{"id":1543575,"date":"2022-07-07T18:34:28","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T22:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1543575"},"modified":"2022-07-07T18:34:36","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T22:34:36","slug":"does-the-overturning-of-roe-violate-the-separation-of-church-and-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/does-the-overturning-of-roe-violate-the-separation-of-church-and-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Does The Overturning Of Roe Violate The Separation Of Church And State?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdoes-the-overturning-of-roe-violate-the-separation-of-church-and-state%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1543575&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>According to a May 5, 2022, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/world\/americas\/north-america\/us\/2022\/05\/overturning-roe-vs-wade-blurs-church-and-state\">headline<\/a> on the New Statesman, \u201cOverturning Roe vs Wade blurs church and state. Religious liberty for only one religion is not religious liberty.\u201d Similarly, a June 28, 2022, article posted on Reuters <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/government\/us-supreme-court-takes-aim-separation-church-state-2022-06-28\/\">announced<\/a>, \u201cU.S. Supreme Court takes aim at separation of church and state,\u201d making reference to the Roe decision as well. But is the overturning of Roe in any way related to the separation of church and state? Or is it simply a legal ruling made by justices who happen to be religious conservatives?<\/p>\n<p>On social media, it is evident that for many the matter is already settled. In the words of an Instagram meme forwarded to me by a colleague, \u201cLet\u2019s be clear. This is a secular issue. It\u2019s not about religion. It\u2019s about human rights.\u201d And, \u201cKeep religion out of politics. If you don\u2019t want an abortion don\u2019t get one. Freedom of religion is, \u2018Hey that\u2019s against my religion so I can\u2019t do that,\u2019 NOT, \u2018Hey that\u2019s against my religion so YOU can\u2019t do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But who said anything about religion? Where does the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to overturn Roe make an argument based on religious beliefs, which allegedly, in turn, are being imposed on the nation?<\/p>\n<p>Of course, there is the ever-present misconception about the original purpose of the separation of church and state.<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2000\/june12\/5.58.html\">explained<\/a> by Yale law professor Stephen Carter, \u201cThe wall of separation between church and state is not there to protect the state from the church; rather, it is there to protect the church from the state. It stands as a divide to preserve religious freedom. And one needs to protect the church from the state because the latter will utilize its enormous powers to do what the state has always done\u2014either subvert the religion or destroy it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But even viewed through the most liberal lens regarding the separation of church and state, the overturning of Roe had nothing to do with this separation in any way. It was a legal ruling, based on the Constitution and biological realities, not a religious ruling based on the Bible and principles of faith. And as many have <a href=\"https:\/\/askdrbrown.org\/library\/law-roe-was-bad-ruling-always-had-go\">pointed out<\/a> since Roe became law in 1973 (including some prominent liberal law scholars and jurists), Roe was simply bad law.<\/p>\n<p>Put another way, the Court is not saying to secular Americans or to Americans who belong to \u201cprogressive\u201d religious denominations, \u201cShow me in the Bible where there is a right to abortion.\u201d The Court is saying, \u201cShow me in the Constitution where there is a right to abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Justice Harry Blackmun manufactured that right in his majority opinion in 1973. Justice Samuel Alito simply exposed the fact that such a \u201cright\u201d had never been there at all. The premise does not rest upon religious rights.<\/p>\n<p>In keeping with this mindset, the Secular Pro-Life website reposted an August 9, 2021, <a href=\"https:\/\/secularprolife.org\/2021\/08\/reverse-roe-to-support-separation-of\/\">article<\/a> by Kelsey Hazzard titled, \u201cReverse Roe to Support Separation of Church and State.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Strikingly, the article argued that, \u201cFor decades, the abortion industry and its lobbyists have advanced a false narrative that the pro-life position is inherently religious. Speaking as a pro-life atheist, that is hogwash. In fact,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/secularprolife.org\/2018\/08\/non-religious-pro-life-population-grows.html\">nearly 13 million religiously unaffiliated Americans oppose abortion<\/a>. We accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that human life begins at fertilization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, for these secular pro-lifers, this is about science, not religion. Hazzard continues, \u201cScientific consensus, not religion, should inform government policy. But the Justices who decided\u00a0Roe v. Wade\u00a0paid no heed to that laudable principle. They relied heavily upon religion and pseudoscience to muddy the waters and strip unborn children of legal recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, according to this atheist pro-lifer, it was the framers of Roe who violated the separation of church and state!<\/p>\n<p>Yes, \u201cThe Court treated the Stoics, Jewish scholars, Aristotle, and modern-day physicians as equally valid, competing sources of wisdom on the question of when a human life begins. They are not. No offense to Aristotle, but he never saw a sonogram. The Stoics lacked the benefit of the scientific method. If the Court had a robust respect for the separation of church and state, the disciplines of philosophy and theology would not have warranted consideration. The Supreme Court would have followed modern medicine\u2014and\u00a0Roe\u00a0would have been a very different opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To be sure, the pro-life movement is largely religious, led by Catholics and Evangelicals and supported by Orthodox Jews. And there are strong, Bible-based grounds to be made for the position against abortion. But there is also a strong secular argument. (For an overview of both perspectives, see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/the-religious-and-secular-arguments-against-abortion\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, the Court\u2019s decision to overturn Roe simply corrected a long-term, egregious, terribly costly legal ruling, recognizing the validity of the Dobbs case as well.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that many religious Americans voted for Donald Trump, who in turn appointed three justices to the Court, all of whom voted with the majority, simply means that our system works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to a May 5, 2022, headline on the New Statesman, \u201cOverturning Roe vs Wade blurs church and state. Religious liberty for only one religion is not religious liberty.\u201d Similarly, a June 28, 2022, article posted on Reuters announced, \u201cU.S. Supreme Court takes aim at separation of church and state,\u201d making reference to the Roe &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":672,"featured_media":1547058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1543575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/672"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1543575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1547058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1543575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1543575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1543575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}