Barry Soetero, also known as Barry Obama or Barack Obama, is part-Kenyan. “Barry Soetoro” was the childhood name used by Barack Obama between roughly 1967 and 1971 while living in Jakarta, Indonesia, with his mother, Ann Dunham, and his Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro. Barack Obama is also named after his biological father, while his grandfather was Hussein Onyango Obama, “a prominent Luo elder, farmer, and “medicine man” in Kenya.”
They were all called Obama, by the way, if that matters, and it is a cool story whether you agreed with anything Barry O ever said or did. Here’s another one.
“‘Abortion is not a fundamental right guaranteed under the [Kenyan] Constitution. On the contrary, the Constitution expressly prohibits it but provides exceptions in limited circumstances,’ the judges ruled.”
That ruling came down on Friday from the Kenyan Court of Appeal. “The appeals court held that Kenya’s 2010 constitution expressly prohibits abortion while allowing limited exceptions.” Life of the mother, for example.
So, there is no constitutional right to abortion in Kenya, just like there is no Constitutional right to abortion in America. The Dobbs decision correctly clarified this, overturning decades of federal-court action on the question that belonged to the States.
In the aftermath of Dobbs, lefties lost their minds. In New Hampshire, Democrats continue to argue for changes to a state law that literally mirrors Roe v Wade. In New Hampshire, the law aligns with the ruling in Roe. In other words, the Left ignored that to make a big stink about Dobbs, which doesn’t give them any less control over abortion at the state level.
Several states, including my neighbor’s state to the left in Vermont, attempted to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right, just in case the courts discovered personhood for the unborn. In ‘Everyone is Claiming Vermonters Voted to Protect Abortion, But That’s Not What the Amendment Says,” I observed that, as written, personhood would make abortion unconstitutional in Vermont.
Proposition 5, approved by 77% of voters, most of whom have no idea what it really means, enshrines article 22 into the State Constitution.
Sec. 2. Article 22. [Personal reproductive liberty] That an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course and shall not be denied or infringed unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means.
Did they overthink it?
I’ve pondered the problems here, here, and here, but let’s revisit them since it is not just a Green Mountain State Right to choose to or to not reproduce.
- [W]hat if a minor wants to get pregnant? Having survived the “right” to abortion and achieved an age where reproduction is possible, are they not entitled to their own reproductive freedom?
- Even prefaced as referring to reproductive freedom, a talented lawyer could leverage it to mean anything, including a constitutional right to refuse the latest vaccine if it might in some way infringe on that right.
- [I]f you are free to choose your life course or the process or reproduction, then who is to say that whether pregnant now or in the future, you could not make the case that something the government wanted or did is an infringement upon that right (measured using the least restrictive means)?
- Reproduction is not possible without both sperm and eggs. And the freedom and dignity to reproduce could encompass more than those who lay claim to a womb or external forces that infringe on that right.
- Does Sec. 2 Article 22 create a constitutional right to statutory rape, assuming consent? (as in, is statutory rape law abrogated by the act of consent?).
Would it be unconstitutional to abort the pregnancy of a female child whose preborn death would violate her right to reproductive freedom?
It’s all fun and word games, but none of that truly matters.
The issue for the left isn’t about whether you can abort a baby or when. It is about using federal power to prevent states from deciding the matter for themselves. Their will upon the hearts and minds of people who think and believe differently from them. Obama was all about that. The Democrat party is all about that, and on every issue, not just abortion. And, given the opportunity, they would not play word games like Vermont and other states did. They’d just say “abortion is a protected right up to and including at birth. Full stop. Preventing it is a crime. Trying to talk a woman out of one is a crime.
Pregnancy care centers would be criminalized. And at some point, the state would likely extend its reach to include state-mandated abortion based on its cultural and political priorities.
This is still the party of eugenics. It is the party of medical mandates. It is the party of assisted suicide. It is the party of political violence, doxxing, and its ideological ancestors have murdered or starved millions, sometimes because they were inconvenient, and other times to harvest their organs.
Federal intervention driven by a command-and-control infrastructure is not just a whim; it is required. Their preferred form of rule cannot function any other way, which Kenya’s sixteen-year-old Constitution does not allow in the case of abortion. The Constitution is clear. Every person has the right to life, and a person’s life begins at conception.
It is worth noting that Democrats in America wouldn’t care.
