Washington D.C., Jan 22, 2009 / 18:00 pm
In an article for the National Review, M. Edward Whelan III, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, made the argument today that the pro-abortion rights U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade is the “Dredd Scott” decision of our age. Both cases, he wrote, invoke “substantive due process” to deny American citizens the authority to “protect the basic rights of an entire class of human beings.”
The 1857 Dredd Scott v. Sandford decision ruled that a prohibition on slavery could not apply to slave owners who brought their slaves into free territory. This ruling helped precipitate the U.S. Civil War.
The 1973 decision Roe v. Wade, Whelan explained, imposed permissive abortion laws nationwide. January 22, 2009 marked the 36th anniversary of the ruling.
He noted that the Dredd Scott decision ruled that a prohibition on slavery “could hardly be dignified with the name of due process.”