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SCHEIDLERS PREDICT BATTLE AFTER END OF ROE V. WADE

Roe v. Wade is bound to fall, says Ann Scheidler.

When it does, the regulation of abortion will revert back to the states, she told 80 pro-lifers at Immaculate Conception Church in Towson April 20.

“Then we’ll have even more work to do; we’ll have to fight it state by state,” she said.

In nine Defend Life-sponsored talks over April 18-21, seven of them at area colleges and universities, Ann and Joe Scheidler, leaders of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, explained why Roe v. Wade will be reversed by the Supreme Court and what pro-lifers must do when it is.

The 1973 decision bears its own seeds of destruction, said Ann.

“Read Roe v. Wade,” she urged; “it’s great summer reading!  There’s no logic in it at all.  Dissenting Justice Byron White called it ‘an exercise in raw judicial power.’”

Chief Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the historic decision, admitted that the “right to privacy” on which the decision is based is not mentioned in the Constitution, but claimed that it was implicit in the Fourteenth Amendment.

“He said that if the unborn child’s personhood is established, the case for abortion collapses,” Ann pointed out.

Even liberal observers have criticized Roe, she said.

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor has said that Roe v. Wade is on a collision course with itself.  Richard Cohen wrote in the Washington Post, “The very basis of the Roe v. Wade decision strikes many people now as faintly ridiculous.”

And Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote on Roe, “Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.”

As demonstrated in the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, “The pro-abortionists are terrified that Roe will go down, and it will – it’s bad law,” Ann concluded.

In the ensuing state-by-state fight, some states will seek to prohibit abortion; South Dakota, for example, has already passed such a law.  Others have laws already in place, or will pass laws protecting abortion.

In liberal Illinois, the Scheidlers’ home state, abortion is likely to remain legal for a long time, said Ann.

“New York and California will also become battlegrounds,” she predicted.  “But at least we’ll know where the abortionists are collected, and we can fight them more effectively.

“We know how to fight them; we’re primed to tackle the coming battle.  But it will require a lot of work.”

“We Catholics must fight, because we are the Church Militant,” Joe concurred.

“We are the army of  Christ.  Poor Christ!” he joked.  “Sometimes I look at His army and I think, how can He possibly win?”

Jesus tells us to go out and be disciples, said Joe.  

“That’s why you’re here tonight.  Some of you are not as active as you should be.  But you will be after tonight, because we’re going to lay a guilt trip on you!”

In the pro-life battle, we in America are very lucky, he said, because we have the First Amendment.

Once, when he was picketing in Australia, he recalled, a policeman came up to him and said, “Somebody complained about your sign.”

“I said, ‘Too bad – I have First Amendment rights.’  He said, ‘No you don’t, you’re in Australia!’  I felt very lonely without my First Amendment rights.”

We also have to know that in this pro-life battle, just like Jesus, we’re going to be wounded, said Joe.

“I’ve only been arrested about a dozen times, but it was kind of scary.”

When he was arrested in Denver, as he was led to his cell, “I counted, and there were 17 doors locked behind me.”

Joe is also a battle-scarred veteran as the chief defendant in NOW v. Scheidler, a case that began back in 1986.

The National Organization for Women had sought, through the case, to squelch pro-life activity at abortion mills.

But on February 28 the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in Scheidler’s favor, confirming its 8-1 decision in the same case in 2003.

The Court’s ruling, which in effect said that the federal RICO and Hobbs acts could not be applied to the activities of pro-life defendants, is a victory for the entire pro-life movement.

“People say, ‘Joe, do you ever get discouraged?’” he said.

“Are you kidding?  With Christ as our leader, we should never get discouraged!  If you ever do, remember, Christ is right there with you.”

In addition to the talk at Immaculate Conception, the Scheidlers spoke at American and Georgetown universities, Christendom, Mount St. Mary’s and Patrick Henry colleges, the University of Maryland’s Baltimore County and College Park campuses, and the Knights of Columbus Rock Creek Council in Bethesda.