Guest Column by Ebenezer Howe III

Alden resident Ebenezer Howe is chairman of the Freeborn County Republican Party. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the local party members.

The Brett Kavanaugh nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States has been consuming a lot of the time of reporters and legislators. From what I have been reading, not much of this time has been wisely spent. One article talked about a group that pledged $5 million in a campaign-style ad blitz to convince vulnerable Democrats and persuadable Republicans to keep Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court. There must be some real large sums of cash to be made or lost based on his anticipated decisions.

In another article, Kavanaugh was called “a five-alarm fire for our fundamental rights and our democracy,” “a disaster,” a “brash and in-your-face pick” with “a 100 percent batting average that’s anti-abortion.”

And another article talked about the unreasonable opposition where Senate Democrats announced their opposition even before President Trump made his choice. And, in fact, one group failed to edit their press release before sending it, so it read in part: “In response to Donald Trump’s nomination of XX to the Supreme Court.”

It should not come as a shock that I like the Brett Kavanaugh choice. He is by all indications a textualist, meaning he interprets the law as it is written rather than as its authors supposedly intended; and he is an originalist, meaning he interprets the text in light of what the words meant when it was enacted. Another thing I like was his keeping, just days after his nomination, a commitment made months earlier to serve at an event for the homeless at Catholic Charities in downtown Washington, D.C.

Walter Williams had a good column last week on interpreting the Constitution using the analogy of referees or umpires following the rules of the game as written, not as how they might like the rules to be. For those who feel the Constitution is a living, breathing document that changes over time, the framers made the amendment procedures for handling such living and breathing needs.

It seemed like every article got around at some time, to bringing up Kavanaugh’s position on Roe v. Wade, which no one knows. He can’t tell you how he will rule on a case until the arguments are made.

I would just like to bring up a few things I think of when the abortion topic comes up. Being male, I am only involved in causing the pregnancy. Besides possibly doting on her hand and foot, her care will be between her and the doctor. The old family Bible had pages where all the children’s birth dates were recorded, not conception dates. The Constitution is silent on start of life and abortion. Abortion has been known about since Egyptian times, so they knew about it when the Constitution was written. First laws on abortion were about 1820 in the United States. All taxation is theft. So what do these little factoids mean to me? First, abortion is a states’ rights thing, not federal. Second, the abortion decision should be between the woman and her doctor. Doctors take an oath to do no harm; therefore, his advice, I think, would fit the situation better than all the laws someone else makes. The woman should be responsible for the costs involved. Under no circumstances should tax dollars, through government theft, be used to pay for abortions.

I googled, “When did abortion laws start?” and I ran across a CNN news story called “The surprising history of abortion in the United States.” This story will be an eye opener for some. Keep in mind you have no idea of how much personal bias there is from the story writer and the quoted researchers. It seems it started by the AMA wanting legislation on poisoning, morphed into a religious thing and now the AMA would like their original sought-after laws changed.

Leading up to and during the confirmation hearings on Brett Kavanaugh, we will hear him asked many questions on Roe v. Wade and abortion, as his position will be the make or brake decision point for many.

There would be two versions of the Baby Place at the hospital based on which radical view you have, but it would be pretty much the same as it is now if you have a non-radical view. A rabid pro-choicer would want two types of procedure rooms — delivery rooms where babies are born and destruction rooms where babies are killed. The real rabid pro-lifer would need a hospice room for when a pregnancy didn’t go so good.

I just needed to get this abortion thing off my chest. Way too much time and politics goes into the abortion fight with every high court nomination.

The six best days of summer, the Freeborn County Fair, will be on us in a week. Please stop by the GOP booth located in the Fairlane Building.