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Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court’s exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to extinguish it.

                                  Justice Byron White-Dissent in Roe v. Wade (January 22, 1973)

 

SAY not the struggle naught availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

 The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

 If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;  

  It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,

Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,   

And, but for you, possess the field.

 For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

   Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,   

 Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!  

  But westward, look, the land is bright

Arthur Hugh Clough

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Paul Primavera
Monday, January 23, AD 2012 5:41am

We do know the end of the story – Revelation 19:11-21. Jesus wins, Obama and the pro-aborts loose.

t shaw
t shaw
Monday, January 23, AD 2012 5:58am

Pray for the conversion of sinners and America. And, you won’t be going to Heaven if you vote democrat PERIOD.

Jay Anderson
Monday, January 23, AD 2012 8:43am

My great admiration for Byron White is tempered somewhat by his decision to wait to retire until a Democrat was President and could nominate his successor (White having been nominated by a Democrat, JFK). The result was Justice Ginsburg or Justice Breyer, I forget which. The result was replacing an anti-Roe Justice with a pro-Roe Justice.

With the Court’s current split likely to be 5-4 in favor of upholding Roe, such choices as White’s make a big difference. A pity he didn’t give as much thought to how his replacement would come down on the issue as did some of the pro-Roe Republican appointees who waited to retire until a pro-Roe Democrat president could appoint their successors.

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Monday, January 23, AD 2012 1:24pm

[…] Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth – Donald R. McClarey, The American Catholic […]

Brian Crane
Brian Crane
Monday, January 23, AD 2012 3:15pm

Jay, I’ve heard it said that Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson and others were pro-life until the political wind shifted the other way. Could White have been affected similarly, in which case it might have been a calculated decision to wait rather than something to which he didn’t give much thought?

Dante alighieri
Admin
Monday, January 23, AD 2012 3:48pm

Could White have been affected similarly, in which case it might have been a calculated decision to wait rather than something to which he didn’t give much thought?

Doubtful, Brian. He voted with the minority in Casey vs. Planned Parenthood. That was the Supreme Court case upholding Roe when Justices Souter, O’Conner and Kennedy joined in on what is, in my opinion, the most horrendous decision ever handed down by the Court. White joined with Thomas, Scalia, and Rehnquist in wanting to overturn Roe. The case was decided in 1992, a year or two before White retired.

Brian Crane
Brian Crane
Monday, January 23, AD 2012 4:07pm

Thank you Paul. In light of that, his decision to want to be replaced by a democrat appointee seems odd.

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