LEGISLATING BY UNELECTED OFFICIALS

What is wrong with this picture? The state of Missouri must furnish transportation for pregnant female prisoners if these prisoners choose to have an abortion in a ruling by 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The effect is that, in a sense, the state of Missouri must bear partial payment for the pregnant female prisoner to have an abortion. Even though the newspaper article does not state it, the pregnant female prisoner must have to pay to have the abortion.

This became an issue because the state of Missouri has a law prohibiting using state tax money to pay for abortions. By having to provide transportation to have an abortion, the state of Missouri has to use state tax money. So now Missouri is having to violate a law that was passed by elected officials. This is legislating from the bench. The court, in this case, has exceeded their authority and infringed in an area that they have no right to.

How much the Missouri taxpayers will be called on to pay will probably be minimal. The immediate expense would be the gas used to drive to the abortion clinic plus the salaries for those transporting the prisoner. The indirect costs would be all of the insurance and depreciation expenses of the vehicle. On top of this, there will probably not be that many female prisoners who will have an abortion. Fortunately, taxpayer’s expense would be minimal. The main expense, in this instance, is in defending this law in the courts. It would be interesting to see how much was expended by the state of Missouri in this case. It would be wise for the state of Missouri to cut their losses and let this exception stand.

The expense to the taxpayer is not the issue. The legislature of Missouri obviously did not foresee this contingency or did and chose to ignore it. In essence, the ACLU and the Federal Appeals Court are in the right because of what the Supreme Court did in their decision of Roe. v. Wade. A woman has the right to have an abortion in the United States. The Missouri legislature violated this right by not allowing a female prisoner to have access to an abortion facility. While the state of Missouri is right in their passing a law that state tax money should not be used to pay for an abortion, this is an exception.

I do not want my readers to think that I support the ACLU and the court in this instance. Logically, they are correct and I will not deny them this. The issue is that all abortion needs to be outlawed in the United States. It needs to be a 50 state law. If abortion was criminalized, this issue would be a moot point. It would not need to be litigated. The only solution to this issue is that no female has the right to an abortion under any circumstance.

Ever since the U.S. judiciary declared the first law unconstitutional, they have been able to legislate from the bench. The judiciary makes new law and this is the responsibility of the legislature. When the judiciary does this, it undermines the authority of the legislature. This is the main issue in this case, not abortion. The judiciary is not answerable to the public like the legislature. They have become a law unto themselves.