Many are now calling upon the Supreme Court to assert the unalienable right to life of preborn children from the moment of conception. Unalienable rights, recited in the Declaration of Independence (the charter of our nation) are not subject to discretionary review by state legislatures.
We realize, of course, that the court would need an actual case before it.(Such as a challenge by Planned Parenthood to the new Oklahoma statute outlawing abortion from conception except in cases of rape or incest.)
The court must also have the proper foundation upon which to base their decision. That foundation is NATURAL LAW – the ‘Law above the law’. Natural Law has always been with us, but courses in Natural Law were dropped from the law school curriculums long before any of the current Supreme Court justices attended law school.
They most likely had no course in natural law. They were trained to base their decisions on past Supreme Court precedent, but they were overturning precedent (Roe v. Wade). So they turned to the states and essentially said “You figure this out. You are on your own from here.”
The court’s incomplete decision in Dobb’s will result in 50 states coming up with 50 different state laws on abortion – some granting preborn children a reprieve from the death penalty; some imposing the death penalty.
There is needed a Law above the law and that is NATURAL LAW, to guide the states and the Supreme Court. The Law of Nature and Nature’s God commands: “Thou Shalt Not Kill”!
Without realizing it, the conservative majority of the court in overturning Roe did so based upon Natural Law but lacking training in it or full knowledge of Natural Law, they were without the understanding to go the next step and point to the foundational principles of Natural Law in our nation’s Declaration of Independence, based as it was upon Natural Law (The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God), as authority for the court to declare the unalienable right to life of all preborn children from the moment of conception.
“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” (opening words of the Declaration of Independence)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, that among these are LIFE, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”
The Declaration of Independence
Professor Brabner-Smith, exceedingly modest, possessed a towering intellect. He could have and should have been a Supreme Court Justice. He was the recognized authority on Natural Law.
We want you to have (and wish the Court could have) his timely essays on Natural Law which offer the “light at the end of the Roe Tunnel” we still find ourselves in. You will find it posted below.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
R. Martin Palmer
P.S. The coat of arms of John Brabner-Smith as well as the sketch of his life (with humorous anecdotes) is taken from a booklet prepared by his wife Daniella Brabner-Smith for a surprise 92nd birthday party for John in 1992 at the University Club in Washington, DC. – a gala and a fun evening. Professor Brabner-Smith was such a humble and modest man that when he walked in to his own surprise party, he thought it was for someone else.
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