John R. Houk
© October 20, 2018
Jessie Phillips murdered
Erica Droze Phillips & unborn baby in 2009
The Personhood
argument against baby-killing abortion has arisen in Alabama within the merits
of a capital crime of a husband murdering his pregnant wife:
In the case, [Jesse] Phillips
was charged with the murders of his wife and unborn child, and sentenced to be
executed. The state Supreme Court affirmed the sentence, rejecting claims that
Phillips could not be sentenced for the unborn child’s death because the child
was not a “person.” (WND
article below)
This is a State Supreme Court ruling and not a Federal Court
ruling. I will be surprised if the Alabama State Supreme Court does not make an
appearance in Federal Court. Think of the irony as a bunch of Leftist baby-killing
supporters rage that a convicted murderer was not only convicted of murdering
his wife but also convicted of killing his unborn child.
I can hardly wait to see how the Left/Democrats spin an
anti-Personhood argument when a person removes TWO lives from among the living.
Why did Jessie Phillips kill his wife Erica Phillips?
… A jury in June 2012 found him
guilty and put him on death row for the slaying, which took place at Lakeside
Car Wash on Alabama 69 in Guntersville.
Court documents indicate that
Phillips became angry because his wife had not changed the wet diaper of their
young daughter. He subsequently shot Erica Phillips in the back of the head,
leaving her body lying in one of the car wash bays; the 23-year-old died
early the next morning at Huntsville Hospital.
Both of the couple's children were
present when the shooting occurred, as were two of Erica Phillips' brothers.
Jessie Phillips fled the scene without the children.
He later turned himself in for
the murder and, in interviews with police, admitted knowing his wife was eight
weeks pregnant at the time he shot her. (Alabama
man sentenced to death for 2nd time in pregnant wife's murder;
By Crystal Bonvillian;
AL.com; 2/12/16)
There is absolutely zero doubt that Jessie Phillips is a heinous
murderer. The Left is stuck with the conundrum of defending a wife-killer to
perpetuate the heinous ideology that a woman has more rights over her body than
an unborn life has a right to live.
The success of Personhood essentially boils down to this
question: When does a life in a woman’s womb become a person?
The divide then becomes religious faith versus secularism. A
secularist-minded person will look at biological criteria while a person of
religious faith – particularly Christian faith – examines the criteria that
life proceeds from God Almighty.
As to faith here is some valid thinking from the “Founding Charter for
Personhood Alliance”:
WHEREAS, the Bible affirms the
personhood, sanctity, dignity and value of every human being from the moment of
our individual creation, as evidenced by the doctrine of Imago Dei and through
the marital union of a man and woman (Gen 1:26-28), our being known by God even
before being formed in the womb (Jer 1:5), the incarnation of Christ (Luke
1-2), and the sacrifice of Christ to atone for the sins of humanity and restore
fellowship between God and man (Rom. 5:12-21);
The significant Biblical Scriptures in the above Personhood
Charter are in order of usage are:
Genesis 1:26-28 (NKJV)
26 Then God
said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let
them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and
over the cattle, over [a]all the earth and over every creeping thing
that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created
man in His own image; in the image of God He created
him; male and female He created them. 28 Then
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill
the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the
birds of the air, and over every living thing that [b]moves on the earth.”
Jeremiah 1:4-5 (NKJV)
4 Then the
word of the Lord came to me, saying:
5 “Before
I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified[a] you;
I [b]ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
Before you were born I sanctified[a] you;
I [b]ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
[It stands to reason if God formed the Prophet Jeremiah
in his mother’s womb, He formed YOU in your mother’s womb and He formed the
entire human race in their mother’s womb.]
Luke
Chapter one and two are the birth of Jesus Christ story. I am not
going to quote the entirety of those two chapters. But to signify the
importance of God in the birth process, here are some select quotes:
Luke 1: 26-33, 35; 2: 10-12, 15-16 (NKJV)
1 26 Now
in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named
Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man
whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And
having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the
Lord is with you; [a]blessed are you
among women!”
29 But [b]when she saw him, she
was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this
was. 30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be
afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And
behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall
call His name Jesus. 32 He will be
great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God
will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And
He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be
no end.”
35 And the
angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come
upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also,
that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.
2 10 Then
the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For
there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is
Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the
sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a [a]manger.”
15 So it
was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds
said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has
come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And
they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger.
Romans 5: 12-21 (NKJV)
12 Therefore,
just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin,
and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— 13 (For
until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is
no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to
Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the
transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But
the free gift is not like the [a]offense. For if by the one man’s
offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the
one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. 16 And
the gift is not like that which came through
the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense
resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from
many [b]offenses resulted in
justification. 17 For if by the one man’s [c]offense death reigned through the
one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)
18 Therefore,
as through [d]one man’s offense judgment
came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one[e] Man’s righteous act the
free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. 19 For
as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s
obedience many will be made righteous.
20 Moreover the
law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded,
grace abounded much more, 21 so that as sin
reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I gotta tell ya … For me all arguments using biology to
determine life before birth are irrelevant in favor of the Redemptive view of
God for humankind through Jesus Christ the Savior.
Jessie Phillips took two lives and is being held accountable
according to the laws of the State of Alabama. BUT those lives removed from the
living - Erica Droze Phillips and her unborn child – were and are certified by
God Almighty.
JRH 10/20/18
In this current state of media censorship & defunding, consider
chipping in a few bucks for enjoying (or even despising yet read) this Blog.
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STATE SUPREME COURT: ROE V. WADE 'PATENTLY ILLOGICAL'
Shocking decision declares unborn baby is 'a person'
By Bob
Unruh
October 19, 2018
The Alabama Supreme Court has
ruled that an unborn baby is a “person” under the law, and,
consequently, the death of that person can be punished with execution.
Further, in
a special concurrence, Justice Tom Parker called on the U.S.
Supreme Court to revisit Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that created a “right” to
abortion.
“I write specially to expound upon the principles presented
in the main opinion and to note the continued legal anomaly and logical fallacy
that is Roe v. Wade,” he said. “I urge the United States Supreme Court to
overrule this increasingly isolated exception to the rights of unborn
children.”
Parker affirmed the Alabama court’s rationale that “unborn
children are persons entitled to the full and equal protection of the law.”
He asserted Roe v. Wade is “without historical or
constitutional support, carved out an exception to the rights of unborn
children and prohibited states from recognizing an unborn child’s inalienable
right to life when that right conflicts with a woman’s ‘right’ to abortion.”
“This judicially created exception of Roe is an aberration
to the natural law … and common law of the states,” Parker said.
He noted the Alabama court’s opinion stated the “obvious
truth that unborn children are people and thus entitled to the full protection
of the law” in its decision to reject Jessie Phillips’ arguments “that the
unborn child he murdered, Baby Doe, was not a ‘person’ under Alabama law.”
In the case, Phillips was charged with the murders of his
wife and unborn child, and sentenced to be executed. The state Supreme Court
affirmed the sentence, rejecting claims that Phillips could not be sentenced
for the unborn child’s death because the child was not a “person.”
The fault in the Roe decision was cited by Justice Harry
Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion.
He said the justices didn’t have the scientific evidence to
determine if an unborn baby is a person, but “personhood” is the foundation of
the case.
Blackmun wrote: “(If the) suggestion of personhood [of the
preborn] is established, the [abortion rights] case, of course, collapses, for
the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th]
Amendment.”
The Alabama ruling is not the only one to point out to the
U.S. Supreme Court that Roe was wrongly decided.
In
August, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an Alabama law banning
the gruesome, second-trimester abortion procedure in which limbs are removed
from a baby’s body in the womb.
At the time, Chief Judge Ed Carnes lamented in his
opinion that he was bound by U.S. Supreme Court precedent to
rule against the state, writing that “dismemberment” is the best description of
the procedure, which clinically is known as dilation and extraction.
“In our judicial system, there is only one Supreme Court,
and we are not it,” he wrote, calling the high court’s history of abortion
rulings an “aberration” of constitutional law.
And Judge Joel Dubina wrote separately to express his
agreement with Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia in
Gonzales v. Carhart in which Thomas wrote, “I write separately to reiterate my
view that the Court’s abortion jurisprudence,” including in Planned Parenthood
v. Casey and Roe v. Wade, “has no basis in the Constitution.”
“The problem I have, as noted in the Chief Judge’s opinion,
is that I am not on the Supreme Court, and as a federal appellate judge, I am
bound by my oath to follow all of the Supreme Court’s precedents, whether I
agree with them or not,” Dubina wrote.
The opinion had no use for the politically correct language
of “choice” and “women’s rights.”
“This case involves a method of abortion that is clinically
referred to as Dilation and Evacuation (D & E). Or dismemberment abortion,
as the state less clinically calls it. That name is more accurate because the
method involves tearing apart and extracting piece-by-piece from the uterus
what was until then a living unborn child,” he wrote.
And a
year ago, eight members of the Alabama Supreme Court revived a wrongful death
claim against a physician even though the life that was lost
was that of a “pre-viable” unborn child.
That ruling set the state in direct conflict with the Roe v.
Wade decision.
The Alabama judges at the time criticized the Roe decision’s
“incoherent standard” of viability.
The newest opinion notes that Alabama law states an unborn
child is a person under the state’s intentional murder statute.
According to Liberty Counsel, “Justice Parker wrote
separately to emphasize how broadly and consistently the law and judicial
decisions in Alabama and around the country protect the rights of unborn
children. This, Justice Parker said, contrasts with ‘the continued legal
anomaly and logical fallacy that is Roe v. Wade.'”
In his opinion, Parker called on the Supreme Court to act:
“It is my hope and prayer that the United States Supreme Court will take note
of the crescendoing chorus of the laws of the states in which unborn children
are given full legal protection and allow the states to recognize and defend
the inalienable right to life possessed by every unborn child, even when that
right must trump the ‘right’ of a woman to obtain an abortion.”
He said that by ensuring broad legal protections for unborn
children, including under Alabama’s capital murder statutes, “we affirm once
again that unborn children are persons with value and dignity equal to that of
all persons.”
“There is a growing chorus of voices urging the Supreme
Court to overrule its abortion decisions,” said Liberty Counsel founder Mat
Staver. “The Supreme Court has created a constitutional aberration and caused
incalculable harm by its abortion decisions. In 1992, Justice Kennedy voted
with the majority to overrule Roe v. Wade, and then flipped his vote 30 days
before the opinion was released to uphold Roe. It is time to correct course and
overrule this horrible chapter in American and Supreme Court history.”
He continued: “We applaud Justice Tom Parker in calling on
the Supreme Court to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision and once again protect
precious children, women, and families. Abortion is simply a euphemism created
by activists to soften what it really is: the murder of innocent unborn children.
“We must stop this human genocide. We must demand that the
Supreme Court undo the horrendous ruling and make the womb a safe place again
in America. As we hear about the horrible descriptions of the dismemberment of
Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, every breathing person naturally shutters. Yet, every
day in America, helpless, preborn children are dismembered while they are still
alive. We too must shutter at this horrible act and stop it.”
Parker is currently an associate justice of the Alabama
Supreme Court and is running for the position of chief justice. Parker won the
primary election on June 5, 2018.
In his new concurrence, Parker said a “person is a person,
regardless of age, physical development, or location.”
“Baby Doe had just as much a right to life as did [mother]
Erica Phillips. … Phillips was sentenced to death for the murder of two
persons; Erica and Baby Doe were equally persons.”
He added: “In spite of voluminous state laws recognizing
that the lives of unborn children are increasingly entitled to full legal
protection, the isolated Roe exception stubbornly endures. … Some liberal
justices on the United States Supreme Court adamantly defend the isolated Roe
exception. I have written extensively explaining why the Roe exception lacks
legal foundation and is patently illogical.”
The ruling, he said, “stands as an indictment against the
United States Supreme Court.”
The only way it can continue, he said, is if the U.S.
Supreme Court justices “insist, against all scientific evidence and reason,
that unborn children are not human.”
________________________
Here’s Hoping Capital
Crime Case Ends Roe v. Wade
John R. Houk
© October 20, 2018
______________________
STATE SUPREME COURT: ROE
V. WADE 'PATENTLY ILLOGICAL'
