POST-MODERNISM and the LAW
Last week our worldview course was continuing through "Put Your Beliefs to the Test" - developed by Brannon Howse and Worldview Weekend. We were discussing evolution being applied to the law and how the Supreme Court of the United States is throwing out absolute truth with their decisions. These liberal minded justice(s) are replacing truth with post-modern philosophies. Long gone are the days of Natural Law (Blackstone) and here to stay is case law and one's own definition of truth, morality, and justice.
The case in question is that of Planned Parenthood PA versus Casey, Governor of Pennsylvania. Background on the case is necessary to see how this court disregarded the quest for truth and injected their own post-modern philosophies into the ruling. According to U.S. Supreme Court Media, The Pennsylvania legislature amended its abortion control law in 1988 and 1989. Among the new provisions, the law required informed consent and a 24 hour waiting period prior to the procedure. A minor seeking an abortion required the consent of one parent (the law allows for a judicial bypass procedure). A married woman seeking an abortion had to indicate that she notified her husband of her intention to abort the fetus. These provisions were challenged by several abortion clinics and physicians. A federal appeals court upheld all the provisions except for the husband notification requirement.
The question that the court had to consider was can a state require women who wants an abortion to obtain informed consent, wait 24 hours, and, if minors, obtain parental consent, without violating their right to abortions as guaranteed by Roe v. Wade? The decision of Roe vs Wade was as follows: the Court held that a woman's right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy (recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut) protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave a woman total autonomy over the pregnancy during the first trimester and defined different levels of state interest for the second and third trimesters. As a result, the laws of 46 states were affected by the Court's ruling ... it was a 7-2 ruling with only White and Rehnquist dissenting.
In PP v Casey, the Court again affirmed the Roe decision and upheld most of the Pennsylvania provisions mentioned above. Not only did the Court reaffirm Roe with a 5-4 decison, but for the first time the Court imposed a new standard to determine the validity of laws restricting abortions (that's right, the Court imposed a new standard). The new standard asks whether a state abortion regulation has the purpose of imposing an "undue burden," which is defined as a "substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability." Under this standard, the only provision to fail the undue-burden test was the husband notification requirement.
Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Souter, and Kennedy stated in the majority opinion, "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning of the universe and the mystery of human life." This sentence has become known as the "mystery passage", you can learn more about it by clicking here. Question - What about the part with the Declaration of Independence that reads, "All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." - do we as a nation just ignore that part or throw it out altogether?
So, what really happened with the Casey decision? What happened is that man, not God, can now define reality. Everything within our world is now subject to your own individual interpretation. This is the very definition of post-modernism ... a world in which people refuse to acknowledge absolute truth. The moral foundation of our country has shifted and not for the better ... will we continue to be silent under the banner of political correctness? Do you think that Darwin ever thought that his theories would have such catastrophic consequences on the affairs of men ... oh wait, he wrote about himself - chapter 5, The Descent of Man.
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