Every Tuesday, Steve Deace had as his guest Michael Peroutka, the 2004 Constitution Party candidate, for a weekly discussion on the Constitution. Yesterday, Peroutka declared that local officials should arrest women for murder if they have abortions--and Roe v. Wade be hanged. People for the American Way got a clip.
For forty years now we’ve been wrapped around the axil spinning our wheels and good people, I mean them no disrespect, trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, trying to get a court or get other justices appointed or blah blah blah, that’s not the answer to Roe v. Wade. The answer to Roe v. Wade is for us as a culture and all the state prosecutors and all the local district and state attorneys to recognize that that’s murder and it was not changed in its category from murder by what the Supreme Court said in Roe v. Wade in January 22, 1973, it wasn’t changed a bit. It was murder then, it was murder before then, it is murder now, it always will be murder and it should be prosecuted.
So if a woman conceives a baby through rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life? Tough cookies, Peroutka says. In his view, even if conception happens in a way that violates a woman's dignity or endangers her life, she should go to prison.
Listen to the whole thing here. Peroutka first starts talking about abortion at around the 28-minute mark. Peroutka further argues that Roe v. Wade is invalid because courts can't make law, so therefore local officials can ignore it. And even if Congress did make it legal, it wouldn't be valid because it runs counter to the Bible--so therefore, local officials would be justified in arresting anyone who has an abortion, regardless of the circumstances.
Peroutka is treading on pretty dangerous ground here. If I'm following his logic, local officials can reinstate Jim Crow because Brown v. Board of Education isn't law. They can force kids to pray in school because Engel v. Vitale isn't law. People who don't believe in God can be kept out of office because Torcaso v. Watkins isn't law. And interracial marriages are illegal because Loving v. Virginia isn't law. See where we're going here? It should make any fair-minded American nervous.