Dred Scott II
By Hans Zeiger (01/18/05)
During the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln expressed his great fear that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford – which permitted slavery in the territories and defined slaves as property rather than citizens – could legitimize slavery in the court of public opinion and prompt the judicial case for the national legalization of slavery. “Such a thing is not possible,” Stephen Douglas replied to Lincoln’s question at Freeport about the possibility of a Supreme Court ban on the state abolition of slavery. “It would be an act of moral treason that no man on the bench could ever descend to.”
But Lincoln warned at Galesburg that Douglas’ moral relativistic doctrine of popular sovereignty was part of a campaign of “preparing the public mind for that new Dred Scott decision.” Douglas’s position that the U.S. Supreme Court was practically infallible, that as Lincoln summarized his opponent’s argument, “all you fellows that dare question [the Supreme Court] in any way, are the enemies of the Constitution,” committed him to affirm a second Dred Scott decision if it were to be made. “It commits him to the next decision,” Lincoln said, “whenever it comes, as being as obligatory as this one, since he does not investigate it, and won’t inquire whether this opinion is right or wrong.” Douglas was “preparing (whether purposely or not), the way for making the institution of slavery national!”
In his landmark book “Crisis of the House Divided,” political scientist Harry Jaffa writes, “If it were accepted as settled legal doctrine that the right to property in slaves was ‘expressly affirmed’ in the Constitution, there could be no legal barrier to a future decision pronouncing slavery lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South.”
Of course, the Second Dred Scott ruling was never made in those years; Civil War broke out not long after the first Supreme Court decision.
That is not to say, however, that there has not been a Second Dred Scott decision. In fact there has been such a ruling, much like Lincoln described it 115 years before the Supreme Court decided to legalize – in every state, and to affirm a conception of human life as property – a much bloodier practice called abortion. We know the second Dred Scott decision, the one feared like death by Abraham Lincoln, as Roe v. Wade.
The particular evils are distinct – slavery and abortion are two different things with different dynamics and different consequences in different times – but their parallels are horrifying. In the contemporary case, a state is not at liberty to ban abortion; abortion is nationally legalized, and largely legitimized by public opinion, by Roe v. Wade. Since 1973, one in four pregnancies have been terminated, and around 44 million abortions have occurred, utilizing such outrageous procedures as Dilation and Evacuation during which a crushing instrument is inserted into a mother's uterus and pieces are pulled off of the child and assembled on a table to make ensure they all came out. Or the ammonite burning of children by saline amniotic infusion that concludes in a hopeless struggle against the severe pain of arsoned lungs and skin. Or Partial Birth Abortion. Or a simple RU-486 pill that can terminate a pregnancy quickly and efficiently. By the way, in 2004, taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood amounted to $265.2 million, a third of the budget at the nation’s largest abortion provider.
But abortion is in its final days. A decade ago, according to a Gallup poll, 56 percent of Americans considered themselves pro-choice, and only 33 percent said they were pro-life. Today, according to a Zogby poll, 49 percent of Americans say they are pro-life, compared to 46 percent who say they are pro-choice. The reasons for this dramatic shift of public opinion are primarily attributable to the survivors of abortion.
Indeed, all young Americans born since 1973 are all survivors of abortion in a sense. We were targets, for sure, of the war on life. Told by the advocates of abortion that life is worthless – that our lives are worthless – we are simply not buying the lies.
According to a 2003 Gallup poll, 32 percent of 13- to 17-year old teens are in favor of a complete legal ban on abortion, compared to only 26 percent of adults. Teens who attend church were more likely than those who do not to support an abortion ban, at 40 percent compared to 26 percent. And a 2004 Zogby poll shows that 60 percent of 18 to 29 year olds support complete restriction of abortion or minimal exceptions for the life of the mother, rape, or incest. A comparison of membership lists between Planned Parenthood and the National Right to Life Federation reveals that the average pro-abortion activist is ten years older than the average pro-life activist. This is not just about politics, after all, it is about life.
Churchill’s reflection on the first half of the late century as the “unestimated sum of human pain” could be multiplied many times to describe abortion. Roe v. Wade was like Abraham Lincoln’s dreaded incubus come to kill a few generations; Roe v. Wade is Dred Scott II. On this thirty-second anniversary of the Roe decision, we ought to consider, given abortion’s toll, as Lincoln considered, “whether that nation … can long endure.”
May we learn from the history of slavery to avoid a violent second civil war; this time, we need to practice civility. We need to speak to our families and our neighbors to convince them that the right to life is worth protecting. We will not win this battle with hatred but with love. Through our compassion, and by our words, we will represent angels. For like saints of faith, the aborted unborn, being dead, yet speak.
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