The Ghost of “Dred Scott vs. Sanford Is Haunting the Supreme Court

Weekly Mourner 1
By screm

The Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law (re-read that slowly and shudder) requiring abortionists to be members in good standing and able to admit patients, also referred to as “admitting privileges”, the text from the bill defines it as such: 
 "[A]ctive admitting privileges" means "the physician is a member in good standing of the medical staff of a hospital that is currently licensed by the department, with the ability to admit a patient and to provide diagnostic and surgical services to such patient."at hospitals within 30 miles of their clinics, for the safety of women who choose to abort their children. The law, called “The Louisiana Unsafe Abortion Protection Act” passed overwhelmingly in 2014. It never went into effect due to being tied up in court. 

It’s obvious that this was an unconstitutional decision from the high court. Chief Justice Roberts was the deciding vote in the case and a controversial vote he was indeed. He shockingly argued that he decided against Louisiana due to the “binding precedent” of a previous similar decision against Texas that Roberts claims to disagree with. 

Cue the spooky music. Where have we seen this before? What dark and malignant specter does this decision invoke?

What do you know about the infamous “Dred Scott” case?

Was “Dred Scott vs. Sanford” (the 1857 Supreme Court decision that rendered Dred Scott a slave again after having attained his freedom) under “binding precedent” as well? In a very real way, then Chief, Roger Taney, argued then that it WAS in so many words, as the Chief Justice shockingly did for this decision today. 

The horrific, immoral, equivalent here is simply undeniable. 

This is a stunning lack of regard for the plain empirical proof of human life in the womb. That proof should render any precedent void if such precedent stands to allow those human beings to be destroyed. Surely an errant and eisegetic ruling like “Roe” that decided the bloody fate of what is now tens of millions of preborn children should be decried by generations who now know better. Generations who can see better.  “Dred Scott” was decried by the people when it came down. Think about that. An antebellum outcry for Dred Scott. The only people not outraged by it were of course the Democrats in the slave holding states. 

Put simply, “binding precedent” can be a monstrous justification of the inhumane destruction and degrading of human life as it was in “Dred Scott”.  It was so today. 

Fredrick Douglas spoke elegantly of the nightmare decision:
“...my hopes were never brighter than now. I have no fear that the National Conscience will be put to sleep by such an open, glaring, and scandalous tissue of lies...”
“The Constitution knows all the human inhabitants of this country as “the people.” It makes, as I have said before, no discrimination in favor of, or against, any class of the people, but is fitted to protect and preserve the rights of all, without reference to color, size, or any physical peculiarities.”
 
How perfectly relevant are the great man’s words for us here and now and for the little ones whose lives are at stake.




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