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Powell's legacy: 36 million dead

Human Events, Sep 4, 1998 by Jeffrey, Terence P

Someday when America returns to its senses, historians may debate who did greater damage to our country: Bill Clinton or Lewis Powell?

As things now stand, the late Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell can boast a higher casualty rate. He bears some personal responsibility for at least 36 million dead, and at least that many wounded.

When Powell died in his sleep last week, the front pages of the liberal press were thick with the knee-jerk encomiums and second-rate reporting of too-long-held-in-the-can obituaries. "He Is Remembered As a `True Gentleman,' " said the front-page headline in the Los Angeles Times. He was a "soft-spoken courtly Virginian," they claimed. The New York Times lauded him as a "crucial centrist" who "brought a voice of . . . civility to an increasingly polarized court."

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The Washington Post called him a "voice of moderation" who charmed Beltway barbarians with his "rigorous code of courtesy." USA Today's editorial declared him, simply, "A Model Justice."

What did Powell do to deserve this praise? He helped create and preserve the myth that there is a constitutional right to kill babies before they are born.

The Post explained his key position in American history this way: "Powell wrote a 1983 opinion strongly affirming Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion, and in 1986 cast the decisive vote when the court again, in the face of attacks by the Reagan Administration, upheld Roe. The latter decision struck down a Pennsylvania law intended to discourage woman from having abortions."

Powell, who had voted for the original Roe decision in 1973, always stood like a Titan against any state or local law that tried to "discourage women from having abortions."

How dare they?

Powell's 1983 opinion in Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health was a simultaneous assault on the Constitution, biological science, the traditional family and, of course, the right to life of innocent babies. No wonder both the Washington Post and New York Times singled it out as a hallmark of his genius.

The city of Akron, Ohio, had passed a law that required girls 14 years or younger to secure their parents' permission, or the permission of a judge, before obtaining an abortion. The law also required abortionists to tell women considering abortions that "an unborn child is a human life from the moment of conception." Finally, the law required abortionists to dispose of the babies they killed in a "humane and sanitary manner."

Powell, joined by five other justices, struck down all these provisions as unconstitutional. "Akron may not make a blanket determination that all minors under the age of 15 are too immature to make this decision or that an abortion never may be in the minor's best interests without parental approval," wrote the "soft-spoken courtly Virginian."

Letting a grandmother know you intend to kill her grandchild apparently was not part of his "rigorous code of courtesy." In striking the provision requiring abortionists to tell women that "the unborn child is a human life from the moment of conception," Powell repeated Roe's declaration that "a state may not adopt one theory of when life begins to justify its regulation of abortions."

If this were true, of course, a state couldn't adopt the theory that human life begins at birth, and thus outlaw post-natal abortions. In this way, perhaps, Powell was way ahead of Clinton, who vetoed a ban on partial-birth abortions.

Democracy Might Break Out in N.Y.

But the "True Gentleman" was particularly peeved that the Constitution might allow a city in Ohio to require that "the remains of the unborn child are disposed of in a humane and sanitary manner." Here, the "voice of moderation" feared the phrase "humane" might "suggest a possible intent to mandate some sort of `decent burial' of an embryo."

God forbid they would do that in Ohio, Justice Powell. What kind of people were these Akronians?

- Nor did the liberals love Powell merely for his defense of the right to kill children. They also loved him for his antagonism toward representative government.

The New York Times obituary cited particularly his opinion in Aguilar v. Felton. This case tested the constitutionality of a New York state program that used government funds to pay public school teachers to teach special classes for children from lower-income families who attended parochial schools.

In his concurring opinion, Powell abandoned all pretense of logic. In one paragraph he wrote, "I agree with the court that in this case the Establishment Clause is violated." In the next paragraph, he wrote, "I do not suggest that at this point in our history the Title I program or similar parochial aid plans could result in establishment of a state religion."

Say what? Powell's real problem, he revealed, was with popular opinion. "Nonetheless," he said, "there remains a considerable risk of continuing political strife over the propriety of direct aid to religious schools and the proper allocation of limited government resources. As this court has repeatedly recognized, there is a likelihood whenever direct governmental aid is extended to some groups that there will be competition and strife among them and others to gain, maintain, or increase the financial support of the government."

Powell's legacy: 36 million dead

Human Events, Sep 4, 1998 by Jeffrey, Terence P

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