Pro-lifers will be joyful to learn that the Sixth Appellate Circuit ruled in favor of unborn children and their mothers in not one, but two cases this month. The latest comes from Friday, when a court allowed Tennessee’s 48-hour waiting period legislation to remain in effect while the state appeals last year’s ruling by federal judge Adam Freidman – reports the Tennesseean..
BREAKING: We welcome another significant ruling by the 6th Circuit Court, which just restored a 48-hour waiting period for mothers seeking an abortion in Tennessee.
— Susan B. Anthony List (@SBAList) April 23, 2021
The 2015 law, signed by then-Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, was intended to provide women with an alternative to abortion and ensure it was a decision she wanted to make. According to to the Guttmacher InstituteAs of April 1, 25 states have a waiting period, typically 24 or 48 hours after a woman’s first visit to an abortion facility.
Friday’s ruling comes later Decision of April 13 issued by the Sixth Circuit, which upheld Ohio’s Down Syndrome Nondiscrimination Act, signed by then-Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, in 2017. As its name suggests, the law seeks to prohibit abortion based on a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome.
BIG WIN for #ProLife Movement & #Down syndrome community today
We applaud today’s ruling maintaining Ohio as a sheltered haven for unborn children with Down syndrome. This bill could pose a stern challenge to Roe.
Full statement: https://t.co/mtOQigPVJa pic.twitter.com/TrkEF6RWXR
— Susan B. Anthony List (@SBAList) April 13, 2021
Because Susan B. Anthony’s List points to the possibility of i explains further in the statementthe case may go to the United States Supreme Court:
In 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled against a similar ban on abortion discrimination in Indiana. Today’s favorable ruling by the Sixth Circuit in favor of Ohio’s Down syndrome law has resulted in district splitting—making the Supreme Court much more likely to review it.
The ruling in question overturned the ban on abortion due to such a diagnosis, and the US Supreme Court in 2019 Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. upheld the remaining provisions of the 2016 agreement signed by then-Governor Mike Pence before he became President Donald Trump’s vice president.
The most significant takeaway from the case was Justice Clarence Thomas’s written opinion in which he condemned the eugenics behind the abortion of children on the basis of disability and how the Court would ultimately have to rule on the issue, as Katie reported:
“This case highlights the fact that abortion is an act that carries the potential for eugenic manipulation. From the beginning, birth control and abortion were promoted as means of implementing eugenics. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was particularly open about the fact that birth control could be used for eugenic purposes. “These arguments about the eugenic potential of birth control apply with even greater force to abortion, which can be used against specific children with undesirable characteristics,” Thomas wrote. “Even after World War II, future Planned Parenthood president Alan Guttmacher and other abortion advocates supported abortion on eugenic grounds and promoted it as a way to control the population and improve its quality. As explained below, mounting evidence suggests that eugenic goals are already being realized through abortion.”
“Although the Court declines to address these issues today, we cannot avoid them forever. Having created a constitutional right to abortion, the Court has an obligation to address its scope,” Thomas continued.
Regarding the Sixth Circuit Court’s ruling, court opinion he actually alluded to Justice Thomas’s points on eugenics. That decision overturned a 2018 ruling by a federal judge.
Susan B. Anthony’s List makes an significant point about how dividing the circuit “significantly increases the likelihood of Supreme Court review,” as was the case with the 2015 ruling. Obergefell v. Hodges which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
However, a case I am following as part of my review in a higher court involves Mississippi’s ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was repeatedly put up again when judges refrained from rehearing the case.
