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I Will Pray for Her, But I Will Not Mourn for Ruth Bader Ginsburg
As I woke up Friday morning, I turned on Fox News only to see Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s casket being carried up the steps of the Capitol, there to lie in state for the next few days. The Fox anchor was droning on about the “iconic” justice who, I was told, was a person of great importance. So have things gone in the few days since Ginsburg shuffled off this mortal coil. One could be forgiven for thinking some great saint rested in that oblong box. But no, the “saint” is better described as a princess of darkest who was responsible for the murder of millions of babies resting innocently in their mother’s womb.
To put it in the starkest reality, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a stone-cold killer. There is exactly nothing in Ginsburg’s legal career that qualifies her for the moniker “iconic.” “Butcher” is more precise. Along with her allies, Ginsburg pushed the unlimited expansion of abortion, marking her as one of the most enthusiastic mass murderers of the truly defenseless. And I will be damned if I going to mourn her death or shower her with accolades.
As a Roman Catholic, I am required to pray for the dead. It is one of the spiritual acts of mercy. So last night I offered up a decade of the Rosary for the repose of Ginsburg’s soul. I am not, however, required to feel a sense of sadness over Ginsburg’s expiry, any more than over the deaths of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Chairman Mao. Indeed, statistically, Ginsburg puts these historical mass murderers to shame. Since 1973, the year Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton were decided, more lives have been stolen by abortionists than by any of these genocidal thugs, with the possible exception of Mao (although as abortions continue apace in the United States the baby killings will soon exceed even the number of Mao’s victims of genocide).
So, after watching the “All Heil Ginsburg” show for about two minutes, I shut off the tube. The praises heaped on a ruthless killer were just too much to bear. Each plaudit brought to mind the words of Isaiah: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20. Ginsburg”s “thinking” falls right into the prophets warning that perdition is coming for those who trip and fall down the nihilist’s mountain. Woe to those who promote infanticide.
To truly appreciate Ginsburg’s genocidal philosophy consider her reaction to partial birth abortion as described by Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.
Let’s look at the evidence that Justice Ginsburg heard during that particular case.
The court recited an abortion doctor’s clinical description of the partial-birth abortion procedure. Then it went on to quote a nurse who happened to witness the procedure: “The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startled reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he’s going to fall. The doctor opened the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp.”
One wonders whether Justice Ginsburg flinched, just a little, when she heard the description of the baby flinching as the abortionist stabbed him in the head. Might it have been possible to detect even the slightest hint of a startled reaction on her features as the savagery of the procedure was described to her in its full horrific goriness? One would like to think so, even though she was still ready to advocate that such barbarism should continue, protected by the law.
And yet, since she knew what partial-birth abortion entailed, her support for it is sickening, almost beyond comprehension. It beggars belief that anyone can advocate for such horrific treatment of innocent human persons. Under this procedure, the cervix of the woman is dilated and the whole of the child is extracted except for the head. This means that the child is not yet in law born, because not fully extracted from the mother’s womb, and that the deliberate killing of the child, which then takes place, is not murder in law. This is what Justice Ginsburg was willing to advocate. In her judgment defending this butchery, she employed the phrases “tearing a fetus apart” and “ripping off its limbs”, in a dispassionate way, as coldly as Josef Mengele, the Butcher of Auschwitz, might have spoken of his victims. Nor is the comparison with the Nazis inappropriate. When any society becomes desensitized to the extermination of those deemed to be untermenschen, it ipso facto becomes an inhuman society. Unborn children are every bit as human as those whom the Nazis exterminated in Auschwitz and every bit as innocent.
The Catholic Church requires that sinners in the confessional list their sins specifically. It will not do to describe sins in vague terms like “I am prideful,” or “greedy,” or “selfish.” Each sin must be detailed. The penance given by the priest must also fit the individual sins of the person confessing. Ginsburg’s sins are legion and, while I do not know how God will treat the late justice (a word that scarcely comports with the magnitude of Ginsburg’s baby-killing numbers), I suspect that if she repents she’ll be required not only to confront each murdered child and plead with them for mercy, she’ll also need to suffer the pains of her individual victims. Justice is an element of mercy, which all the saved will be required to satisfy, including this “iconic” hero of the baby-killing industry.
Now, to be sure, neither I nor anyone else can say with certainty that Ginsburg is now shrieking in despair in a hell she created for herself. But it takes a thick rug to hope for her salvation.
I realize this may sound uncharitable, but I would suggest it also fits within the demands of truth and proportionality: the punishment must fit Ginsburg’s crimes. I will pray for her; it is my duty to accept the wounds inflicted by praying on my knees, which I must if I hope for mercy for myself. But it is a daunting task.
So God rest her soul. And may God also require she satisfy the demands of justice.
Published in Law
Well done.
Very well said Mike! Thanks!
Beautifully stated, Mike, thank you.
Let’s also pray for my benighted colleagues who perform these murders. They know exactly what they are doing.
Here’s what so many don’t know or don’t remember about RBG and Roe v. Wade.
At the time of the decision, and before she was on the Bench, RBG repeatedly stated that Roe was wrongly decided as a matter of constitutional law, and that it would have been preferable to NOT have a single national rule, and let the political processes in the several states gradually work towards accommodation.
Instead of “ending debate” through the imposition of a single constitutional rule, she said, Roe v. Wade created a massive and bitter and unending battle.
This view of hers was so well known that her nomination to the Court was opposed by many feminists who wanted someone more “trustworthy” on women’s issues than Ruth Friggin’ Ginsburg! (Of course, her career as a lawyer was most notable NOT for advancing women’s rights, but for advancing equal rights. Everyone knows that her first Supreme Court wins were on behalf of MALE clients who had been discriminating against on the basis of sex.)
P.S. Much later in life, she gave an interview stating that the Kapernick Caper of not standing for the flag was STUPID and disrespectful.
A more complex record than many assume.
I read that Pierce article yesterday and I thought he was spot on. I have not supported the canonization of RBG. Joseph Pierce wrote exactly what I was thinking. Anyone that can support abortion (up to birth no less) is not an admirable person. May God have mercy on her soul.
We all have complexities. So what? She supported abortion and even partial birth abortion which is infanticide. I couldn’t care less about her complexities.
Agree. The fact that she did not retire while Obama was President shows how enamored she was with power. Barrett will be an excellent replacement.
And may ACB be enamored just as long, if not longer.
I admit to complete ignorance on the history of RBG but this smacks of positioning herself for her future nomination. Kinda like Obama’s early position on gay marriage…everyone knew he didn’t mean it so it was something they could just live with until he was in a better position to be more honest. But I could be wrong…
Even if she thought Roe was “the wrong tool for the job” it doesn’t seem like she had a problem with using it.
Superb.
I admit to being relieved that as a non-religious person, I am required neither to pray for nor to mourn Ginsburg.
Jim Hawkins was one of my anatomy professors. He had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, and served in a region where different ethnic groups were mixing. When he was talking about the pelvis, he presented us with this scenario from his experience:
Take a gracile woman of Nilotic origin. She becomes pregnant by a man whose origins go more with heavy muscles, heavy bones, and a large, round head. This was commonplace where Jim was stationed. Out in the countryside, a lot of these women died in childbirth. The infrastructure to perform a caesarian section which the mother would survive or to transport one of these women to where one could be performed just wasn’t in place.
Historically that has left several options:
• Let both mother and infant die.
• Wait for the mother to die, and perform a posthumous caesarian section hoping you can do it fast enough to save the baby.
• Perform a “partial birth abortion” and try to save the mother’s life. Even in the pre-Pasteur era, some doctors and more midwives kept their hands and their tools clean, so that puerperal fever wasn’t an absolute guarantee following this procedure.
Without sanitation infrastructure and modern medical technology, these are circumstances under which the appalling procedure known today as “partial birth abortion” may the only available means to save one of the two lives at stake when labor goes horribly wrong. A strong argument can be made that this is the least bad, least immoral choice and is not murder.
That leads to a question:
Should Supreme Court decisions ought to be based on principle or on the current and changing state of technology?
Angelo Codevilla argues that Brown v Board of Education enshrined the latter and was the beginning of the end for the Constitution:
Knowledge is key. It turns out that if have sterile water, gloves, and a few instruments, someone without a lot of medical knowledge can make an incision over the pubic bone and split the symphysis pubis to allow a big headed baby to be born, saving two lives.
The question of principle stands.
For some reason, the thing sticks in my mind about RBG was her remark about the South African Constitution and how an evolving nation should look to it rather than the U.S. Constitution.
After some criticism from right-leaning news outlets, several “fact-checkers” (such as Snopes and FactCheck) rushed to her defense screaming that she had been taken out of context. However, if one goes a bit deeper into the issue, it can be seen that RBG was probably in firm agreement with the New York University Law Review which unapologetically wrote:
“…it (the U.S. Constitution) is increasingly out of sync with an evolving global consensus on issues of human rights.”
Silly us. We always thought that our 230+ year old Constitution (and Bill of Rights) did a pretty good job in keeping our freedoms intact.
They say that like it’s a bad thing.
To them, it is.
I prefer inflexible human rights over flexible human rights. ‘Cause once you start flexing…..
Very, very good.
I think the recent law talk podcast said that Ginsberg was made a big deal because they had no organic equivalent of Scalia on their side. With Scalia, it was about what he said in his opinions and as an educator. Ginsberg was about her life or whatever. I mean it’s just silly with the bobble heads and the wacky nickname.
Repose.
Edit.
Sorry. Repose at the Court. State at the Capitol.
I’m not sure you could call her an influential jurist. Most of the majority opinions she wrote were on blowout cases with 7-2 votes.
Don’t let the feminists hear that.
KBS News here in Korea has been putting up a Ginsberg “tribute/memorial” screen after the nightly news, ever since she died. It consists of a big picture of her, and a quote…..like she was some kind of saint. And I don’t know what relevance she has to Korea.
Unrelated- their news promos now have a soundtrack, John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Ack!! How awful.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually Western-origin executives or studio people, who are putting stuff like that on Korean TV.
I agree that we should pray for even the most wicked, but I can’t endorse the harsher sentiments of this post.
Abortion is the modern day equivalent of slavery. I believe that analogy to be true not just in one or two but in manifold respects.
That’s a sword that cuts both ways.
If I can believe that the founders were great and good men who, whether in word or deed, were tragically wrong as to which of their fellow human beings counted as people, then I can say much the same about the vast majority of those among my fellow Americans who happen to be pro-choice.
I don’t think Ginsberg was great, but I understand why others thought she was. Like most otherwise good people she conducted the necessary mental gymnastics to avoid confronting the accepted barbarism of her time and place.
Most of us think that we would have been William Wilberforce if born in his time, but for most who think that it’s a pleasant delusion. For that reason, and for our own edification, we should be generous enough to judge figures by the ways in which they did stand out from their coevals.
If RBG is a saint in Korea how do they feel about John Yoo? Man-God?
[emphasis added]
This is very interesting (to me). As her history is written in the coming months and years, will it…can it…be about the complex, active legal mind of a great jurist or will if be regurgitated fluff about the media campaign to create “RBG” produced in her later years?
Similarly, and I profess no real insight, but I don’t get the impression that Sotomayor and Kagan are setting any synapses ablaze with any of their opinions. (Setting up on heck of a legacy with these two, if I am right.) Are we now going to be subjected to the RBG treatment on one or both of them? (It is bad enough having the RBG movie cluttering up my movie channel schedule all the time…) It will be interesting to watch them (and their media apparatus) if this becomes a solid Trump Court for the foreseeable future…wait, wait, wait…I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. Let’s get thru the next couple of months first.
But killing of children as a sacrifice to the god of fertility (prosperity) was one of the sins that God brought up for several of the kings of Israel and Judah. Just because it is is commonplace at one time or another does not lessen its evil.