#Pray4Dobbs Episode 1: Introduction 9/26/21
The first episode in our weekly series about Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health is available now.
Our Youtube Channel can be found here.
Episode Notes:
Pray for Dobbs Week #1
Greetings and blessed Lord's Day everyone.
This week it was announced that the Supreme Court will hold the hearing for the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health on December 1, 2021.
Every Sunday we will be sharing some reflections on the case, the sin of abortion, and the forgiveness and healing that can be found in Christ.
From time to time we will also pray for the 9 Supreme Court justices both collectively and individually and the advocates who will be arguing the case of life before the Court.
As the weeks go on we will discuss more about the cases of Roe, Doe, Casey and others.
To start this week, a brief background on the history of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, which I will be referring to as Dobbs for short.
On March 19, 2018 the state of Mississippi passed the “Gestational Age Act,” MS Code § 41-41-191 (2018). This act required doctors before performing an abortion to determine the probable fetal age of the unborn child and to not perform an abortion if the child was determined to be older than 15 weeks gestational age. The act included exceptions for maternal medical emergencies and severe fetal abnormality. Those exceptions were defined as follows:
“Medical emergency” means a condition in which, on the basis of the physician’s good faith clinical judgment, an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of a pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition arising from the pregnancy itself, or when the continuation of the pregnancy will create a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.
“Severe fetal abnormality” means a life-threatening physical condition that, in reasonable medical judgment, regardless of the provision of life-saving medical treatment, is incompatible with life outside the womb.
The act was immediately challenged by Mississippi’s only abortion providing facility, Jackson Women’s Health and one of its “doctors,” Dr. Sacheen Carr-Ellis. The district court sided entirely with Jackson Women’s Health, granting an emergency temporary restraining order, then a temporary restraining order, then limiting discovery in the case to the issue of viability, and ultimately entering summary judgment on the abortion clinic’s behalf.
Mississippi appealed the case the the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and on December 13, 2019 the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s judgment. On January 17, 2020 the Fifth Circuit denied a petition for an en banc hearing which is a rehearing by the entire court of the case.
On May 17th 2021, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to hear the case the following term. On Monday September 20th, 2021 it was announced that the Court would hear oral arguments on the case on December 1st.
That is where the case stands right now. In future weeks we will get more into the specific arguments in the case.
Every Supreme Court session opens with the Marshall of the Court making an announcement while the Justices enter and are seated which concludes with, "God save the United States and this Honorable Court!." https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/procedures.aspx
The Court invokes divine providence as it conducts the nation's business. The justices ask for divine protection while deciding matters of life and death.
Asking for God's mercy, means approaching the throne of mercy and justice. While the Supreme Court may sever provisions of laws they do not like, they cannot sever God's justice from his mercy.
In Dobbs we have a case in which the justice's attempted to limit the question presented before them, but to reach any decision that is true they must face the reality of Roe and of abortion.
The Court agreed to hear the case to decide the following question presented, "1. Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional."
As a number of legal scholars have noted, if a majority of the Court wants to answer this question in the negative and in favor of life, it will be nearly impossible to do so without striking at the heart of Casey and Roe.
As Notre Dame law professor Gerald V. Bradley explained in First Things,
"The “viability” precedent (Roe, rearticulated in Casey) caused the lower courts to block enforcement of Mississippi’s law. The judges of the Fifth Circuit concluded that Supreme Court precedent categorically excluded any such “previability” bans. They were right about the court’s precedents. But those precedents have been wrong."
"The court will struggle, and perhaps mightily, to write an opinion that discards “viability” without overturning Roe. The pro-life justices will be unsatisfied with throwing up any facile or arbitrary line, though, in pursuit of a moderate result that somehow divides elective abortions into coherent categories of those which are constitutionally immune to state bans and those which are not, distinguished by some relevant principle and not by judicial fiat. Perhaps that opinion simply cannot be written. We should pray for that event, for it would augur, as Mississippi suggested, that “Roe and Casey should indeed be overruled.”
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/05/dobbs-to-be-decided
The lives of millions of yet to be born children stand with the souls of seventy plus million children who have been aborted because of the Court's decision in Roe v. Wade.
With that background in place and reality faced it is time that we go to God in prayer.
Father in heaven, we come to you today in prayer and supplication. You are the great creator and giver of life. You who made all of creation, you who made man from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him. You who saw that it was not good for man to be alone and created woman. You who created human sexual reproduction. You who created the process of fetal development and birth. You who in the Son stooped so low as to become a fetus, a child, and then a man. You who knew us before time began and knitted us together in our mother’s wombs according to your plan and your will.
We pray that you surround the United States Supreme Court with the Holy Spirit. That you work a mighty work in their hearts, softening them and conforming their judgement to your will.
Please forgive our nation for the great sin of legalized abortion. We pray that you forgive those who have had or participated in abortions who come to you in faith and repentence. We pray that you lead men to keep and protect women and their children. We pray that you lead women in need to pregnancy resource centers, churches and families that can support them, teach them and treasure them and their children.
We pray all these things in the mighty name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
