The Right Stuff: Supreme Court decision does not ban abortions

By Roger Oberbeck:Published July 4, 2022: Daily Republic

The Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling on Roe v Wade and Casey does not ban abortions. It returns the decision about abortions to the voting citizens of each state via their elected representatives.

The important part of the SCOTUS ruling is as follows: “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely – the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” That clause has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” The right to abortion does not fall in this category. Indeed, when the 14th Amendment was adopted, three quarters of the states made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy. The abortion right is also critically different from any other rights that the courts held fall within the 1th Amendment’s protection of liberty. Roe’s defenders characterize the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception and marriage. However, abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledge, because it destroys what it called “fetal life” and what the law now describes as “unborn human being.”[...read more]

The Right Stuff: 25th Amendment a solution for lost leadership

By Earl Heal: published June 27, 2022

The Right Stuff column of June 20 examined actions of the Biden administration that violated constitutional law.

Procedure to remove the president from office requires House members, acting as a grand jury, to investigate a president’s actions to determine if causes for impeachment exist. If affirmative, the House will issue a Cause for Impeachment (indictment) to the Senate, which then is required to conduct a trial to determine conviction. Conviction requires a two-thirds vote.

An alternative to impeachment is provided by the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1967.

The original Constitution did not address various circumstances that would require filling a presidential vacancy. Before 1967, eight vice presidents replaced presidents who died in office. Two other cases illustrated the deficiency of guidance in place. President Woodrow Wilson was stricken by a stroke in October 1919 that left him paralyzed with limited speech. Wilson’s condition was hidden from the public, White House staff and Congress. Historian Dr. Howard Markel and others identified that Mrs. Wilson worked secretly as the nation’s chief executive officer, America’s first women president, through March 2021. After Lyndon B. Johnson replaced assassinated President John F. Kennedy, the nation had no vice president for 16 months until the next election’s inauguration.[.read more...]

The Right Stuff: Consider impeachment to save America’s future

By Earl Heal: published June 20, 2022

The Right Stuff column of June 13, 2022, reviewed unimpeachable offenses by the Biden administration. This week, for those who want to hurry and not wait two years for the voters’ decision, we cite two of several of President Joe Biden’s violations of his oath of office – impeachable offenses.

The first article of the Constitution is Article II, Section 1. Term. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America . . . Oath. Before he enters on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath (or affirmation): “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and l will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Has Biden met his oath to enforce America’s immigration and security laws?[...read more...]