(Video: Fox News)
Former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives Trey Gowdy argued that American voters don’t need “five lawyers in black robes” to tell them their rights.
Speaking on the abortion issue in the wake of last week’s leak of a Supreme Court opinion draft which indicates the landmark Roe v. Wade case could be overturned by the high court, Gowdy contended that voters should have the final say by taking issues to the “public square and the ballot box and the floor of a legislative body.”
During his monologue on “Sunday Night in America,” Gowdy addressed “who gets to identify those rights not mentioned in the Constitution” of the United States.
“When it comes to the instant debate on abortion, I don’t know if the leaked draft opinion will reflect the finished product, I doubt it, but I don’t know it. What I do know is the issue is not going away. If Roe V. Wade is overturned and the issue reversed to the states, some states will ban all abortions including in the case of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in danger. Some states will expand access to abortion and allow it up to the moment of birth or maybe even beyond in the case of partial-birth abortions,” Gowdy said.
“It may be fine for the 50 states to have different views on education, or crime, or the legalization of drugs. When life begins is not an issue subject to 50 different opinions,” he noted, citing the right to life enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
“Democracy is hard. It was intended to be hard. It’s a privilege earned with the lives and limbs of others. It’s easy to sit around and wait for five lawyers in black robes to look in the shadows of a penumbra and tell us what our rights are. That is judicial oligarchy. It’s harder to go into the public square and the ballot box and the floor of a legislative body and debate it,” the former federal prosecutor continued.
And debate in the public square in these contentious times also seems elusive, as can be seen with some of the reports of protests over the weekend, including the targeting of a Wisconsin-based pro-life group that had its office set on fire.
“But that’s what we should do. Do it for ourselves,” Gowdy concluded. “Not wait for unelected lawyers who live lives of virtual isolation to do it for us. Our rights do not belong in any shadow. Bring them into the light.”
Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) contended that if the United States Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, there could be a national ban on abortion.
“If the leaked opinion became the final opinion, legislative bodies — not only at the state level but at the federal level — certainly could legislate in that area,” McConnell said in an interview with USA Today following the leak of the opinion on Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which was was published by Politico.
“And, if this were the final decision, that was the point, that it should be resolved one way or another in the legislative process. So yeah, it’s possible,” he added.
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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