Political

MONTGOMERY, Ala.  -- The Foundation for Moral Law ("the Foundation"), a non-profit legal organization based in Montgomery, Alabama, devoted to the defense of religious liberty and promoting a strict interpretation of the Constitution as intended by its Framers, condemned the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit today in West Alabama Women's Center v. Miller. The appeal came to the Eleventh Circuit after federal district judge Myron Thompson had declared unconstitutional an Alabama law banning intact D&E abortions. The Eleventh Circuit described this procedure as using "instruments to grasp a portion (such as a foot or hand) of a developed and living fetus" and "tearing the grasped portion away from the body." Consequently, the baby "bleeds to death as it is torn from limb to limb." Despite the barbarity of the procedure, the Eleventh Circuit upheld Judge Thompson's decision. Chief Judge Ed Carnes, writing for the court, reasoned that the Eleventh Circuit had to follow the abortion precedents of the United States Supreme Court, which, he concluded, required affirming Judge Thompson's decision.
But the Foundation, along with two other Alabama pro-life organizations, had submitted an amicus brief in this case arguing that the Constitution of the United States required lower federal judges to follow the Constitution instead of the Supreme Court if the two conflict. Matt Clark, the Foundation attorney who submitted the brief said, "The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution says that the Constitution itself is the supreme law of the land, not the decisions of the Supreme Court." Clark added, "When the Constitution was ratified, the doctrine of precedent, according to Sir William Blackstone, was that precedents were not to be followed if 'flatly absurd or unjust,' or 'contrary to reason [or] divine law.' Roe and its progeny comport with neither the text of the United States Constitution nor the God-given right to life that the Constitution presupposes, and therefore the Eleventh Circuit should have refused to follow those precedents."
Judge Dubina concurred in the Eleventh Circuit's opinion, arguing that Roe was wrongly decided but following it anyway because, "I am not the Supreme Court, and as a federal appellate judge, I am bound by my oath to follow all of the Supreme Court's precedents, whether I agree with them or not."
But Kayla Moore, the Foundation's President, said, "Because the Eleventh Circuit had an amicus brief in front of it explaining why the court's duty was to follow the Constitution instead of the Supreme Court, the court knew it had a duty to disregard Roe and protect the children's right to live." Moore added, "The Eleventh Circuit cannot wash its hands of the blood of the innocent by placing the blame on the Supreme Court. The victims of the Eleventh Circuit's passivity are Alabama's unborn children, who can now be murdered by having their limbs torn from their bodies while their hearts are still beating."