Greetings Friend --

Yesterday, our sister organization—the Institute for Faith and Family—filed another amicus brief in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case. This important Supreme Court case brings one of the most significant challenges to Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in years. In short, the issue in question with the case is whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional. The case is a challenge to Mississippi’s law that bans abortions after 15 weeks.  We filed a “friend of the court” brief urging the Court to overturn abortion, because this decision will have a major impact on unborn babies in North Carolina as well as the country. 

Last year we filed an amicus brief to petition the court to hear the case. When the Supreme Court decided to hear the case earlier this year, we promise you that "now is the time to humanize our laws based on science. We will file another Amicus Brief in the Mississippi case to argue just that, and to protect North Carolina’s right to pass laws like the bills we’re fighting to pass this year.  Our ultimate goal is that abortion will become both illegal and unthinkable."

Our latest brief delivers on that promise. We make 4 main arguments in the brief.

• The Supreme Court’s characterization in Casey of abortion as “the decision whether to bear or beget a child” presupposes that there is in fact a child developing in the womb.  It goes on to show that: “Technological developments over the last few decades expose the reality that life—not merely 'potential' life—is present in the womb.” We urge the Court to consider science as guiding the principle that unborn children are humans with rights.
  
  
• Viability is an arbitrary, judicially created, and obsolete standard in light of emerging science and technology. “Emerging science never shows the unborn to be less than human; rather, each advancement further reveals the humanity of the developing child in all its wonder”—even at 15 weeks, the developing child has “fully formed eyebrows, noses, and lips,” and “the baby’s fully formed heart pumps about 26 quarts of blood per day.”
  
  
• The Supreme Court has set itself up as the ex officio medical board with shifting standards about when and under what circumstances abortion can be limited.  It has abandoned its role as a court and become the medical board that sets standards and parameters for practice in only this one field of “medicine.”
  
  
• It is time for the Supreme Court to discard the social equality fallacy.  “This Court can no longer deny the reality that there is a child, a “second life,” in the womb of a pregnant woman. It is time to acknowledge that reality and discard the fallacy that women cannot achieve equality without easy access to abortion.  A woman can choose to bear a child without sacrificing equality.”

We thank attorney Deborah Dewart for her hard work on these arguments, which are summed up as follows: "Abortion terminates the life of an independent human being in the early stages of development. The Court should reject the viability line, step down from its inappropriate role as ex officio medical board, and discard the fallacy that women need access to abortion to participate in public life on an equal basis with men. . . . It is time for this Court to recognize, respect, and protect the life of every vulnerable, defenseless child developing in the womb of his or her mother." You can click here to read the rest of the Amicus Brief. 

Finally, if you support our pro-life work, would you please consider making a monthly or one-time donation of $5, $10, $25, $50, $75, or $100 towards advancing pro-life legislation and filing pro-life Amicus Briefs?

Sincerely,

Tami Fitzgerald
NC Values

PS: You can check out all of our past amicus briefs here.