Unrestricted Abortion Throughout all Nine Months of Pregnancy Remains Legal in Vermont, Despite Today’s Supreme Court Ruling, Vermont Right to Life says
by Guy Page
The U.S. Supreme Court today overturned Roe V. Wade, the landmark decision that made abortion legal everywhere in the United States. The decision returns jurisdiction to elected representatives. It will not affect the legality of abortion in Vermont, Vermont Right to Life said today.
In a 6-3 decision delivered this morning on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court ruled that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, are overruled; the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” according to a statement on the SCOTUS website.
The case under consideration, Thomas E. Dobbs, State Health Officer of the Mississippi Department of Health v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, involved a Mississippi law banning all abortions over 15 weeks gestational age except in medical emergencies and in the case of severe fetal abnormality.
Constitutional experts on both sides of the debate over abortion have long criticized the Roe decision as having created a right that did not exist and for broadly over reaching their jurisdiction. Those errors have been corrected today.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade has no effect on abortion in Vermont. In Vermont, abortion has been legal since the 1972 Vermont Supreme Court case in Beecham v. Leahy. In 2019, Act 47 created a statute that further protects unlimited, unregulated abortion through all nine months of pregnancy irrespective of the US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs.
“Extremist proponents of abortion rights in Vermont will use the Supreme Court decision to attempt to rally support for passage of Proposal 5/Article 22, stated Mary Hahn Beerworth, Executive Director of Vermont Right to Life. “Proponents must not be allowed to mislead Vermonters into believing that ‘Article 22 is needed,’ or that the amendment simply ‘codifies Roe v. Wade,’ when in fact the amendment far exceeds the holding in Roe.”
Vermont Right to Life urged all journalists in Vermont covering today’s decision to responsibly include in their reports the fact that nothing about today’s US Supreme Court decision changes the legality of abortion in our state. Passage of H. 57, now Act 47, is clear statutory protection of unlimited and unregulated abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood of Northern New England tweeted this statement: “The Supreme Court just overturned Roe v. Wade, ending our constitutional right to abortion. We know you may be feeling a lot of things right now — hurt, anger, confusion. Whatever you feel is OK. We’re here with you — and we’ll never stop fighting for you.”
The Vermont Democratic Party tweeted: “Vermonters must act swiftly and in large numbers to counteract the great harm wreaked by the Supreme Court’s decision. We must stand up for the rights of all people.”
This news report includes content from a Vermont Right to Life press statement.
Categories: Life&Death
The Supreme Court got it right, and God can now perhaps look more favorably on our Nation again. Perhaps our legislature will see it in their wisdom to now ban the outright murder of innocent defenseless beings.
“We must stand up for the rights of all people.” Just not innocent pre-born babies. They aren’t human, apparently.
They have been using the term ‘Fetus’ so long, and convinced so many that it means: a blob of tissue. Fortunately, most words we use in the English actually comes from another language, which actually has a definition. Fetus, is a Latin word that means Offspring. You will hear ‘Pro Choice’ advocates saying things like “it’s just a fetus”. It comes off the tongue different if you say, “it’s just your offspring”.
A huge victory for the US and the human species as a whole.
The Democrat-run states that rush to enact statutes legalizing abortion will continue to perish with low birth rates and moral decay. The states that do not legalize abortion will thrive.
By the way, Vermont is now technically in a fertility death spiral from which it cannot organically recover. The migration of abortion-happy people to Vermont due to the likely passage of Prop 5 will only exacerbate this problem. If you think your taxes are high now, just wait.
That’s me in the picture standing at the bottom of the far left column; big blue coat and hood!!!!
As conceived as a limited government, Constitutional Republic, I would think most Americans would be happy with the overturn of Roe and the federal government’s overreach (and the violation of the 10th Amendment)… thus returning the abortion issue back to its proper sovereign – that is – the various 50 states.
Had Roe stood, it would have helped solidify the federal government’s overreach into almost anything it wished, slowly turning our country into one large, totalitarian society, with the 50 states merely as administrative adjuncts or servants to the federal government.
Let the people decide in each of the various 50 sovereign states – or – have the U.S. Congress enact a federal law but the courts of the United States are not lawmaking entities.
Ironic, how far we have wondered from our founding document. The federal government exists only by the consent of the states. The thirteen original colonies voted to accept the constitution thus giving permission to form the federal government. Now is the time to not let up and to put the destructive genie back in the bottle. Under the 10th amendment, the states have the power to rule themselves explicitly listing what the federal government can and can’t do. The left prefers to not educate students about our constitution or if they do teach it, they twist the meaning to support their totalitarian wishes. The pendulum is swinging back to sanity and the left has no one to blame put themselves. Now, we need to TAKE BACK VERMONT from those who have ruined our freedom, our customs and our safety. Vote Republican!
This is a good step. States will now make it very clear whether they support the lives of the unborn or whether they promote death. I have no doubt where VT stands on this. The crazed leftists will be doubling down on making abortion a VT constitutional right.
Not so quick VTIndependent! Please leave open the possibility for CHANGE!
Maybe ……. enough Vermonters will WAKE UP and VOTE OUT the present Communist/Marxist/Progressives that are taking our State down a deep black hole of destruction and turmoil.
Vermont WAS once a more Conservative State. We need common sense, reasonable, working people to get OUT AND VOTE! Request an Absentee Ballot if you can’t go in person. VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
@ VTBeliever
Yes VT was once a very conservative state but that was quite some time ago; we’ve been flooded by leftists who desire remaking VT into their personal vision of utopia. Only way I can see this changing would be if we imported lots of conservatives to live here but given that there’s no housing available that’s highly unlikely(unless we double up in our homes I suppose).
A conservative, with a small “c”, state which outlawed slavery all the way back in 1777, and currently doesn’t practice systemic racism. This notwithstanding the spurious examples sometimes cited.
They already have VTindependent. Take a serious look at Prop 5/Article 22.
Now looking forward to the November election with the Republican cean sweep of the Legislature.
The best is yet to come.
Back to the states
YEAH!! The Supreme Court Justices finally read the US Constitution! They finally get they are supposed to Protect our FREEDOM and our UNALIENABLE RIGHTS!
Finally! They protected the Second Amendment yesterday and the day before Religious Freedom about school tuition. Today, they are protecting Life and the FREEDOM of States’ Rights.
I still ask where were they in protecting ALL of our Freedoms during Covid? Our Personal Freedoms from forced and coerced illegal experimental shots?
I still ask where were they on ALL the cases brought before them on all the obvious Election Cheating throughout the Country in November of 2020?
Well put. However, even a number of “Red” states allow abortion up to 15 weeks, which is as it should be.
Dear Phantomroseexpress,
We will have to agree to disagree on, “which is as it should be.” ALL the new science and technology of sonograms, operations on babies in the womb, knowing a baby in the womb has its own unique DNA and other human characteristics, the survival rate of premature babies, etc., speaks very loudly and clearly to the subject of Human Life.
Some will continue to promote their emotional arguments and denials, but there is more than enough concrete evidence if you are honest and choose to have “eyes to see and ears to hear.”
Many US States have trigger laws that have/or will outlaw abortion with very rare acceptations. For me, this, “is as it should be.” In Our Constitutional Republic ALL LIVES, including the unborn, have the Unalienable Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Indeed, vtbeliever, we disagree. Much as I myself don’t like the idea, nonetheless abortion should be allowed. No fetus is viable at 15/16 weeks.
pretty hard not to notice that those horrified by the decision never cite any legal reason the ruling was incorrect
I heard today that Ronald Reagan once said (paraphrasing), “I note that those who favor abortion have typically already been born.”
Antebellum America:
On March 6, 1857, the SCOTUS ruled (7-2) in Dred Scott v. John Sandford, that slaves were not and could never be citizens of the United States. A slave’s status as the property of someone who was deemed to be a citizen was reaffirmed, and the Missouri Compromise (1820), that declared free all territories west of Missouri and north of latitude 36°30′, was unconstitutional.
It was the advent of a consummate ‘state’s rights’ debate. Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney admitted that African Americans could be citizens of a particular state, and that they might even be able to vote, as they in fact did in some states. But he argued that state citizenship had nothing to do with national citizenship and that African Americans could not sue in federal court because they could not be citizens of the United States.
Ironically, Mississippi, of the antebellum south, is again at the forefront of the state’s rights debate. Can an individual State decide to eliminate the rights of a specific class of human being, whatever the criteria? When Mississippi chose to secede from the federal government, it did so because ‘the institution of slavery (was) the greatest material interest of the world’.
Today, the Mississippi argument has flip-flopped. Mississippi has determined that a fetus 15 weeks of age and older is a U.S. citizen and has the inalienable constitutional rights it tried to prohibit for its slaves in the antebellum south.
In effect, the Pro-Choice crowd maintains that a pregnant woman has those inalienable constitutional rights, but her fetus doesn’t. In effect, the Pro-Choice side maintains that a fetus is the ‘property’ of the woman in which the fetus is living, that the woman can do whatever she chooses in determining the fate of the fetus – much the same way the antebellum south maintained that slaves had no inalienable rights and survived at the discretion of their owners.
The Scotus decision today does not make a determination in this regard. The SCOTUS passed the buck back to the States. And a repeat of the greatest internal American catastrophe in history, the Civil War, is about to play out yet again. Some States, including Vermont, are going to maintain that a fetus has no constitutional rights. Mississippi, and other States, on the other hand, are going to ascribe constitutional rights to a fetus.
So, today, are we going to see a ‘Mississippi Compromise’? In Mississippi, and other Pro-Life States, a fetus will be afforded U.S. Citizenship. In Vermont, and other so-called Pro-Choice States, a fetus will be deemed to be the property of its owner, with no inherent or inalienable rights.
The battlelines are drawn. And, I suspect, the outcome will be similar to the antebellum south before the Civil War, when today’s Confederates (those who determine that a fetus is property with no rights) will fire first on the Pro-Life Union. I can only wonder where the next Fort Sumter will be and when the attack will begin?
Thank you Mr. Eshelman for your detailed and deeply thoughtful perspective. Your showed me an important view on this subject, I had not previously considered.
H. Jay Eshelman…a very thought provoking analogy, I’ve always supported a woman’s right to choose up to a certain point, however this analogy really does cause one to ponder or consider another situation with the rights of infringed upon. We as a State fought to end slavery and were the 1st state to say NO …..I think we have to all consider all sides in this mess…VOTE VOTE VOTE
natureaboundsnortherngirl, thank you for that.
Yes, Mr. Eshelman, a very lucid summary. I myself defend a woman’s right to an abortion up to 15 weeks. The idea of “late term abortion” I oppose. I feel just as strongly on both points. Children born as early as 23 months have survived.
I meant “…23 weeks…”.
Dear Phantomroseexpress,
I don’t understand your cut off of 15 weeks?
Have you viewed the image and developmental stage of a 15 week baby in the womb? Take a look. There are many options easily available.
I think you meant to say children “born as early as 23 weeks” have survived.
If survival outside the womb is your measure, no baby born is able to survive outside the womb without food and care from others for many years.
But for the poorest of people, other than giving up the child for adoption, there are no solutions. Also, pregnancy itself is a burden in countless ways.
Will the overturning of Roe vs Wade lessen the intense grip of the self-hating death and destruction thinking culture in our Country?
Now dealing with the subject of abortion again at each individual state level, my hope is that people will choose to look at this barbaric practice more closely. Not only from a scientific view with ALL of our new technology since 1973, but also from the view of what it says about each person’s individual beliefs and values. If you value your own life, you will value the life of all other human beings including the very vulnerable lives of the unborn.
I believe we fail miserably at looking at the root of this issue which is personal
responsibility. If person(s) choose to participate in sexual intercourse, they are
choosing the possibility of creating life. Once life is created there is a responsibility for that life. Just because the woman’s womb is the birthing and growing place of a human being, doesn’t give her the freedom and right to devalue the life inside her and dispose of it like it’s meaningless. Once conceived, a baby is a human individual with its own DNA, fingerprints, blood type, heart and soul.
What are we teaching our children about the value of their own lives when we selfishly and casually dispose of human life through abortion? Do they believe every human being has a hope, a purpose and a future or just some? Are the ripple affects of our general devaluing of human life seen in suicides, drug addictions, reckless drinking, abusing and victimizing others, bullying, shooting rampages and other egregious behaviors?
Please think on these things and let’s restore our cultural attitude on the value of each and every human life including the unborn.
I now wonder whether the victorious pro-life proponents will now join with others in addressing the next big issue here. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/infant-mortality-rate-by-country points out that the US ranks 50th in infant mortality, with a score of 5.44 per 1,000 live births. That’s 4 times Iceland’s score and more than double Sweden’s. That’s an awful lot of dead babies. Admittedly there are definitional differences, but surely we
A comprehensive plan of pre-natal care, health screening at birth, nutrition etc. could save a huge number of babies. In 2019 there were 3.745M live births in America. So halving our IMR would save over 10,000 babies a year. Surely we can all sign on to that as a target – because it’s only about saving babies, right?
Nutritional knowledge is faulty. The old “Food Groups” are limited in their significance, etc. Not to mention that the “woke” crowd denigrates use of other systems of medicine, such as the old Chinese, as “cultural appropriation”.
Meanwhile our system of medicine has grown unaffordable and less effective.
It’s always relative.
Mr. Guzziman: Why did you not point out that the U.S. Infant Mortality Rate has been consistently declining, every year, since 1950, when it was 31.9 deaths per 1000 live births? At 5.681 deaths per 1000 live births in 2020 it is the lowest in our history.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/infant-mortality-rate
Of course, it’s understandable that some people buy into the United Nations rhetoric. Yes, Iceland had 1.54 deaths per 1000 live births. But Iceland only had 4512 live births in 2020. The U.S. had 3,613,647 live births. In fact, most countries with populations the size of the U.S. have five times the infant mortality rates of the U.S.. Nigeria, with a population of 216,746,934, had 72.24 deaths per 1000 live births.
So, let’s calculate the infant mortality rate by total births. Iceland’s Infant Mortality Rate was more than 22 thousand times higher, as a percentage of total births, than in the U.S.
Now, let’s calculate the infant mortality rate by total population. Iceland’s Infant Mortality Rate was 27 thousand times higher, as a percentage of total population, than in the U.S.
Go figure.
Really H.Jay, c’mon man, you are waaaay brighter than that! OK, so Iceland has an infant mortality rate 22,000 times higher than the US. And the US rate is around 5.5 per 100,000. So, a rate 22K higher than that would mean that 121,000 out of 100,000 babies born in Iceland would die before their first birthday. That would suggest that Iceland should be free of humans by now, even ignoring the fact that you can’t have more die than a born.
C’mon H.Jay, you are smarter than that! A mortality rate in Iceland 22,000 times greater than the US rate of 5.5, would mean over 120,000 babies dying for every 100,000 born.
The reason for doing stats ‘per 100,000’ is that it makes them more consumer-friendly than a straight percentage. By %, the relative mortality rates are: Iceland 0.154 & U.S. 0.544.
And the US ranking is #50 – And I think that the US should always strive to be #1. I mean 50th puts us 10 spots below Russia!
The bigger question remains, why are you not horrified by the numbers of deaths that this represents?
Dear Phantomroseexpress,
We can work to come up with all sorts of justifications for abortion. It all comes back to the same root issue of human life. There is no justification for the murder of a human life.
You bring up the situations of the poor. There are many more resources than ever before to help the poor. Others may not agree with rich elitists having babies or those who get sperm donations to have babies. There are all types of situations we may not personally agree with. This is called individual FREEDOM!
IT IS our moral duty to protect ALL HUMAN LIVES especially the fragile, vulnerable lives of BABIES IN THE WOMB.
As I stated, it is a complex issue. What SCOTUS has done is to simply return the right to decide back to the states.
Here’s a link to an article about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s point of view:
https://time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/
I will also state that I’m a strange person with a clinically established problem, which falls into the category of “invisible disability”. My own life was considered valueless for the sake of bureaucratic routineism. I weigh things very carefully.
Certainly the violent left has made quite some fodder out of this.