and a snare, to think that Almighty God will undertake for us any farther than we undertake for ourselves. His work is done: ours alone remains to be done,” wrote Douglass to The Liberator.

“When a slave, I used to pray that the Lord would give me freedom,” he recollected. “And I might have prayed in slavery until this time, had I not ‘prayed with my heels.’”

He added, “Our works must be consistent with our prayers, otherwise they are an abomination before God.” Douglass recalled this was an epiphany that led him out of bondage.

Frederick Douglass spoke of the delayed abolition of slavery in the West Indies. Everyone, even the noble-hearted William Wilberforce, thought immediate emancipation was impractical or undesirable. Douglass spoke of the principled change that enabled freedom:

"Gradual emancipation was the most ultra idea then broached; and though tame, insipid, and stale, it was at the first a terrible note to the slaveholder, as well as their abettors. It, however, lost its power to stir the souls of its friends, or disturb the fears of its foes. The cause languished. Everybody was in favour of gradual abolition, but no one was ready for action now. After twenty years of toil to promote gradual abolition, — the cause dragging heavily along — while those noble men were hesitating about what they should do to infuse spirit into the Anti-Slavery ranks, and to accomplish their noble purpose, a woman, with the head of a prophetess, and the heart of an angel, came to instruct and strengthen their faltering ranks. She taught that what is right, is reasonable; and that what ought to be done, can be done, and that immediate emancipation was the right of the slave, and the duty of the master. Her heavenly counsel was heeded. Wilberforce was converted. The agitation now went on with vigour. They organized committees, appointed agents, and sent forth lecturers into all parts of the country. They printed tracts, and circulated their views through the press in various ways, till they succeeded in impressing the public mind favourably to their objects, and created that tide of public opinion which demanded immediate and unconditional freedom to the West Indian slave." (Douglass, 1850 speech on West India emancipation)

“What ought to be done, can be done,” was the rallying cry that, according to Frederick Douglass, freed the British slave. Faith in righteous action — not half-way, toothless measures — has the power to stir souls against atrocity.

After nearly fifty years of American toleration of abortion, it is time to abandon the insipid, compromised delays of failed “pro-life” strategies. As with the original abolitionists, we must awaken to the right of the child to be protected, and the immediate duty of government to provide equal protection.

Frederick Douglass urged the American people to never let go of the principles that end injustice:

"I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost." (“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, 1852)

A return to the saving principles of the Declaration — and nothing less — will bring about a swift end to the slaughter of our nation’s children.

After decades of diversion, American abortion has not ended — not because that prospect is impossible, but because the Declaration was abandoned by its friends, and the proper, constitutional means have sat on parchment, collecting dust.

Frederick Douglass argued the Constitution was sufficient to end slavery, even before the passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The basis for that insight was that the Constitution can only be judged by its written text (which was anti-slavery, he said), and by its stated intentions — the interpretive text we call the preamble:

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America."

“Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted,” said Douglass, “the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them?”

Or, is abortion among them? No. A constitution intended to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, all in united fashion for ourselves and our posterity, has no baby-killing agenda.

At the outset, the Constitution explicitly states it is written for posterity: our nation’s children. Every clause expresses that warm affection. The founders knew that fully establishing justice was a future gift to be enjoyed by future generations — if the previous generations would stay the course.

But if the Constitution was intended to destroy posterity, to spill the blood of tiny babies, to forfeit the life of the most vulnerable child, to make Americans into selfish brutes who curse and kill their children, the document would have left no doubt.

“Be it remembered that the Constitution nowhere forbids a colored man to vote,” said Douglass in 1860. Likewise, be it remembered that the Constitution nowhere forbids a child to live.

Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious life-protecting document. Our error today is that we have mistaken the opinions of judges for law.

Frederick Douglass contrasted the American form of government with that of Great Britain, which relies on court precedent (case law) to settle modern problems by old conventions. The British system has no written constitution, so its precedent is law. The United States, on the other hand, has a written Constitution that binds all of government to its purposes, and cedes no lawmaking power to the courts:

"What, then, is the Constitution? I will tell you. It has no vague, indefinite, floating, unsubstantial, ideal something, colored according to any man’s fancy, now a weasel, now a whale, and now nothing. On the contrary, it is a plainly-written document, not in Hebrew or Greek, but in English, beginning with a preamble, filled out with articles, sections, provisions, and clauses, defining the rights, powers, and duties to be secured, claimed, and exercised under its authority. It is not even like the British Constitution, which is made up of enactments of Parliament, decisions of courts, and the established usages of the government. The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No court in America, no congress, no president, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word therefrom. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people." (Douglass, 1860 debate in Scotland)

“I repeat,” said Douglass, “the paper itself, and only the paper itself, with its own plainly-written purposes, is the Constitution.”

Neil Gorsuch was right to pledge respect for “the law of the land.” But he forgot to read his Constitution. “The law of the land” that Gorsuch swore to uphold is not Supreme Court rulings or precedent.

Gorsuch swore allegiance to that Constitution, and to the impartial administration of justice. Articles I and II make clear that courts are not empowered with the ability to create law, or to apply “case law.” (As in Great Britain.) No oath imposes allegiance to Roe v. Wade nor does the Constitution allow court precedent to be treated as “the law of the land.” The U.S. Constitution has that supreme title, and it does not countenance the taking of innocent human life, only its protection.

Above other governments in recorded history, our government was dedicated to the loftiest and purest of purposes. Ours was made to defend the defenseless, and to secure a blessed land for our children. Ours was not designed to create a nation of baby-killing barbarians. Ours was not designed to make us captives of courts. Unlike every nation that came before, our government belongs in our hands, with a written constitution that justly secures the God-given rights of all.

What can be done about Roe v. Wade? Elect officials who will ignore it, check and balance the judiciary, uphold their oath to the Constitution, enforce equal protection for posterity, and stop making laws that conform to Roe’s deadly standard.

If not to protect the weakest among us, why have a government?

By Equal Protection for Posterity

Tom Hoefling:
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Abortion regulationism will never "overturn Roe," because it consistently imitates Roe, and molds itself to Roe, and to the false notion that the judiciary is all-powerful. Truly, Republicans think they can do Roe better the Democrats. Which I guess makes sense, since Roe was decided by a heavily Republican court in the first place.