THE CONVERSATION

By Michelle Railey

”…Religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God…[T]he legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” —Thomas Jefferson, 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association

“In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.” — Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, Everson v Board of Education, 1947

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” First Amendment, U.S. Constitution

”All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Constitution. Note here: the Constitution is not concerned with defining “personhood” but “citizens;” the Constitution and the law define the rights of citizens, not “persons” and it does not define what a “person” or “human being” might be. For good and for ill, the US Constitution is concerned with the rights of citizens. Citizens do not exist before they are “born.”

1 U.S. Code § 8: ‘(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development. (b) As used in this section, the term “born alive”, with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion. (c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being “born alive” as defined in this section.’

U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2, “The Supremacy Clause” establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the “supreme Law of the Land”, and thus take priority over any conflicting state laws.

The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution giving “unenumerated rights” to the states does not revoke or supersede the Supremacy clause. States, like Alabama, can not pass laws that conflict with Federal law.

See again U.S. Code § 8 (c).

Alabama’s Supreme Court and its legislative bodies cannot contravene the U.S. Legal Code or Constitution.

Their “embryo” legislative positions and Supreme Court ruling are both unconstitutional and illegal.