In a devastating opinion released entitled Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, Commissioner, the United States Supreme Court struck down a Texas Law which required that medical doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at a local hospital and that abortion facilities have the same standards as outpatient surgical centers.

The two requirements were the express will of the people of Texas. They were also commonsense health and safety regulations, in the event of an emergency arising out of surgical abortions. The rejection of these restrictions by the Supreme Court rips the veneer off of the Court’s pretense to impartiality. The sophistry found in the judicial opinions following Roe and Doe, which purport to allow States to pass reasonable restrictions on abortion, are now proven to have been a subterfuge.

The ruling is a disaster for mothers and children in the womb. It is also a major blow to the ongoing human rights struggle to restore the recognition of the right to life to U.S. civil and criminal law. The majority opinion is forty pages long, and filled with the kind of nonsense pretending to be legal reasoning which has undergirded the tragedy of legalized abortion. It has now taken the lives of close to sixty million children and injured many mothers.

This opinion demonstrates that the majority of the Supreme Court has elevated the faux “Right” to take the life of a child in the womb, invented by the Court in 1973, into a new “super right” that trumps everything else, including the health and safety of the woman seeking the abortion. If there were ever two reasonable restrictions on abortion procedures, these are the two.

A five to three majority of the Justices of the Supreme Court simply decided that the “admitting privileges requirement imposes an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to choose.” In addition, they opined that the requirement that abortion facilities meet the standards of outpatient surgical ambulatory centers “poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions, and constitutes an “undue burden” on their constitutional right to do so.” This opinion takes legal positivism to its highest pinnacle. The positive law is becoming simply what the Court says it is.

However, the natural law cannot be changed, by Court, legislature or executive. Every procured abortion is the taking of innocent human life and is therefore intrinsically immoral. In addition, without the right to life there are no other rights and the very infrastructure of rights is thrown into jeopardy.

Our failure to recognize that our first neighbors in the womb have a right to be born and live a full life in our community undermines any supporters’ claim to favor a compassionate society. All the talk about compassion for the poor rings hollow when we fail to hear the cry of the ones whom Teresa of Calcutta rightly called the “poorest of the poor.”

Medical science confirms what our conscience long told us. We are taking the lives of children. We now routinely operate upon them in the womb. We send 3 and 4D ultrasound photos of him or her as they grow in that first home of the whole human race. These children are members of our human family.

The fundamental human right to life forms the basis for our criminal justice system. That’s why, in our criminal law, we prosecute someone who intentionally takes the life of a woman with child in a vehicular homicide for two offenses. However, if the woman makes it to an abortion facility and the abortionist takes the life of the child, that is now called a “right.” And, after this opinion, laws to ensure that the doctor committing the act is qualified, and that the facility is safe, are no longer permitted. The safety of the woman is now added to the list of dangers.

This barbaric opinion demonstrates why the next presidential election is so critically important. While Christians argue back and forth about whether Donald Trump satisfies their desire for a President who is attuned to their worldview, it is crystal clear that Hillary Clinton will be committed to stacking the Court with the kind of Justices who joined in this horrible majority opinion.

For The Stream‘s news coverage of the case, see this story on the decision and this story on the Texas attorney general’s response.