The 3 - June 2, 2019

This week's edition of The 3, with three stories of relevance to the Christian community, highlights three stories relative to the issue of the sanctity of life.  In Missouri, just after the governor bill signed pro-life legislation, a state judge allowed the state's last abortion clinic to stay in business, even though its license was due to expire on Friday.  Also, an Indiana pro-life bill reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld part of it, but did not rule on another, prompting strong words from one particular justice.  And, Louisiana has become the latest state to pass pro-life legislation: a heartbeat bill signed into law by a Democrat governor.

Judge allows last abortion clinic in MO to operate

The state of Missouri has been at the center of the abortion issue recently.  For one thing, the governor of the state signed into a law a bill that bans abortion in the state at the eight-week stage of development.  CBN News reported last week that Republican Governor Mike Parson...

...signed a bill Friday banning abortions on or beyond the eighth week of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Under the Missouri law that comes into force Aug. 28, doctors who violate the eight-week cutoff could face five to 15 years in prison. Women who terminate their pregnancies cannot be prosecuted.

Planned Parenthood has filed a lawsuit, asking a circuit court judge to grant a restraining order against the state. The court will hear arguments on Wednesday. The organization wants the state to renew its license.

The license for the lone clinic remaining in Missouri was set to expire this past Friday, May 31. USA Today reported that:

St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer ruled Friday, just hours before the Planned Parenthood clinic's license to perform abortions was set to expire. He issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting Missouri from allowing the license to lapse.

State officials refused to renew the facility's license, which was set to expire Friday, demanding interviews with staff doctors for an investigation into “a large number of possible deficiencies."

Missouri was on the verge of being the first state in the union since Roe vs. Wade to have zero abortion clinics, according to the article.  Now, a local judge has stepped in and has allowed abortions to continue there.

Supreme Court strikes down part of IN pro-life law, justice takes occasion to decry abortion

The U.S. Supreme Court took mixed action regarding a 2016 law in the state of Indiana, upholding one portion of the legislation, but declining to hear another.  ChristianHeadlines.com reported that:

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that states can require the remains of aborted unborn babies to be buried or cremated, upholding part of a 2016 Indiana law that was signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court declined to take up a case involving another part of the law banning abortions based on race, sex or disability.

The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled both parts of the law were unconstitutional.

Family Research Council explored some of the comments by Justice Clarence Thomas regarding the high court's refusal to take up the second portion of the law.  It stated:

To Justice Thomas's horror, the court essentially gave its consent to Hoosiers targeting their babies for certain traits or characteristics. "In other contexts," he wrote, "the Court has been zealous in vindicating the rights of people even potentially subjected to race, sex, and disability discrimination." But by refusing to uphold this law, he went on, the court may as well be "constitutionaliz[ing] the views of the 20th-century eugenics movement," which -- Thomas explains -- were the vision of Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger.

In the footnotes to the ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took issue with Thomas and made the ghastly declaration, "A woman who exercises her constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy is not a 'mother,'" according to the article. FRC went on to say:

Thomas fired back in his own footnote that Justice Ginsburg "makes little sense."

"It is not a 'waste' of our resources to summarily reverse an incorrect decision that created a Circuit split." It's time, he said to "confront the constitutionality of these laws... [W]e cannot avoid them forever." The court invented a right to abortion, he argued. Now it's "dutybound to address its scope."

Thomas says, "it's time." Alabama lawmakers basically said that recently as well; other states have crafted new pro-life laws, and there is hope that at least one of them will get before the high court. FRC points out that: "There are at least 20 abortion cases in the Supreme Court pipeline..."

Pro-life bill in LA sponsored by Democrat legislator signed by Democrat governor

Meanwhile, another state has passed stronger restrictions on abortion, and a unique feature of this bill is that it was sponsored by a Democrat lawmaker in one chamber of the state's legislature and a Democrat governor promised to sign it.

According to LifeSiteNews.com:

On Wednesday, the Louisiana House voted 79-23 to give final approval to legislation that forbids aborting any baby with a detectable heartbeat, except to “prevent the death of a pregnant woman or to prevent a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman,” or if the baby “has a profound and irremediable congenital or chromosomal anomaly that is incompatible with sustaining life after birth.”

There are no exceptions for rape and incest in this bill.  It has been signed by Governor John Bel Edwards.  The article continues:

...Edwards confirmed he would sign the bill in a statement, declaring he “ran for governor as a pro-life candidate after serving as a pro-life legislator for eight years” and has “been true to my word and my beliefs on this issue.”

He added, "As I prepare to sign this bill, I call on the overwhelming bipartisan majority of legislators who voted for it to join me in continuing to build a better Louisiana that cares for the least among us and provides more opportunity for everyone.”

According to Fox8:

Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Denham Springs carried Senate Bill 184 in the House, which was written by Sen. John Milkovich, a Democrat from Shreveport.

“I just want to say I’m proud to stand with this legislation and the state of Louisiana. We’re very pro-life,” Hodges said.

Another provision of the bill, according to LifeSiteNews, is that it would not go into effect until Mississippi's heartbeat bill is upheld in Federal court.  That bill faces a hurdle, in that it is being considered by the same Federal judge who has placed the state's 15-week ban on hold.  The Clarion-Ledger reported on May 24:

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves on Friday issued a strongly worded preliminary injunction blocking Mississippi's "heartbeat" abortion law, that would have banned abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, when a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Reeves' order will combine the lawsuit against Mississippi's fetal heartbeat ban with an ongoing one against the state's previous 15-week abortion ban.

"Here we go again," Reeves wrote. "Mississippi has passed another law banning abortions prior to viability. The latest interpretation (Mississippi's new law) bans abortions in Mississippi after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is as early as 6 weeks."