Rep. Greg Steube: The Unborn Are Entitled to the Full Protection of the Law

COMMENTARY

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court shattered the Federal legitimacy of the pro-abortion movement. The decision in Dobbs v Jackson overturned Roe and Casey. Pro-abortion proponents continue to voice a lie, claiming there is a constitutional right to killing unborn children that has never existed. On page 69 of Dobbs, Justice Alito clearly states, "We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representative." 

A swelling majority of Americans are awakening to what pro-life Americans have known all along, that unborn children are "persons," and when that is carried to its logical and legal ends, unborn children are entitled to the full protections of life under the law.
 
We have an established history of criminal law in this country as it relates to unborn children. Florida has joined 37 other states enacting fetal homicide laws, evidence that our state judicial systems recognize that unborn Americans are entitled to life. A murderer in my home state of Florida was convicted in 2020 on two counts of second-degree murder for killing a pregnant woman and her unborn child. Our laws in Florida explicitly state that death or bodily injury to an unborn child, at any state of development, is considered a separate offense. 
 
The Left used Roe for five decades to deny the humanity of generations of unborn children and it cost the lives of over 63 million Americans. That's not freedom, that's genocide by any definition. Abortion proponents will fight the humanity of unborn Americans by every deceit and artifice; their twisted logic knows no bounds of decency. 

We celebrate the overturn of Roe and Casey, but the fact remains, our unborn children are still unsafe. Our unborn children must gain federal recognition as fully vested human beings. We cannot permit states to deprive unborn Americans of their life. 

The 5th Amendment guarantees that no one shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process." And the 14th Amendment guarantees that no state shall make "any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." These civil liberties must become the recognized civil rights of unborn Americans.  Likewise, murder and assault statutes in all states must apply to the unborn. Abortion then becomes a clear violation of these laws.
 
We clearly need to move beyond the legal fiction of treating unborn children as anything but human beings. The unborn deserve the legal protections granted to every other American. 

With Roe overturned, no misguided judicial decision can block states from applying murder and assault statutes to protect the unborn from abortions. The Left proffers obtuse justifications to abort children, yet Congress has never passed a law stripping the unborn of their rights and allowing for them to be killed. The murderer in Florida had no right to murder a pregnant woman and her unborn child. The same must hold true for abortion. Now that the misguided, judicially created "right" to do so has been overturned, it is incumbent upon Congress and all 50 states to take action. Unborn children are human beings, not just deserving of, but entitled to the full protection of the law under our Constitution.
 
U.S. Representative Greg Steube represents Florida's 17th Congressional District. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee.

CBN neither supports nor opposes any candidate for public office.