Dear Friends and Family of the Preborn Child,
We would like to ask for your prayers in the case of Ryan Ead v. Hagerstown Reproductive Health Services, 1402, CSA-REG-1402-2020. This is a father’s rights in abortion case.
On Wednesday, September 8th, I presented oral argument in that case on behalf of the father, Ryan Ead. For those of you who may be interested, the recorded oral argument can be viewed on the court’s website at https://mdcourts.gov/cosappeals/oralargumentarchives.
In the appendix to our brief in the father’s rights in abortion case we attached a copy of the Symphony of the Preborn Child containing the testimony of Dr. Jerome Lejeune in the Tennessee Frozen Human Embryo case and also the testimony of Dr, Lejeune in the Colman Case (father’s rights in abortion).
Dr. Jerome Lejeune said it:
To accept the fact that, after fertilization has taken place, a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or of opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention. It is plain experimental evidence.” (Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, report to the Senate Judiciary Committee, S-158, 97th Congress, 1st session, 1981)
Whenever a court is called upon to make a decision, it is important that they have the best scientific testimony available to them. Dr. Lejeune’s testimony in the Tennessee Frozen Human Embryo case is timeless in its scientific accuracy, explaining that life begins, like everything else, at the beginning.
We also included in the appendix Ronald Reagan’s “Emancipation Proclamation of Preborn Children”, all of which helps to set forth the truth of the early human being that we all once were.
A ‘political rule’ is not a scientific truth. With covid, we learned the lesson to “follow the science” and that you can’t “politicize science”.
The State of Georgia now has a court date, September 24th, to show the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals why the federal court’s ruling from last year that blocked Georgia’s “heartbeat” law from taking effect is wrong. If the 11th Circuit is not persuaded to agree that the ruling is wrong, Georgia could then appeal to the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court took the case at that point, they would be looking at the constitutionality of the law – and of the precedent of Roe v. Wade. The U.S. Supreme Court in its present constituency will be doing just that when they take up the Georgia case and decide it in the coming year.
Fearing what the court will do, the current presidential administration will attempt to ‘pack’ the court (politicize the science with force). We need to pray.
Assuming the Court overturns Roe, it would be wonderful if in so doing they upheld, based upon science, the equal humanity and personhood of the preborn child and announced that their right to life under the 14th amendment was protected by the U.S. Constitution in all 50 states.
This is our hope. This is our prayer. But, But! – if in overturning Roe, they simply turn over the decision to the 50 states, getting down Pontius’ Pilate’s bowl, wash their hands of it and say “You 50 states figure it out on your own. Each of you do what you want.” – then we have a repeat of the Dred Scott case which held that the black man was not person but property. This led to a division of the states, civil war and the death of 750,000. Constitutional law professors are telling us that if Dred Scott had been decided in the opposite way, the Civil War could quite possibly have been avoided.
If the U.S. Supreme Court simply returns the decision to the states, the states will again be divided. This time, not over the equal humanity and personhood of the black man but rather the states will be divided over the equal humanity and personhood of all men and women as preborn children; red and yellow, black and white.
In such a situation, father’s rights in abortion will become more important. Ryan Ead was a father who felt deeply the love for his preborn child. The mother of his child was initially happy when she became pregnant by Ryan and together they called and made an appointment to begin her prenatal care with an ob/gyn doctor. She went home to spend a weekend with her mother and came back with a change of heart and telephoned instead the abortuary.
Ryan told her that he loved her enough that he would support her no matter what her decision was and went with her to the abortuary. Sitting in the waiting room with her, he broke down and implored her not to kill their preborn child. The staff overheard him and called the police. He called my office. I walked up the street to the Hagerstown abortuary and found him seated outside with his head between his knees – crying profusely.
The Planned Parenthood lawyers point to the Supreme Court cases of Danforth and Casey for the proposition they seek to put forth that Fathers have no rights in abortion under Supreme Court precedent. But both Danforth and Casey dealt with laws that contained blanket provisions. In Danforth, a state law gave a father a right to veto an abortion for any reason or no reason at all. In Casey, there was a blanket provision requiring notice of an abortion to be given to a father. In both cases, the Supreme Court struck down these laws as overly broad. But I know of no Supreme Court case in which the rights of an individual father in an individual set of circumstances, has been adjudicated. Indeed, anywhere in the nation where this has come up, they seek to hurry up and complete the abortion so as to “moot” the case (as they did in our case).
Roe v. Wade itself is a classic example of non-mootness. In Roe, the baby had already been born but Justice Blackmun had said that the case was “capable of repetition yet evading review” and for that reason, he created an exception to mootness. Indeed, anywhere in the nation where this has come up it never gets to the appellate court because the preborn children are aborted, mooting the case (certainly part of the modus operandi of Planned Parenthood lawyers).
The rights of the fathers need to be enunciated and addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court itself, especially where the mind of the mother has been in a state of equipoise on this life and death decision (it can lead to post abortion syndrome for her).
Dr. Lejeune pointed out that in the early stages of pregnancy, the preborn child is taking vitamins and minerals from the mother’s blood and this is creating a natural down period of depression for the mother. So you can have a married couple who are initially very happy about the fact that they are expecting a child and the mother could have a change of heart during this period that she would later regret.
Fathers need to have a right to come in and seek and obtain from the court a TRO (temporary restraining order) stopping the music long enough that more deliberate and reasoned consideration of the decision can take place. At a minimum, the father should have a right to take part in counseling with a medical professional in the presence of the mother on this life and death decision that can result in deep depression and even PTSD for the father.
Pray for Ryan Ead’s case before the Court of Special Appeals in Maryland. Pray that the hearts and minds of the judges will be open to the needs of preborn children whose fathers want them and want to save them.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
R. Martin Palmer
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