The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Monday, June 24, 2024

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 - 14:58)How We Got Here: Re-Examining the History of Abortion in America Two Years Post-Dobbs, a Half-Century After RoeRoe v. Wade by The Supreme Court of the United StatesDobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization by The Supreme Court of the United StatesThe Untold Story of the Network That Took Down Roe v. Wade by The New York Times (Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer)Part II (14:58 - 21:15)Dobbs Was Necessary But Not Sufficient: The Pro-Life Movement Faces a Huge Challenge in Our Current Cultural ClimatePart III (21:15 - 24:58)The Fight for Life Rages On: The Electoral and Political Battleground the Pro-Life Movement Faces on the 2 Year Anniversary of DobbsSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Monday, June 24, 2024. I'm Albert Moller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Two years ago today, the United States Supreme Court made constitutional moral and national history by striking down the Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion in 1973. So almost a century after Roe v. Wade was infamously handed down, the Supreme Court of the United States responded in the case known as Dobbs, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution neither articulates abortion. It doesn't include the word. It doesn't include the concept, nor is there in the Constitution any right to an abortion. And so the United States Supreme Court two years ago made history. And as we know, looking backwards over the last two years and looking at our contemporary context, the challenges before us, it is clear that a lot of Americans, an overwhelming number of Americans, And for that matter, an unfortunate number of American Christians really do not understand what is at stake and why on this two-year anniversary we really need to think these issues through once again. But let's go back to 1973. Let's go back to when the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down. Let's understand what was going on there.

By the time you reached 1973, a couple of huge developments had come together. One of them was the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution was that massive redefinition of sexuality, of sexual ethics, and of course, it gave birth to everything until today's world in which you have no fault divorce, and for that matter, confusion over gender, the LGBTQ agenda. But going back to the 1960s and the 1970s, the argument was for sexual liberation and women's liberation, and understood as key to all of that was a redefinition of sexual ethics, and that was, of course, made possible by the 20s. developments of modern birth control methods, particularly the pill and legal developments, including the Supreme Court, all of a sudden discovering that, like abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution, birth control is not mentioned there either. But liberals on the Supreme Court had at that point developed a mode of constitutional interpretation in which they could all a sudden find new rights in the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, that's what produced the Roe v. Wade decision

in 1973. When the case was announced, when it was handed down in 1973, it was Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackman, who had authored the majority opinion, basically developed the logic of Roe, and it was he whose words were heard when the decision was announced. Justice Blackman said, quote, we forthwith acknowledge our awareness of the and emotional nature of the abortion controversy, of the vigorous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires. The court went on to say, remember this is January of 1973, one's philosophy, one's experiences, one's exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one's religious training, one's attitudes

toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe are all likely to influence and to color one's thinking and conclusions about abortion. Those were early words in the Blackman majority decision, a 7-2 decision, by the way, that struck down state laws that would totally restrict abortion and would invent. The Supreme Court majority would invent a new right to abortion, grounding it in a new right they had declared about a decade earlier, a so-called right to privacy. And thus, when Roe v. Wade was announced, it was seen as an absolutely capstone victory for the women's liberation movement and also for the movement of sexual liberation

and the redefinition of sexual ethics. I wanted to read those introductory words to the Roe decision because I just wanted to point out that without using the word worldview, Justice Blackman employed just about every other word to describe the fact that he was picturing here the opposition of two different worldviews, one that would be pro-abortion and one that would be pro-life, but it's really interesting that Justice Blackman at least understood the momentous scale of what the court was doing. It was inventing a new right. It was declaring the right for a woman to terminate the human life within her, at least within certain parameters, as marked off with three different trimesters during a pregnancy. But Roe v. Wade was more than just a decision about abortion.

It was that capstone decision after so many other decisions that basically redefined the entire moral landscape and, as we've seen, the entire constitutional and legal landscape as well. That's the reason why. The Roe v. Wade decision basically had to be confronted head-on. And the big question was how in the world that would happen and how long it would take. I don't think the early pro-life activists in the 1970s really understood that it was likely to take a half-century for the appropriate case to come with a newly composed court, and yet that's what it took. it took basically a half century. It certainly involved all of a half century by the time you get to the submission of the

arguments for Roe and then the handing down to the decision in Dobbs. And in both cases, there was the understanding that this is a massive worldview clash in announcing the Dobbs decision. In 2002, Justice Samuel Alito said this, quote, abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views. Some believe fervently that a human person comes into being at conception. and that abortion ends in innocent life. Others feel just as strongly that any regulation of abortion invades a woman's right to control her own body and prevents women from achieving full equality.

Still others in a third group think that abortion should be allowed under some but not all circumstances and those within this group hold a variety of views about the particular restrictions that should be imposed. End quote. So you'll notice, in both cases, separated by 50 years, the justices in their leading comments acknowledged there is a vast worldview conflict that is very apparent here, that is unavoidable here. And, at least in the case of Justice Alito, two years ago in the Dobbs decision, he went so far as to say it really is a distinction in worldview and a distinction in moral claim that comes down to the distinction between life and death. In the court's ruling, the Dobbs decision stated this, very concisely, quote,

The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey are overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives. So that's just an economy of a few words. But in those few words, the Supreme Court in 2002, two years ago today, announced that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion, period. It doesn't imply a right. It doesn't state such a right. the founders and framers of the Constitution would not have envisioned such a right. It was a right, an artificial right, that was claimed to have been invented or found by justices back in the 1970s, and it does not withstand constitutional review.

Justice Alito got right to the heart of it when he wrote, quote, Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any Constitution. provision. So on this second anniversary, I want us to understand what is at stake here, first of all, when it comes to matters of life and death, and when it comes to the truth that every single human life is to be protected from every moment from fertilization until natural death, and that it is grounded in our view in the understanding that unborn Americans are not merely unborn citizens, human beings in the moment of fertilization are beings made in the image of God. Thus, their

life is to be protected and the sanctity of their life is to be respected. In their book, looking back at the Dobbs decision and the issue of abortion in the United States, New York Times reporters Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lurr, they write this, quote, for decades, Roe had been a symbol of American ideals. Its fall was a symbol, too, of a new set of values that had taken power in America. Roe understood for years by liberal America as an embodiment of freedom and equality for women was replaced by Dobbs, a decision that conservative Christians saw as a manifestation of the primacy of life and the conservative lawyers believed corrected the legal overreach of the 1960s and the 1970s. End quote. So even though these two writers, Liz Bathias and Lisa Lerer, even though they are

very much pro-abortion, and that becomes very clear in their book, and even as they would write of grow in positive terms and Dobbs here in negative terms, they do write quite honestly about the fact that what we are witnessing here is a clash of two different understandings that goes all the way to the question as to what is the Constitution, how is the Constitution of the United States to be interpreted, but then even more basically, is the unborn child a human being made in the image of God to be preserved, or is the key issue a woman's right to abortion, bodily autonomy, what is often now redefined in the pro-abortion movement as a woman's reproductive health. What we're looking at here is a clear clash. It is an absolute collision. And one of the lessons

you learn by looking at the Roe decision for 1973 and the Dobbs decision from 2022 is that it's basically one way or the other. It's virtually impossible to imagine a halfway house between Roe and Dobbs. Now, we're going to fast forward to where we are in 2020. in just a moment, but let's go back and understand that in 1973, when the road decision was handed down, people in both parties, basically the leadership on both sides of the American partisan equation, thought that the United States would basically get in line and move on. If you were to look back at the Democrats in 1973 and the Republicans in 1973, one of the things you would discover is that there were anti-abortion figures in both parties and there

were basically pro-abortion figures in both parties, and there were a lot of people in both parties who just wanted the issue to go away. You go back to the early 1970s, and you understand that America is indeed dividing over basic moral issues. But even as there are so many controversies about all kinds of sexual issues, all kinds of civil issues, you could just go down the list. The reality is that most people at the time did not understand that the chasm is as wide as it would become. And that's why the partisan map of the United States was utterly transformed during the 1970s. The issue of abortion did not really divide the two parties in any significant way, going back to the early 1970s. By the time you reached the 1980 presidential election, remember that was incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter challenged by Republican nominee Ronald Reagan.

That was the first time you really had a divergence on abortion in the two-party platforms. Fast forward another 20 years, it's going to be very difficult to find a problem. pro-life Democrat, and it's going to get very difficult to be elected if you are a pro-abortion Republican. And that's because the worldview issues are simply so stark. You're going to either believe that the person in the womb is to be protected, and that means is to be protected with legal protections, with legal strictures. Or you're going to believe that it's basically just a matter of a woman's choice and what you would define as a woman's reproductive health, which means you have to basically say that that unborn human life is not morally significant unless the woman declares

it to be morally significant. That's another one of the great clashes here. The pro-life movement says every single human life is a matter of grave moral concern. It demands moral protection, not just when we want it to be protected, not just when it's recognized. And yet the heart of the pro-abortion movement, and that's becoming more and more clear because that movement's becoming more and more radical. The arguments it's now making are more and more expansive and non-conditioned. What you see now is they're basically saying that that unborn child deserves to be protected if the mother wants it to be protected. And thus, you're looking at a giant shift in terms of moral worldview here. Something else I want to encourage Christians about is that the definition

of the moral issues related to the sanctity of human life and the evil of abortion, even among Christians. Those issues have been very confused going back to the 1960s and the 1970s. Frankly, an awful lot of American evangelicals have never had a conversation about abortion. And I think it's probably fair to say they had sought to avoid a conversation about abortion. But they didn't have any choice after the Supreme Court handed down that decision in 1973. Now it is a matter that is unavoidable on the American political landscape. Now, as I said, it wasn't unavoidable because one party said, hey, we're going to be pro-life, and the other one said we're going to be pro-abortion. No, because at that time, basically in a bipartisan fashion, an awful lot of elected officials

just wanted to get on with the program. Let's put this behind us. Let's assume that this is settled law, and let's talk about other things. But of course, this is where evangelical Christians and others came to the conclusion. We can't just shift to the subject. We can't just go along with this. We have to understand that this is an insidious assault upon human dignity, and it cannot be allowed to stand. I want to also underline the fact that if you go back to the early 1970s when Roe was handed down, there was virtually no political prospect that that decision would ever be reversed, that there would ever be a clear pro-life consensus in either party, nor that it would be possible to elect presidents who held to a pro-life conviction and would actually appoint

justices who would follow through on a conservative understanding of the Constitution, which is to say they would be bound by the text and they wouldn't be inventing new modern rights. But it's just really important for us to understand that if early Christians and pro-life activists had not been making those arguments, if they didn't start from way behind with a fervent commitment to make the arguments and to fight the battles and to march in the parades and to simply take the opportunities to elect the candidates, to articulate the policies, to advocate for legislation and to push for the right nominations to the United States Supreme Court and to other judgeships, if those things had not happened, we would not be having this conversation.

We would not be looking back at the second anniversary of Dobbs. But just to point to the scale of how the development of this issue had taken place, if you go back to the Roe v. Wade issue, you look at the development of that case, back in the early 1970s, there were 23 Friend of the Court briefs that were submitted by both sides. 23. When it came to the Dobbs decision, it was 140. That just shows you, just by a friend of the court briefs, how the argument had developed. We're talking about a much more expansive argument. And on the pro-life side, we need to understand that American pro-life activists, and right at the center of those activists, you have American Christians. American evangelicals were a little late to the scene,

but when we got there, we got busy. We had to argue a case that hadn't been made before. We had to make arguments that hadn't been required before. They're required now. As we think about the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision, we need to understand that the biggest lesson is that it was absolutely necessary, but it was not sufficient. It was absolutely necessary that Roe be reversed, and we need to thank God. We need to thank God with sober and with determined hearts, with thankful hearts, that Roe was reversed. But we need to understand that ever since the Dobbs decision and the reversal of row happened, the pro-life movement's been on the defensive in the United States, and we are so in the year 2024. A lot's going on there, but at least part of it is that you had a lot of

politicians and others who described themselves as pro-life turned out to be pro-life when it was convenient to make the argument, but not so pro-life when they have to take responsibility in the current political climate. So as is so often the case, when you win something big like this at the Supreme Court, all of a sudden the responsibility falls upon your side of the argument. That's when you find out how many people who said they're on your side really were. Because the political stakes have gone up. And you can see how the Democratic Party is increasingly making abortion its key theme in terms

of the re-election of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic ticket. And in particular in Congress, but also in state races. Even headlines in the last 24 hours making very clear that on the second anniversary of Dobbs, you can count on the Democratic administration, the Biden administration, issuing all kinds of messaging about how outraged it is and how determined the Democrats are to find a legislative way to put Roe back in force. And by the way, as we point out, that's not even intellectually honest because the Democratic Party, as it is committed now, would by no means be satisfied, even with the pro-abortion position of Roe. They will press for abortion paid for by the taxpayer by coercion.

in virtually every conceivable circumstance without limitation or boundary. Now remember the clarity of what we're talking about here. In the Dobbs decision two years ago today, the court majority held, quote, the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey are overruled and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives. Remember that Justice Alito's majority opinion made very clear that there is no mention of abortion in the Constitution.

and frankly, it was not a matter of American constitutional law until the United States Supreme Court decided that it would be by deciding to invent a new right in 1973. It's very important to notice how the dissenting opinion, these are the very outraged liberals on the court. That would be Justice Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. It was an opinion written by Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor. here's what Justice Kagan drafted, and the other two also agreed to join. Quote, for half a century, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southern Pennsylvania versus Casey have protected the liberty and equality of women. Roe held and Casey reaffirmed that the Constitution safeguards a woman's right to decide for

herself whether to bear a child. Ro held and Casey reaffirmed that in the first stages of pregnancy, the government could not make that choice for women. The government could not control a woman's body or the course of a woman's life. It could not determine what the woman's future would be, respecting a woman as an autonomous being, and granting her full equality meant giving her substantial choice over this most personal and most consequential of all life decisions. The justices in dissent went on to say the court struck a balance, meaning row, as it often does, when values and goals compete. The dissenting justice has then accused the majority of discarding that balance.

The new decision, quote, says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has to, no rights to speak of end quote. So you'll notice the shift there. I just wanted to point to this language because when the decision was handed down two years ago, we did note the language, but over time, over the last 24 months, those particular words hang with incredible heaviness. So here you have the three liberal justices basically acknowledging that there's no reference to abortion in the Constitution, but still going on to claim that the Constitution, quote, safeguards a woman's right to decide for herself whether to bear a child, end quote. Now, The economist Thomas Hull says that the main division in worldviews is between the constrained

and the unconstrained. We will look at that in greater detail at another time, but just understand what he's talking about there. He's talking about whether we see the world as one in which we are constrained or we see the world as one in which human actors, human beings are not constrained. I think it's a brilliant insight. And in this case, you'll just notice that here you have justice is saying that even though abortion is not in the Constitution, we shouldn't be constrained by the words. Even though it would

have been implausible, indeed virtually impossible to imagine, that the framers of the Constitution could ever have imagined anything like a claim of a woman's right to abortion, you'll notice that here it simply stated that it's a constitutional assurance. It's a constitutional protection. Why? Because in their view, judges have the ability, and I think on the left, they would say even the responsibility to find new rights within the Constitution. They're not finding them in the words. They're finding them in the context of a changed moral order. All of this just underlines the fact that we are today standing at one of those moments in history when we need to look back two years and understand two things. First of all, how thankful we are that the Supreme Court of the United

States struck down the Roe v. Wade decision, that infamous decision that led to untold millions of deaths in the womb, and also stated that the U.S. Constitution includes no right to an abortion. It returned the question, as the holding said, to the elected representatives of the people. And, of course, the big question right now is, is that going to mean the states, or will you have Congress get involved in this? On the Democratic side, they've been very clear, if they win the White House in November and have control of both houses in the legislature, they are going to press through what I can only describe as radical pro-abortion legislation at the federal. level. And that would mean, quite honestly, that all the gains in the Dobbs decision could be

almost instantaneously wiped out. On the other hand, we have to recognize that if the issue does stay at the states, we have a state-by-state battle. And in some states, you already have very clear pro-life convictions translated into policy. Just for the sake of argument today, we could say virtually half of the states. It's not half of the U.S. population, but it is about half of the states. In some of the other states, you have such a pro-abortion worldview in place and such a political power structure in place. It's very difficult to imagine how long it might take to return those states to anything like a pro-life position. But here's what we need to understand. If you go back 50 years before the Dobbs decision, then you're pretty certain that it's almost

impossible to reverse Roe v. Wade. Let's be thankful that there were those who said, you know what? With human eyes, it may look impossible. But we have to work at it and we better start working at it right now. So on this two-year anniversary, I just want to remind Christians, we really are committed to a pro-life ethic, not just because we're very determined on the issue of abortion, but because we understand the sanctity and dignity of human life, and we understand that every single human being is made in the image of God. And thus, we have this responsibility, and it's daunting. We need to recognize we suffered significant electoral losses since the Dobbs decision was handed down two years ago today, but that should just increase our determination

to stay in this fight as long as it lasts, because we have to come back to where we began. The great issue here is a matter between life and death. And I just want to remind us, as I spent time looking at those opinions handed down the majority opinion and the dissenting opinions in the Dobbs case, let's just state really clearly that the justices on both sides of the issue did see clear. what was at stake. It would be an incredible sign of unfaithfulness if many Christians in the United States do not see, even refuse to see what those justices on the United States Supreme Court did see very clearly. Now, you know, when I was a boy growing up, I overheard many things,

including the moral advice to choose your battles carefully. Let me just remind Christians, we did not choose this battle. This battle chose us, and there we are. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmohar.com. You can follow me on Twitter or X by going to Twitter.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsbtsklee.edu. For informational voice college, just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.