A commentary by
By Chuck Baldwin
March 21, 2003
(Used by Chuck Baldwin's permission on CR's Range)
Once again, the Congress of the United States is demonstrating supreme evasion of responsibility. Even as it has catapulted its constitutional duties in relation to the declaration of war, so it is evading its constitutional responsibility in relation to the killing of unborn babies.
Since the Supreme Court issued its infamous ruling legalizing abortion-on-demand thirty years ago, more than forty million innocent, unborn children have been mercilessly and systematically dismembered, decapitated, and chemically burned alive via various abortion procedures. Their silent screams have certainly been heard by a righteous God. However, those screams have not been heard by members of the United States Congress.
Adding insult to injury is an announcement by House Majority Leader Tom Delay. The Washington Times reports that Delay is threatening to use congressional authority to remove federal court's jurisdiction to rule on the Pledge of Allegiance if the Supreme Court does not overturn an appeals court decision that bars children from reciting the Pledge in school.
The Times quotes Delay as saying, "Congress for so long has been lax in standing up for the Constitution." (Now, that's the understatement of the year!) Delay continued by saying, "We [Congress] could limit the jurisdiction of the judicial branch." He is exactly right.
Article III, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution clearly gives Congress the authority to limit and define the Court's power. It states, "In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." What could be clearer?
Mr. Delay is one hundred percent accurate when he says Congress can remove the Pledge issue from the Court and thus overturn the appeals court's decision to remove the Pledge of Allegiance from our public schools. However, the insult is that neither Delay, nor any other congressman, proposes to do the same thing regarding the abortion issue.
Once again, the Congress of the United States seems more concerned about rhetoric than substance. Not saying the Pledge tortures and kills no child, sheds no blood, stops no beating heart. Yet, abortion does all of that. However, when it comes to abortion, there is no call in Congress to limit the jurisdiction of the judicial branch.
Saddam Hussein has reportedly murdered some one hundred thousand people in Iraq over the past few decades. (It is more than interesting that abortion is illegal in Iraq.) We are currently waging war against Iraq in an effort to depose him. We need to realize, however, that the United States government has authorized the murder of more than forty million unborn babies and there is no serious effort being made by Congress or the White House to stop it.
Furthermore, passing a partial birth abortion ban will do nothing to save babies from the abortionist's scalpel. In fact, the bill recently passed in the U.S. Senate includes an amendment which actually strengthens Roe v Wade!
The increasing encroachment of liberty by both the federal court system and the White House is directly caused by an impotent, cowardly Congress that has abdicated its responsibility both to the Constitution and to the American people.
Congress could overturn Roe v Wade anytime it wanted to. Obviously, the reason it doesn't is because it doesn't want to! Remember that the next time you hear these pretending pro-life congressmen rant about how much they abhor abortion.
© Chuck Baldwin
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