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A while back I did a couple of posts pointing out the cost in babies lives every time a pro-abort president is elected.
HERE’S THE FIRST (AND LONGER) ONE.
HERE’S THE SECOND (AND SHORTER) ONE.
Those posts used numbers based on how many kids will be killed on average by electing a pro-abort president who will nominate pro-abort Supreme Court justices who will continue the abortion holocaust.
But all elections are not equal. Now I want to do the numbers on how many kids will get killed as a result of a pro-abort victory in this election.
With some help from Steve over at Southern Appeal, I did some number crunching and determined how many Supreme Court nominations the next president is likely to get. The answer is three or four.
Here’s how that works: The average age at retirement among SCOTUS justices of late (meaning, the generation of justices that just retired) is 78. The current batch of justices has three members (Rehnquist, Stevens, and O’Connor) that already are past that age or will be within the next four years. Two of these three (Rehnquist and O’Connor) have had significant health problems. In fact, Rehnquist will almost certainly retire at the end of this year’s term if he doesn’t do so before then.
In addition to these three, there is a fourth member likely to retire: Ruth Ginsburg, who won’t hit average retirement age until 2011 but who also has had health problems.
How will this affect the abortion holocaust?
Currently there are three votes on the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade: Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas. There need to be five votes to overturn and let the process of ending abortion in America to begin.
What will happen to that if a pro-life president is elected tomorrow?
Assuming the right replacement justices are picked, we would get five votes to overturn in the next president’s term: Rehnquist would bow out but get replaced with another vote to overturn. So that would still leave us with three. Then Stevens and O’Connor (both refuseniks on overturning Roe) and get replaced with votes to over turn. O’Connor would be expected to retire last, in 2008 unless health concerns intervene.
THAT’S FIVE.
If Ginsburg retires and is replaced with another anti-Roe justice, that would be six.
Add a year to let an appropriate case come before the Court, and we could have Roe overturned around 2009.
If a pro-life president is elected Tuesday then there is a good chance that the abortion holocaust can begin to be ended in the next four years by the removal of the chief legal impediment to ending it (i.e., Roe v. Wade).
But what if a pro-abort is elected?
Rehnquist goes and is replaced with a pro-Roe justice, reducing the number of votes to overturn. Stevens, O’Connor, and possibly Ginsburg also go and are replaced by pro-Roe justices, leaving the number at two.
The next batch of SCOTUS retirees wouldn’t be expected to retire until 2014 (that would be Scalia and Kennedy) with another in 2016 (Breyer), one in 2017 (Souter), and one in 2026 (Thomas).
All of these dates are after the 2008-2012 presidential term, so the president in that term likely won’t be able to make any adjustments to the SCOTUS lineup and the number of votes to overturn will be stuck at two. The abortion holocaust thus continues through 2012 if we have a pro-abort elected Tuesday.
When is the soonest it could end on this scenario? If President 2012 is pro-life then he could replace Scalia with an anti-Roe justice, preserving the number at two, then replace Kennedy with an anti-Roe justice, returning the number to three. He also might get a chance to replace Breyer with an anti-Roe justice, bringing the number to four. But President 2016 would have to be pro-life, too, before we could get the number up to five. That would be expected circa 2017. That’s the soonest it could be expected to happen if a pro-abort is elected Tuesday.
What’s the other possibility? What’s the worst case scenario? Assuming that Presidents 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 are pro-aborts, what would happen to the number of votes to overturn? We’d lose one with the retirement of Rehnquist in 2004’s term. Then we’d lose another with the retirement of Scalia in 2012’s term. The final anti-Roe justice on the court would then be Thomas, who would be expected to retire in President 2024’s term.
Beyond that it gets too hard to see when the needed four votes could be put on the court, though the most likely window is the term of President 2028, when the appointees of President 2004 start to retire. That would be the soonest we could get to five votes if 2004-2016 are pro-aborts.
So if President 2004 is pro-abort then the best case scenario involves extending the abortion holocaust until around 2017. The worst case scenario has it extending until circa 2031. Add a year to each of those to let an appropriate case come before the Court, and we have 2018 and 2032. Average these since the likelihood is that history won’t go either best case or worse case, and we have the year 2025.
So, if a pro-life president is elected Tuesday, Roe could be overturned around 2009. If a pro-abort president is elected Tuesday, Roe can be estimated to be overturned around 2025. That’s a difference of sixteen years.
How many kids will die in those sixteen years? With 1.5 million kids being killed by abortion on average (including emerging forms of abortion that are usually hidden, like via in vitro fertilization, stem cell research, and cloning), that would be TWENTY FOUR MILLION KIDS KILLED.
A normal election only results in six million kids dying due to a single pro-abort presidential term.
This time, because of the current composition of the court, the election of a pro-abort president is likely to lead to it’s twenty-four million additional deaths.
These are only estimates, of course, based on average lengths of time on the Supreme Court, but one has to reply on the best estimates available in order to make an informed decision about the gravity that must be given to this issue and what kind of reasons could be proportionate to it.
You’ll have to decide for yourself whether there is something proportionate to that. Nothing short of a theromonuclear war between well-armed nation states would do it. Terrorism isn’t even close. Nor is the War in Iraq or the whole War on Terror.
Vote pro-abort on Tuesday, and TWENTY-FOUR MILLION KIDS DIE.
(Oh, yeah: What’s Mine Is Mine.)
That’s all fine and dandy Jimmy, but haven’t you heard?
John Kerry might raise the minimum wage.
Great post, Jimmy. Extremely sobering and scary. I have a feeling that if President 2004 is pro-abort tonight that there will be many tears shed (both here and in heaven). However, I think you are a bit optimistic for the ‘worst’ case scenario if President 2004 is a pro-abort. Placing it at 2032 is still speculatively optimistic and I would claim is the ‘middle’ case scenario. In fact, the speculation that goes into that date is still hoping that, given that pro-aborts will control the white house until the 2004 appointed justices are retiring, that at their retirement there will be a pro-life president. Again, this is hopeful speculation as well. I would propose that the ‘worst’ case scenario is indeed INDEFINITE. For, we have no idea if a pro-life president WILL be able to replace 2004 appointed justices. Indeed, if President 2004 is pro-abort, we might be in a long haul fighting to save the lives of innocent children…a long and failing fight at that. WE can only pray that this does not happen.
Great post Jimmy. I also want to point out that while a President may not have a huge effect on the number of abortions during his term, he
DOES have a huge effect on the budget, and thus funding levels given to groups like Planned Parenthood, as well as U.N. and other population control agencies abroad, so there are some very serious short-term consequences to electing pro-abortion candidates as well.
Sobering Prospect
JIMMY AKIN.ORG: Pro-Abort Victory in 2004 = 24 MILLION DEAD BABIES…
And that is only babies, and only in this country.
That doesn’t include the babies murdered over-seas with American money, nor euthanasia, nor human vivisection, or Christians martyred, etc.
Kerry is no better than Clarke.
Also, this does not take into account the amount of babies that would be slaughtered under the name of ‘stem cell research’. I wonder if such a figure is even calculable. I’m sure it would bring tears to our eyes.
Greetings!
Four points:
1) It is proportionalism/consequentialism to weigh a moral issue by the number of victims. The gravity of evil should be weighed by the number of people complicit in the act. An unjust war makes the entire nation guilty of the murder of innocents. A permissive abortion law does not mandate the death of anyone, and only the individual procuring the abortion is guilty. While abortion is “intrinsically evil”, meaning no circumstance justifies it, and war is not intrinsically evil, an UNJUT war is evil by definition. Both kill innocent human beings, but the unjust war makes more people complicit in the act. If the war in Iraq is unjust, as the Pope says, it is the graver evil.
2) Roe v. Wade is unfortunately part of the U.S. tradition of jurisprudence. A judge who rejects it is allowing personal bias to over-ride a respect for the law. I am pro-life, and would seek to make abortion illegal. However, stacking the Supreme Court with judges that have a known bias against the said Court’s own traditions is not the right way to do it in a democracy. The Amendment process is the right way to do it. I wholeheartedly support such an Amendment, but neither Bush nor kerry would deliver this.
3) John Kerry is not quite as “pro-abortion” as people make him out to be. He has stated that he would consider pro-life judges in the lower courts and he voted for a ban on third trimester abortions proposed by Tom dashle in 1997. he still stands by that vote. He has admitted human life begins at conception, and stated consistently that he personally opposses abortion, but will uphold the law of the land because he believes in the separation of Church and state – whcih is affirmed in GS 76 of the Second Vatican Council.
4) The abortion rate per thousand women has steadily risen under Bush. There is strong evidence that Democratic social policy actually reduces abortions by alleviating the conditions that cause women to choose abortions.
Peace!
Jcecil3,
You make baby Jesus cry.
:_(
I don’t know where you get the idea that a whole nation is complicit in an unjust war…I’d even argue that soldiers fighting it are not guilty, unless they personally kill an innocent person. And even an unjust war (and the Pope’s opinion on the Iraq war is not Church teaching, but his personal opinion) can never be worse than abortion. Abortion is intrinsically a greater abomination than killing of innocents in unjust war. It’s not merely the killing of an innocent, although that’s bad enough–it is a mother ordering her own child torn apart in the one place where it should be safe: Her womb.
And, if a law is against the Eternal Law–the law upon which all others must be founded to be valid–than it should be overturned. If that involves “personal bias”, so much the better. Abortion is not a personal “article of faith”. It’s wrongness is a fact, ingrained in the very fabric of creation and in our souls.
Jimmy,
Another good post. The weak link, however, is the assumption that Bush will appoint pro-life justices. That assuption is very weak based on the record of his father and Pres. Reagan in appointing justices, and on his support for Arlen Spector, and on his hype of the Souter-like Al Gonzalez, and on the unwillingness of any powerful Republican to sacrifice his career to stop abortion (for that is what would be required).
I wish we had a choice between 2009 and 2025 today, but we do not. All we have is a faint, unrealistic possibility of 2009. Let’s be honest about that.
Matt
P.S.: Jcecil3’s post–how absurd.
No, only to weigh a moral action ONLY by the number of victims. Lawful use of the principle of double effect also considers likely outcomes, including numbers of victims.
Where did the Pope say that? Source, please?
If the Pope considers the Iraqi war a graver evil than abortion, it’s remarkable that he hasn’t told Catholic soldiers that they may not fight in it, as he has told Catholics they may not be complicit in abortion.
You allude to the key difference between the war in Iraq and abortion when you say “If the war in Iraq is unjust.” IF. It’s a question that admits a legitimate difference of opinion among Catholics. There is no such legitimate difference of opinion on abortion.
Yes to the first sentence, no to the second. Roe v Wade is not a law, but a judicial opinion — a bad one, based on thin air. A bad law needs to be revoked, but a bad opinion needs only to be rejected, and competent judicial authority — in this case the Supreme Court — can and should do so.
Strict constructionism is not bias, it is deference to what the law actually says as opposed to inventing politically motivated “interpretations” based on thin air. The “tradition” of judicial activism deserves to be rejected.
Realistically, no one can deliver this. If the pro-aborts had waited for an Amendment to actually put the words in the Constitution that abortion is a “right,” it would never have happened. Instead, they got an activist court to pretend to find abortion rights in the words that already existed in the Constitution. It’s not fair to impose a higher burden on the pro-life movement to get rid of this absurd opinion.
The election and abortion
JIMMY AKIN.ORG: Pro-Abort Victory in 2004 = 24 MILLION DEAD BABIES…
“Just through surgical abortions? We’re running at about 1.2 million a year,” she said. “More than 44 million babies have been killed since abortion was legalized.”
“A third of your generation,” I said.
She nodded grimly.
“So to be worse than abortion,” I asked, “wouldn’t an unjust war have to kill even more than 1.2 million innocent people each year?”
“Hey, that’s right,” said Don.
“What’s the death rate in the present war?”
—From J. Budziszewski’s “Ballot Box Blues“.
jcecil3, I used to have some thought that you were honest, but now I’m conviced that you are simply a liar. I personally rebutted point 1 from Catholic teaching, yet you continue to argue it without providing the least defense. Thus, I can draw no other conclusion than that you deliberately misrepresenting your nonsensical arguments as Catholic teaching even though you know full well that they are not.
Re: point 2, I’m a lawyer, and you are wrong. Stare decisis is a guideline, not a rule. Reversing a bad decision is respect for the law. Otherwise, reversing Plessy v. Ferguson would have been “disrespecting the law.” Is “separate but equal” a good thing?
Re: point 3, your suggestion that separation of church and state should prevent Catholic morality from being enacted. The flies in the face of the Catholic dogma recited in Quanta Cura.
Re: point 4, you have been deceived with respect to the first statistic (it has been shown unreliable), and you simply made up the latter.
Your recklessness is monstrous, and could well be responsible for leading Catholics into objective sin by voting for Kerry. Please, I beg you, forsake this path and reconcile yourself with the teaching of Christ, for the sake of the little ones.
He has admitted human life begins at conception, and stated consistently that he personally opposses abortion, but will uphold the law of the land because he believes in the separation of Church and state – whcih is affirmed in GS 76 of the Second Vatican Council.
Unlike Kerry, the Catholic Church does not reduce abortion to a religious issue.
I’m not a lawyer but this is my understanding (I’m not saying that I am correct).
When Roe v. Wade is overturned, the legality of abortion reverts to the States. Certain states, like California, will continue to keep abortion legal.
Some states will abolish abortion. Some states will limit abortion. Some people will cross state borders to procure an abortion.
Based on this, I believe 24 million to be a high estimate.
This is something that I think I need to stress more highly when I write about this. The “extending the holocaust” numbers I offer have nothing to do with how the endgame of banning abortion happens. That endgame will be a messy, partial thing at first (ultimately leading to a constitutional amendment banning it everywhere, but that won’t happen at first; there has to be a new consensus built one state at a time until the recalcitrant states are not numerous enough to block an amendment). The number’s I’m pointing out are those of children dying before Roe gets overturned. Only when it is overturned will the messy endgame legislation fight begin. The question I’m pointing to is: How many kids will die before the endgame can begin.