Knights of Columbus:Roe v Wade not "settled", urge Roberts up-or-down vote

[Bluebear]

CHICAGO, Aug. 4 /Christian Wire Service/ -- Delegates to the 123rd annual convention of the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic lay organization with 1.7 million members, today adopted resolutions declaring that the organization "will never consider Roe v. Wade to be settled constitutional law," and urging the U.S. Senate to "conduct prompt, fair and expeditious hearings on the nomination of John G. Roberts to the United States Supreme Court."

The resolution on Roe v. Wade "condemn(s) any use of a pro-Roe litmus test by members of the U.S. Senate when considering nominees for the federal courts, especially the Supreme Court, and we call on all Catholic senators to cease and desist from opposing, directly or indirectly, the teaching of the Catholic Church on the inviolability of innocent human life." The resolution recalls that the court's 1973 decision in Roe "was accurately described by Justice Byron White as an exercise of 'raw judicial power,'" and that legal scholars have described it as "bad constitutional law," and based on "multiple and profound misapprehensions of law and history."

The resolution on the nomination of John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court urges the Senate "to consider his nomination without delay or filibuster, and to allow him an up-or-down vote on his confirmation." It also states that the Knights of Columbus "strongly condemn(s) any effort to block or impede his confirmation based upon his position on whether Roe v. Wade should be reconsidered."

The resolution on John Roberts urges all Knights in the U.S. "to contact their senators asking them to support an up-or-down vote" Roberts' nomination.

During his annual address to the Knights of Columbus convention on Tuesday, Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson said that in Roe v. Wade, "the Supreme Court created out of whole cloth a 'right' to extinguish the life of an innocent unborn child. And in the process, it seized for itself a power that no one has a right to exercise."

Texts of Anderson's address and of the resolutions can be found at http://www.kofc.org.



http://www.earnedmedia.org/kofc0804.htm

[WildClarySage]

1. Gee, and some people don't consider the 13th amendment to be

settled constitutional law, either. But Slavery is, in fact, illegal in the US regardless. Roe is likewise settled constitutional law. When are these people going to realize that women are competent and smart enough to determine their own reproductive course?

[shraby]

2. That's KNIGHTS of Columbus, right?

What do they know, they don't have to be pregnant for nine months.