The abortion vote

Every election year several people ask me how to vote. They typically indicate they know I’m often in the courthouse and know many of the politicians.

As we try to advise others this year, a good friend of mine, in our discussion last night, told me to look at many of the high IQ people that have changed history. He was thinking about abortion arguments surrounding the issue on how to vote in the upcoming gubernatorial and presidential elections. As a devout Christian, the issue was clear for him. He could not support someone who advocated taking the life of another.

Who are some of those high IQ people? William Shakespeare, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Stephen Hawking, Charles Dickens, Michael Faraday, Michelangelo, René Descartes, Charles Babbage (credited with inventing the computer), Steve Jobs and the iPhone products. All have been credited with great additions to our own lives. Television, radio, satellite communication, medicine, arts and entertainment, computers, automobiles, and … all have added to the ease of our lives.

My friend had arguments beyond the moral ones. The Center for Disease Control Reports for 2021 showed that there were 625,978 abortions in the United States that year. There have been an estimated 65 million total abortions in our country alone. His argument was that Jennifer McCormick promotes aborting 65 one-in-a-million brains like those people mentioned above. The opposition thinks abortion should be limited or eliminated.

But I brought up the argument that women have rights. That argument contends that the fetus is not a person but merely tissue. We should not be regulated by religious extremists, so the argument goes. Each person has a right to their own beliefs.

He then called upon my knowledge as an attorney and cited the Eagle Egg issue. I looked it up. Our own federal government makes it a criminal offense to interfere with eagle eggs and even the eagle’s nest!

Section 668 of Title 16 of the United States Code reads in part as follows:

(a) Prohibited acts; criminal penalties

Whoever, within the United States, with-out being permitted to do so, shall knowingly, or with wanton disregard for the consequences of his act take, possess, sell, purchase, barter, offer to sell, purchase or barter, transport, export or import, at any time or in any manner any bald eagle commonly known as the American eagle, alive or dead, or any part, nest, or egg thereof, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than one year or both …

I agreed that it doesn’t seem logically consistent to protect the eagle eggs and nest but not protect the human fetus.

But I brought up another argument that I have heard. Doesn’t the Constitution protect a woman’s right to choose?

Our Indiana Supreme Court, in handling that issue, noted the United States Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion:

The United States Supreme Court set the stage for this appeal two years ago when it ruled that the federal constitution “does not confer a right to abortion.” Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 597 U.S. 215, 292, 142 S. Ct. 2228, 213 L. Ed. 2d 545 (2022) (overruling in part Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 35 L. Ed. 2d 147 (1973) and Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 120 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1993)).  Individual Members of the Med. Licensing Bd. of Ind. v. Anonymous Plaintiff 1, 233 N.E.3d 416, 428 (Ind. Ct. App. 2024).

The hour grew late, and we didn’t have a chance to banter on the other arguments. How many more homeowners would we have had? How many more soldiers? How better would our economy have been? What is the emotional impact on those that have had abortions? Is there an alternative? Is it only a religious issue?

Whom should I vote for? I already voted for Braun.

Ray Adler is a longtime attorney with offices at The Adler Building, 136 S. 9th St., Downtown Noblesville. He is also one of the owners of The Hamilton County Reporter Newspaper.