The chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ committee for pro-life activities denounced Monday’s Supreme Court decision that perpetuates the “cruel precedent” of prioritizing the abortion industry over women’s health and well-being.
In the case of June Medical Services v. Russo, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 to strike down the Louisiana law requiring abortion doctors to have hospital admitting privileges to safeguard women’s health.
“Abortion violently ends the life of a child, and often severely harms women,” writes Kansas City Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann in a statement. “Abortion becomes even more destructive when basic health and safety standards are ignored, and profit margins are prioritized over women’s lives.”
“As Catholics, we condemn abortion as a grave injustice that denies the fundamental human right to life,” Archbishop Naumann said. “Yet even as we seek to end the brutality of legalized abortion, we still believe that the women who seek it should not be further harmed and abused by a callous, profit-driven industry.”
In his powerful dissent to the ruling, Justice Clarence Thomas not only criticized the court’s decision, he also said that the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade that trampled states’ rights and imposed abortion-on-demand on the entire country needs to be revisited and overturned, a position echoed by the U.S. bishops.
“The Constitution does not constrain the States’ ability to regulate or even prohibit abortion,” Justice Thomas wrote. “This Court created the right to abortion based on an amorphous, unwritten right to privacy, which it grounded in the ‘legal fiction’ of substantive due process.”
“As the origins of this jurisprudence readily demonstrate, the putative right to abortion is a creation that should be undone,” Thomas stated.
“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,” he noted.
The Court’s grotesque judicial travesty in Roe v. Wade is further exacerbated by Monday’s ruling, the bishops contend.
“The Court’s failure to recognize the legitimacy of laws prioritizing women’s health and safety over abortion business interests continues a cruel precedent,” Archbishop Naumann declares. “As we grieve this decision and the pregnant women who will be harmed by it, we continue to pray and fight for justice for mothers and children.”
“We will not rest until the day when the Supreme Court corrects the grave injustice of Roe and Casey and recognizes the Constitutional right to life for unborn human beings,” the archbishop concludes. “And we continue to ask all people of faith to pray for women seeking abortion, often under enormous pressure, that they will find alternatives that truly value them and the lives of their children.”
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