OVERTURNED: SCOTUS Decision on Roe v Wade

Today on Sekulow, the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade. Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Alright, welcome to Sekulow. As you heard in the opening, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe vs. Wade in a decision authored by Justice Alito on the U.S. Supreme Court. Again, Roe vs. Wade has been overturned. The impact, again, we are going to walk through on the broadcast today. Let me read from the opinion, page 69 of the opinion. We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey, that was the case out of 1992, the last time that this was really challenged at the Supreme Court and that challenge to overturn Roe vs. Wade failed, must be overturned and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives. The battle returns to the states.

We will get into that throughout the broadcast and throughout next week as well. But today is a day to celebrate. There are certain people to celebrate. One, our supporters and donors who have been supporting the work of the ACLJ for decades. We know this is your top issue and you've been fighting and it has been an uphill battle until today.

And there's going to be more fights to go, but today we celebrate. Today we celebrate the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. The idea that we, at the federal level, said there was a constitutional right to killing unborn children in the United States is no more.

And that's because of your support for the ACLJ. To those pro-life protesters who engaged in civil disobedience in the 1980s and 90s bringing the country's attention to this issue. Waking up, especially the Protestant church and Evangelical church, to what was going on in our country so we weren't afraid or it wasn't taboo to talk about abortion anymore. And to tell people what abortion really was about and how women were being lied to and misled by Planned Parenthood and these abortion clinics. Again, we are up against a billion dollar industry.

They're not going anywhere. The fight will continue, but this is a day to celebrate and I want to hear from you as well. Maybe you were one of those supporters of the ACLJ for decades waiting for this day hoping that you'd see it in your lifetime.

Maybe you were one of those protesters who engaged in peaceful civil disobedience to bring attention. We want to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Well, I need to say again and reiterate what Jordan said. A huge thank you to our audience. But let me take this back a little bit and that is, number one, the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. That's what Justice Alito and four other justices agree to. That is gigantic. Roe and Casey are overruled.

That is also gigantic. Casey's controlling opinion skipped over the question and reaffirmed Rome solely on the basis of stare decisis. Stare decisis is sometimes wrong. It was here. Just like in Plessy versus Ferguson.

Just like in Karamatsu. What that means is sometimes the Supreme Court got it wrong and they got it wrong for 50 years. What is personally gratifying, and I'm going to talk about this in the next segment of the broadcast, is that we've been litigating this issue for almost 40 years. I'm going to hold up a picture of American Lawyer magazine and then we'll put it up on the screen, too, for a radio on us.

I'll describe it. It's a picture of me in 1991 with Randall Terry, the head of Operation Rescue, that were doing these rescues all over the country for the unborn. When the case went to the Supreme Court of the United States, Bray versus Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, it said – by the way, on the front cover of it is a picture of Clarence Thomas and also Joe Biden. But what's interesting about this is that Operation Rescue, Randall Terry, Pat Mahoney, others, Janie Bray, led a movement that changed, as Jordan said, the face of the entire abortion debate. When we come back from the break, I'm going to tell you what is, to me, one of the most humbling aspects of this opinion is that two of our cases, and one in particular, served as the basis for this decision overturning Roe versus Wade. We'll get into that when we come back from the break. But obviously, a huge day, and we do want to hear from everybody. A lot to celebrate.

We'll get into the particulars when we come back from the break. Yeah, that's right. We want to hear from you at 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. Roe versus Wade, just to say it, enjoy saying it, has been overturned by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. There's no constitutional federal right to abort children in the womb. We'll be right back on Secular. All right, welcome back to Secular. Again, I just want to read from the opinion.

This is on page 69. Overturning Roe versus Wade of five justices. We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives. This is, again, the official opinion out of the U.S. Supreme Court today. Roe versus Wade has been overturned. And the subsequent case, Casey, which reaffirmed Roe in 1992, has also been overturned. And a number of other cases, if you start looking within on pro-life free speech, freedom of speech, the freedom, again, and the way we talked about abortion distortion, they get into that in this opinion.

All these rights have been distorted when you talk about abortion, people's freedom of speech, their ability to speak out, how it's somehow different if you're talking about a pro-life message. So while, again, today we celebrate the fight. We also celebrate all of you who support the work of the ACLJ and have been in this battle for decades.

Because this is the first step. It's a long first step, but it was the first step in the major fight to get this back to the states where we can have the direct dialogue, both political and legal, to the people. Where it's not just this Washington, D.C. issue and federal issue.

And that is huge, folks, that we can take the battle to the states. So I want to go through some history here because I think it's important, and some of you may not even remember this, but in the 1980s, there was a huge pro-life movement. It started with the Summer of Mercy in Omaha, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, all over the country, Atlanta.

And I represented, we represented Operation Rescue. It was very controversial at the time. They were engaged, as Jordan said, in acts of civil disobedience, means they blockaded access to the abortion clinics. The judges were issuing restraining orders and injunctions all over the country trying to shut these activities down. Tens of thousands of people participated in these. I mean, tens of thousands of people. And we had the opportunity to represent them.

And it was, I will tell you something, originally I went into it thinking I wasn't going to do it. And circumstances as I was going into the jail in Atlanta, it was very clear to me that I was supposed to represent Randall Terry and the leadership of Operation Rescue before the Georgia Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court, federal courts in New York, federal courts in Nebraska, federal courts in Oklahoma. I mean, it was massive litigation in California. And these cases really brought the attention of what the life movement was all about. But the advocates against life were utilizing the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 to stop these protests.

And then the abortion proponents started using the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause as a basis to basically say that there's this unlimited right to abortion. And I argued twice at the Supreme Court in 1990 and 1991. I have the brief here.

I've got the opinion here. And I'm going through this history because I think it's important. There's the brief on the screen. I argued the case twice. And my co-counsel argued the case twice as well. My co-counsel in the case was for the United States government, the deputy solicitor general of the United States. It was under the Bush administration under George W. Bush.

That's how long ago this was. And they argued in our favor saying that the Ku Klux Klan Act could not be applied this way. It was a violation of the Ku Klux.

Applying it that way would be a violation of First Amendment principles. My co-counsel in the case or the counsel for the United States government on our side was the deputy solicitor general of the United States. His name was John Roberts.

He's now the current chief justice of the United States. We argued the case together twice. It was very important in that case because the court concluded that opposition to abortion was not discrimination against women. And since these abortion advocates were utilizing the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause as a basis to do this, this became very important. And when you get to the first substantive legal discussion in the opinion today in Dobbs, Overturning Roe v. Wade, the court starts the paragraph by saying we discussed this theory because this was a new theory that they started using to justify abortion.

They said the one additional constitutional provision that respondents have now offered as yet another potential home for the abortion right, the 14th Amendment. And then they cite the briefs that were filed for that, including the United States government now under Joe Biden, which thought there was this right. But here's what the court said. The court disagreed with that on page 9 and 10 of its opinion, 10 and 11, the regulation of a medical procedure that only one sex can undergo does not trigger heightened constitutional scrutiny unless the regulation is a mere pretext designed to affect an invidious discrimination against members of one sex or the other. As the court has stated, the goal of, quote, preventing abortion does not constitute, quote, invidiously discriminatory animus against women. The case is Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, our case from 1992 and 1993. Accordingly, laws regulating abortion or prohibiting abortion are not subject to heightened scrutiny. And what that means is rational basis applied, the court concluded that rational basis, you can protect the life of the unborn, it returns to the state. There was no constitutional home for the right to abortion in the 14th Amendment, Bray v. Alexandria. Opposition to abortion is not discrimination against women. Who would have thought that a case we argued in 1991 and again in 1992, decided in 1993, based on activities that took place at 89 in 1990, would end up as the basis, one of the basis for this critical Supreme Court decision, but there it is.

So it's humbling. So I want to thank our entire team that worked on that case. I want to put that brief on the screen right now. And that's the brief that we filed in the Bray case. There it is. That brief is now 30 years old.

I mean, 1991. I don't want to get emotional on this, but I am going to say that your support of us all the way back then, and we were a much smaller organization, we had a handful of lawyers, but look at the result that God gave in a case like this. So to me, it's particularly gratifying for all of us at the ACLJ, and it's a great opportunity for us to thank you. But, Cece, as I look at the opinion also, it's very clear also that the court here clearly stated that there is no constitutional right to abortion. Yes, I'm so thrilled that the Supreme Court got it right. They said there was no constitutional right to abortion, that it was egregiously, the Roe decision was egregiously wrong from the start, that Roe was remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text.

It held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is a part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned, and so therefore, Roe was on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided. And this is just such a great day that, you know, we have recognized from the highest court in our nation that there is no constitutional right to killing a baby, and this issue will go to the states now. It's a great day, and I thank you for all your advocacy for 40 years, being a champion of life.

You've just done a great job, and you're a hero of mine. That's very kind, but we could not have done this without the support of our team and without the support of our members around the country. And some of you, when I'm still writing those thank you notes, I see from 1988, 1989, and you all were there with us.

You remember this, Jordan, you were a kid. It was a very bold move for us. Some of these guys and gals would come to our house for meetings and stuff. I mean, it was a very bold move to represent the new act of civil disobedience. Yeah, I mean, they were in prison, and we'd go visit them in prisons, and again, it brought the attention to the issue. So it took people who were radical enough to, again, engage in peaceful civil disobedience, and the way they were treated by police was really horrendous.

The way they were dragged away, their arms broken, and the tactics used. But what it did was it forced the conversation in the country, a conversation that had now been going on for 30 years since that movement really started. And when people then started looking at it, and so you saw a shift, it wasn't just the Catholic Church anymore talking about the life of the unborn or the life beginning at conception. It made the entire really Christian movement, that's where it started, and the Evangelical movement take a look and say, why are we silent about this in the Baptist Church?

Why don't we talk about these issues? And when people started talking about them, it became a much bigger issue. And then it became, think about this, I don't like, this is not to play down, but it became mainstream in the sense that a major political party in the United States ultimately adopted a pro-life position, the Republican Party. And so it became an issue that was not, that started off as being one that was, again, kind of a, it was not mainstream at all. And it became front and center, almost in his sense, I know we don't talk about litmus tests, but in the Republican Party, it is part of it.

I mean, that is part of the platform. So it went from being something all these radicals talked about, these kind of extreme protesters talked about, to something that became part of mainstream discussion in the United States. And at the tip top of that discussion was always two things. One, what restrictions could you put in place under the previous precedent while Roe versus Wade was still the law of the land? And of course, ultimately, how do you get to a point where you overturn Roe versus Wade?

Let me say something too. A lot of you will criticize Mitch McConnell a lot, and you call him a rhino, and listen, you can have whatever political view you want. He made sure Justice Amy Cobe Barrett got to the Supreme Court in record time with a lot of pushback coming from the left and the mainstream media. And she was the decisive vote today. Without her on the court, this decision does not overturn Roe versus Wade. Mississippi's law probably would have been upheld, which would have been a victory in itself, but Roe versus Wade would still be the law of the land. So, who nominated?

Of course, President Trump. When everybody said, don't do this, you don't have time, there's not the right time, we can't do this right now, you can't replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Judge Barrett, now Justice Barrett. And they ignored those calls, and they got it done. And today, you see, again, what happens with those nominees.

That is the decisive vote on this case. We'll be right back. All right, welcome back to SECU. We're going to start taking your calls to 1-800-684-3110. There's one line open still, so we'll start going to those in just a minute. I just want to repeat this, because there's not going to be another opportunity like this in history to say that Roe versus Wade has been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

If you're just joining us and you're listening in your car, or if you listen on Sirius XM or you're watching the broadcast, share it with your friends and family. It has been overturned. You are going to hear a lot of propaganda from the left, a lot of misleading information from the left as they've already started, because they got a preview of this. Both sides, both pro-life and pro-abortion sides, have got, because of that leaked draft opinion, even more prepared.

I will tell you, we were long prepared before that, ready to go to do battle with the states. We'll get into that more in the later broadcast, because I think today is a day we have to celebrate how we got to this point. How did we get to the point where we overturned Roe versus Wade? I say we, because of all of you who support the ACLJ, because of all of you who fought to get those justices confirmed, even those horrendous confirmation battles that Justice Thomas went through, that Justice Kavanaugh went through. Remember what they did to Justice Barrett, that dogma lives deeply within you, her vote being a decisive vote here.

I mean, this is, again, it's a victory for so many people who have had an impact on this. If you've stood up for life by supporting work by groups like ours, if you protested, if you were involved in that civil disobedience, and you've stayed committed to an issue when it didn't look good, when it was an uphill battle to fight the abortion industry, the abortion behemoth, and the abortion distortion in our courts, and it has been overturned. Roe versus Wade is no longer the law of the land. So another aspect of this, I already mentioned that our decision in the Bray case, when they said opposition to abortion is not discrimination against women, is really one of the main legal basis for this decision of returning Roe, but there's another case we had, which is Hill versus Colorado, which was a distortion of the First Amendment, and the rules changed when it was free speech involving protesters that had a pro-life message.

We've called it, as Jordan just said, the abortion distortion factor. We won a couple of the cases, we lost one in particular, Hill versus Colorado, but here's what happened today. The five justice majority, and the opinion by Justice Alito says this, the court's abortion cases have diluted the strict standards for facial constitutional challenges. They have ignored the court's third-party standing doctrines.

They have disregarded the standard race judicata principles, in other words, cases closed. They have flouted the ordinary rules of severability of unconstitutional provisions, as well as the rule that statute should be read where possible to avoid unconstitutionality. And they have distorted First Amendment doctrines as well. And the case they cited for that is Hill versus Colorado. And now you have five justices of the Supreme Court saying that the decision in Hill versus Colorado was a distortion of First Amendment principles. So it's, in a sense, a double win for us today and a double win really for the First Amendment.

But I think the takeaway here, we'll get to calls in a moment, the takeaway here is that Roe versus Ways, it's gone. There's no constitutional basis for it. Now Chief Justice Roberts came up with this middle ground. He would have, I guess, found the statute constitutional, but he had a very diluted theory of how this works.

Right. So Justice Roberts agreed to discard the viability line. He said that line never made any sense and it basically came out of thin air. But he would leave for another day, whether to reject any right to abortion. What's interesting is... He was the only one that signed that.

That is correct. And what's interesting is, although he says, you know, the viability line came out of thin air, then it appears he creates another kind of line that comes out of thin air that says a woman only entitled to reasonable opportunity to obtain an abortion. And what's interesting to note too is that Roberts' approach was emphatically rejected by both sides at oral arguments saying it's just completely unworkable. So his new line was a reasonable opportunity, which again is very vague.

It's fine. So six justices thought that the law in Mississippi was constitutional. Five of them got it right on the reasoning, which is Roe versus Wade goes. Roe is gone.

He'll return to the states. That was the victory. Let's go to the phones.

Yeah. Right to the phones we go. 1-800-684-3110.

Keep those calls coming in. I'll start with Mary Ellen in Illinois online too. I've met Mary Ellen before at a pro-life event in Illinois. So I know she's been someone who's been committed to this fight for a long time. Mary Ellen, thanks for calling in. I wanted to go right to your call.

Yes. Praise the Lord. And I want to congratulate you all. And I want to say I first read about Jay in a Charisma article, I think back in maybe the 80s, and then followed you all from the 90s, supported you, told other people about you. And now we continue to pray for you. And I work with a group of 24-7 on the National Strategic Prayer Call.

We pray for your group continually. Well, Mary Ellen, I remember that article in Charisma Magazine. It was our friend Steve Strang. And that was a big moment for us because we were a very small organization and we were getting this national attention in one of the largest Christian magazines, really the largest Christian magazine at that time. The editor is a good friend of ours still, Steve Strang.

And he promoted the work of the then Christian Advocate Serving Evangelim, now the American Center for Law and Justice. And what's fascinating about that is, Jordan has met you. You've been supporting us for a very long time. I see those records, by the way, of people.

I was looking at them the other day because I'm signing thank you notes. And it really is still encouraging that people from the 1980s and 90s, and we were the middle of this then, Jordan. That's when we were in the middle of this fight. And this was different than what people thought. Originally, we were doing a lot of evangelism access issues, and the life issue was something different. But Pat, I want to say a thank you too. Can I say this? To my colleague, Senior Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, who has been working with me since 1987. Pat Monahan, who has been fighting for life, literally, for decades. And this would not have happened without him. He had the foresight way back, and we traveled the country together, holding each other's briefcases and getting to the next court case to defend these pro-life protesters. So Pat Monahan deserves a big thank you, as does our entire team.

I don't want to leave anybody out, but I'm just going to say, Pat was there since the beginning, and our other colleagues as well. Thank you. Yeah, let me go, and again, to people like Mary Ellen, this has been an issue they've been fighting for, praying for, funding works is our kind of work, and that's why I wanted to take her call first. But let me go to Cindy in Virginia on Line 1.

Hey, Cindy. Hi, thank you for taking my call. I celebrate today with you, and I hope we always remember June 24th. My husband and I have been long-time listeners and supporters.

It's so little compared to what you guys do. It's awesome, and I thank God and pray for you. Yeah, I can't say enough.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Cindy. Well, I really want today to be about that. We need to celebrate because there is a battle ahead.

We all know that. It's not over. This is really just the beginning of a new battle, but we have to celebrate getting to that battle because when we had first adopted this position, talking about it being outside the mainstream, talking about it being controversial, to both Republicans and different – people need to remember a time when the universal view of the United States was that abortion was legal and it should be legal, and very extreme, like no rules whatsoever, the fetus of the child, the baby should not be protected. It was very much an extreme, radical position to just be pro-life.

Look what this said. I mean, this is American Lawyer Magazine defending the new civil disobedience. Now, from Wichita to the Supreme Court, then it said Jay Sekulow fights for Operation Rescue's right to protest against abortion.

Who would have known? Who would have known that that decision would end up being a basis for the overturning of Roe vs. Wade? What an unbelievable day. We've got another half hour of the broadcast.

Another half hour coming up. Phone lines will open up, and we want to hear from you if you've been a supporter, if you've been part of this movement, 1-800-684-3110, a day to celebrate life, and again, just to say it one more time, Roe vs. Wade is not the law of the land anymore in the United States. It has been overturned, folks. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. For decades now, the ACLJ has been on the front lines, protecting your freedoms, defending your rights in courts, in Congress, and in the public arena.

The American Center for Law and Justice is on your side. If you're already a member, thank you. And if you're not, well, this is the perfect time to stand with us at ACLJ.org, where you can learn more about our life-changing work. Become a member today. ACLJ.org. And now, your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Folks, again, this is the second half hour of the broadcast, so let me just restart for those of you who might just be joining us. If you're listening on radio, Sirius XM, if you're watching the broadcast, you just tuned in, maybe someone shared it with you, that this U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe vs. Wade. Roe vs. Wade is no longer the law of the land. Let me read to you from the decision, page 69, authored by Justice Alito.

We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion, Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives. This, again, we know the battle will return to the states, and there's different ways that will happen. There will be states that already have trigger laws that are going to affect today, about 13 of those. There's going to be another 10 or 12 states that are ready to go, but they might have to do a constitutional amendment, they might have to change something in their legal system, but they're ready to go. So about half the country is going to put in very pro-life legislation, and then you're going to see battles.

There's going to be the purple state battles, and then there's going to be the blue state battles, the extremist states that want abortion on demand until birth, or even, I mean, they're talking about perinatal in some states. But today we celebrate what has been a long, strategic path to getting to this point to overturn Roe vs. Wade, that began the day the court issued that decision in 1973, when protesters who, again, were considered marginalized and extremists to even talk about the issue. It was taboo to talk about anything involving sex in the United States, and so abortion you didn't talk about in church, but the Catholic Church stood up, and the Evangelical Church ultimately started standing up, and the whole debate changed. It became a political issue, the Republican Party taking on the issue of life as well. You can't discount all those folks along the way who made it something, who would not allow Americans to ignore this issue. They forced the discussion.

Yeah, I do want to say this. We have a unique situation here because as the court overturned Roe vs. Wade today, one of the bases upon which they did that, as I said earlier, was a case that we had argued twice before the Supreme Court in 1991, excuse me, 1991 and 1992 for activities, pro-life protests that took place in the late 80s and early 90s. And as I said, John Roberts was the deputy solicitor general in the United States. He actually argued on our side. The government was on our side, and that case was under George H.W.

Bush's administration. And one of the arguments was that opposition to abortion was discrimination against women, so they tried to implicate 14th Amendment rights to recognize the right to abortion. Today, the court, and I think this is personally very gratifying for us, and it says, as I'm reading from the opinion on page 11, and as the court has stated, the goal of preventing abortion does not constitute invidious discriminatory animus against women. Accordingly, laws regulating or prohibiting abortion are not subject to heightened scrutiny.

That is the linchpin of the case because heightened scrutiny, strict scrutiny as it's also called, is a very high burden. Rational basis protects the life of the unborn child. That opposition to abortion not being discrimination against women was a huge decision in 1990 and 1991, but it's even bigger today. That's right, because it recognizes that there is a competing interest of the life of the baby, and like you said, with the rational basis, the states can say, we want to protect that life of the baby, and they can do so from conception if they so choose. You know, that there is competing interest that this judicially fabricated right that's now been struck down to abortion doesn't just trump every other right. And I think it's important to note, you know, abortion distortion I'm sure will continue, and you will see the left trying to paint this as an extreme decision, but it's important to know that today the United States joins with the majority of other countries around the world, the vast majority that really limit abortion.

And the abortion distortion, which we've talked about for 40 years, is recognizing this opinion too, and they basically overturned the case that we had in a good way because it would rule against us, that the abortion jurisprudence distorted the First Amendment free speech clause. That's why I want to thank my colleagues, Walter Weber, Pat Monahan, Jeff Sertes, Frank Mannion, and so many other CCQ, I could go through the whole list, but I do think about especially Pat Monahan, I hope he's listening today, Stuart Roth, and Andy Economo. They haven't been with us since the very beginning. We're doing those cases out of Andy's office in Atlanta in those days when we first started. That's how long ago these cases were. Alright folks, if you want to join the broadcast, we're going to take more calls when we come back.

No people have been holding on. 1-800-684-3110 support our work. ACLJ.org.

Share this with your friends and family. You know, we talk about people to thank too as well. The chair of the Judiciary Committee making sure these justices get through like Lindsey Graham.

I mean, again, I know a lot of you, again, would call Brian, call this, call that. Remember, these folks were critical to getting these nominations through. The boldest to say, we're doing away with the filibuster and the 60-vote threshold so that Neil Gorsuch got through. That was initially started with his nomination. President Trump nominating three in one term. The fact that his statement today is very interesting because when President Trump was asked by Fox News, did he feel like he was responsible or played a role?

I think it was unique because of what I just said. He said God made the decision. That was President Trump's statement to Fox News, that God made the decision today. And when you really think about it, a one-term President does not usually get three Supreme Court appointments and also a bold President wasn't afraid to put forward the nominees who would ultimately make this decision. The left knew it. They tried their opposition.

They're going to try to make it a political issue. But even that from Donald Trump and from former President Trump, again, where he could take a lot of credit. He deserves a lot of credit because, like you were telling the break, most people wouldn't recognize that his policies were the most pro-life of any President in our history. And the people he put in place. And so for him to say that God made the decision today, I think it just says a lot about how important this is. I know President Biden's addressing the nation now. This was someone who most of his career shared our position.

Until he became vice President. Yeah, so I didn't need to say this, though. We're going to get to calls.

But I need to say this. We had real battles in courtrooms. I mean, think about Pat Monahan and I in courts and the economy. We were in courts all over. Frank Manion, Jeff Surtees, Walter Weber, who was really one of the principal architects of the Supreme Court work we did on this, played a major role. I mean, these were big days. Think about Colby May, so many of our team.

But I will say this. We had judges that were very difficult. And occasionally we would get a judge that was great. And in our Atlanta cases, which was during the Democratic National Convention, we had Judge Nick Lambros. And he was great.

And you get a few. We had some that were really difficult. The one that gave me the most trouble was Judge Patrick Kelly. And he wrote me the nicest note when it was over, saying, it's been my pleasure having you in this courtroom.

Having said that, I wish you no luck at all. But he did write a note to Judge Ward, and Stuart Rothwell will remember this one, in New York, who we had to then go right to when we flew right to New York to litigate there. And ultimately, in those cases, we won at the Supreme Court.

But in those days, it would not be uncommon for us to be in two or three locales in a period of 24 to 36 hours. I will never forget, and I want to thank Paul Crouch, Pat Robertson, who in the beginning had the vision for this. I had to get from New York, I argued a case in New York, and I had to get to Texas that afternoon for a hearing before the Texas Supreme Court to try to get people out of jail for their pro-life protests. CBN had Operation Blessing, had aircraft that they would use to move supplies around, and they had a small plane as well, a little Lear. This was in the old days. And I said, I can't get from New York to Dallas or to Austin, wherever I had to be.

I can't even remember where the court was. And Pat said, well, that won't be a problem. And we flew in this little plane. It was me and Pat Monahan.

It probably couldn't fit much more than me and Pat Monahan and maybe two other people. And we flew down there, and they were stunned, the pro-abortion lawyers, when we walked in that courtroom. Because they said there was no way Sekulow and that group's going to get there, and we did.

But none of this would have happened without God's blessing and your support, and I want to say thank you. So I listed a bunch of people. I'm sure I'm leaving people out, but let's go ahead and take calls. Yeah, David and Marilyn's been holding on.

Hey, David, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air. Well, thank you for taking my call. And I say all honor should go to the ACLJ for its brave stand against a horrible decision by the courts in 1973. I thank you. I thank you.

And I'm just going to have to join the ACLJ. Well, we appreciate that. We appreciate that. But in other groups, too. I mean, we were on the litigation side, but there were policy people involved, National Right to Life break in the early days. And then, of course, what really put this on the national attention was the Operation Rescue Movement, the Summers of Mercy. Yeah, they forced people to have the discussion. They forced the church to wake up to the issue, ultimately politicians waking up to the issue, making it a mainstream discussion. Now, what is going to be interesting today is that for a long time for these politicians, it was a talking point. Their talking points have become reality now. So this will also be real for them. But there's a lot of people who led the way to get there. It's not just one organization.

It's not just ACLJ. But again, it was the braveness to stand up to the whole country. And I just want to continue to take people's phone calls because I think it's a day to celebrate. You know, I know that the other side and President Biden is trying to address the nation right now, this parade of horribles and how bad this is.

I don't want to even listen to it. Yeah, this is not the day for that. This is a day to celebrate so much of your work. Let me go back to the phones. Julie in California online, too. Hey, Julie.

Hi, Jordan and Jay. My first words today and team at the ACLJ is well done, good and faithful servant for all your work over the years. Thank you. And my way of celebrating this is with the ACLJ is for, I believe, 62 million babies have been aborted since 1973. I'm going to donate $62 is my sort of matching funds to the ACLJ. That's very kind of you and it's very meaningful. I need to say this that, and I do appreciate what you said and thank you. But the truth is that you had to have, I mean, this is, I did not know if in my lifetime I was going to see this because so many things had to line up, including a President, like Jordan said, that would not get three nominations in one term.

Highly unusual. And then have the guts to get it through. And then, of course, then you have to get the decision. And there's a lot at play in these decisions.

And we saw a great win here. But the fact is, this is what we need to reiterate. The constitutional right so-called to abortion does not exist in the United States Constitution. That is what the court decided. It was said over and over. And that was the right decision.

There is, you cannot read the Constitution and find a right to abortion. And that's what they acknowledged today. And that was the right thing.

And we are joining a vast majority of countries. This is not a strange, extreme decision. Protecting life is the right thing to do. But look what they did to try to do to Brett Kavanaugh. They're doing it still right now?

No, they are. Look what they did to try to do to Amy Coney Barrett. I mean, Brett Kavanaugh had an assassination attempt. They're protesting in front of their houses now. They had the group calling for riots tonight.

And those justices did the right thing. Let's go ahead and take another call. Yeah, let's go to Charlotte in Kansas on Line 6. Hey, Charlotte, welcome to Sekulow.

You're on the air. Thank you so much for taking my call. I am so excited and so proud to be a part of this movement.

I was 12 years old in 1973 and didn't know as that what abortion was. Yeah, you're cutting out, Charlotte. But, yeah, I think we appreciate your statements. You've been praying for this day since you were 12 in 1973. Let me go back to the phones and go to Daniel in Texas on Line 5. Hey, Daniel.

Yes, how you doing? Thank you for taking my call. Like you said, this is a day for celebrating. First and foremost, thank God Almighty for this decision. And thank you all for being warriors for fighting these battles.

Like I said, I'm emotional. I have a two-year-old daughter myself, and I could never have imagined making a decision for her not to be here. Like I said, thank God. That's the great debate we're going to be able to have is that when we take this to the states, these politicians can't hide behind Planned Parenthood, Washington, D.C., and Roe v. Wade. They're going to have to vote. Your state legislatures are going to have to vote on whether or not they're going to allow infanticide in their state. That's a lot different than saying, well, we can't do anything about it because there's this Roe v. Wade decision. So you're going to be able to hold politicians who maybe have run this pro-life at the state level for a long time. You're going to know who's really pro-life. You're going to know the governors that are truly pro-life, the attorney generals.

Now, some of them have steps to work through, so I'm not going to say that every state can't do the trigger law because they've got bad court decisions or they might need a constitutional limit. So that is not for today. I mean, we've got all that ready. It's already prepared. We're already ready to go.

We have ACLJ action that we launched just for this moment. But for today, we celebrate because you had to get to this point to even start that battle. You know, I want to – can I say something? Like most people said, they didn't think that they would live to see that day. I'm going to say this, and I know this is going to be – it may be controversial, but I'm going to say this. The truth of the matter is God's in control of the universe.

That shouldn't be controversial. And God allowed Donald Trump to be President of the United States. It was only for one term. But one term got three justices of the Supreme Court. Those three justices of the Supreme Court just overturned Roe versus Wade, overturned Hill versus Colorado, and recast the entire pro-life movement. So, you know, nobody's perfect, but those decisions and those justices that went through those unbelievably difficult confirmation hearings – Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh. I think about Justice Scalia today. He was the one who wrote the opinion in Bray that said opposition to abortion is not discrimination against women. They were champions too.

They are champions. And I'm sure Justice Scalia is smiling from heaven today. He was one of the greats of all time, and he wrote the opinion in Bray. And, you know, you think about – you have to think about those today and the difference it's made. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, people who – again, a lot of people thought they would not see this day, not just from older generations, even from mine, that you would see a day where Roe versus Wade was actually overturned directly.

You know, not indirectly, but directly by the U.S. Supreme Court. We come back. Warrior phone calls. I know people have been holding on. 1-800-684-3110. All right, I'm going to go right to the phones.

People have been holding on and get as many calls as we can in our final segment of the broadcast. Roe versus Wade has been overturned. Joe Biden addressing the nation, the President. But we also heard from President Trump, who said it was God who was behind the decision today. Of course, he made three nominations to the Supreme Court, all three of those voting to overturn Roe versus Wade. And, of course, you had Justice Alito and Justice Thomas. And you think about what they've all gone through – the threats, the leaked opinion, the assassination attempts, the riot threat that's still hanging over Washington, D.C. and other cities.

And you know what? When you're defending – protecting the life of children, though, I think it's much bigger than the threat of a riot from some group of activists. And I think that that's what people realize today is that this is so big of an issue. We didn't want to be associated with China and North Korea as the country that allowed basically unrestricted abortion. And we are no longer now in that category of nations that allows that at a national level.

So we no longer have to be in the club with China and North Korea, two of the most human rights abusive countries in the world, if not the most in the world. So we can go back to the phones at 1-800-684-3121. Yeah, I was just going to say, you know, I think about the people that I just got a note from Rodney Ross, who's been with us, I think since every case we've had, but one back in 1987. But after that, who works in our D.C. office and helps us with logistics. And I'm just thinking about all of the people, the local lawyers that assisted us when we didn't have two nickels to rub together in those days.

I mean, it was in the very beginnings of all this work. So again, thank you to all those. And anybody I've left out, I want to say thank you, too.

I'm sure I have. But let's go ahead and take some more calls. Yeah, back to the phone. Let's go to Gwen in Georgia on Line 1. Hey, Gwen.

Hey, how are you doing? Great. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. I just wanted to say I'm very proud of you all and all of the L.C.L.Js. And Jay has the right to get emotional.

Well, you know, I appreciate you saying that. Look, I mean, I didn't think I was going to be I didn't think I'd see this. I mean, if you looked at the trajectory where the court had been and if you looked at the previous cases, Casey, Roe, it just did not seem like it was going to happen. I mean, there was all this hope in Casey that maybe the court would overturn Roe and instead they doubled down on it. For people to understand, that was 1992. It was the last time there was a serious challenge.

Correct. So here we are 30 years later. I mean, you know, 30 years later. But I will tell you, it was worth the wait.

This has kind of been one of our life works. And this is one that you said. But like Jordan said, we're going to find out. I don't want to dwell on it today.

We're going to find out in the next couple of months how pro-life your state legislators are, that's for sure. Yep. Let's go to Briggs in Florida online for. Hey, Briggs. Hey, guys.

Thanks for taking my call. We've been following you guys since 1992. That's great. And just appreciate so much. We got a handwritten letter from your wife, Pam, way back then. Oh, wow. Thank you for our support. That's great. It was a treasured thing for us for many years. I appreciate that.

I'll get on with the question. Now that Roe v. Wade has overturned and I mean, it's just it's wonderful we can say that. Praise God.

Yeah, yeah, I know. But now can the federal government continue to use our tax money to pay for abortions now? Well, they're not supposed to be doing that under the Hyde Amendment. They try to do away with it.

But Jordan will address this. This is where the politics come in. Yeah, that's right. I mean, we still the funding still most of the funding that under the previous Congress, they were able to take out some of the funding that went to Planned Parenthood. They have not been completely defunded. Now, they're not supposed to be able to use those dollars for abortion, but every dollar they get unleashes another dollar that they can use. So it's just it's just an accounting mechanism.

So you're correct. I think that this again, this is I will quote Nancy Pelosi, which I don't usually quote, but this is going to be on the ballot November. And right now, the makeup of Congress, they're not defunding Planned Parenthood, even with this decision. But I but they think they're betting that they're going to get more support for abortion out of this. I mean, this this will probably be and I don't say this just to say this, but this will be Planned Parenthood's one of their biggest fundraising days ever.

Don't don't again, don't take for granted. We will spend more time on that because it's still a day for us to celebrate. But they're not going to back down either. We have to we have to re up our engagement and really, again, get pro-life politicians elected, because what we see is we don't have to fund this. We just have to get the right politicians in place to stop funding it. There's no requirement to fund it. There's no constant. There is no federal constitutional argument for abortion anymore.

I mean, think about that. It's been done away with. So this battle really returns it to state courts. I just got a text from our director general, from our European Center for Law and Justice in Strasbourg, France, Gregor Popinik. He said, congratulations and thanks. Thank you to all of you. We share you share the joy with you and are ready for the next battles.

Yours, Gregor. And CC, as you said, you know, this there's an international aspect of this, too. And this case is going to have international repercussions. I really believe it does. Right.

It does. Because, again, the left tries to paint this as a radical, extreme decision, but it is not. I'll say it again. The vast majority of countries have much, much bigger restrictions on abortion than we ever did. And so now we join that vast majority in standing up for life and acknowledging the competing interest that a baby's life has. That's something we totally ignored, that the woman's right just trumped the baby's right to life. And now we no longer have that assumption. The baby's life. Justice Alito in the opinion said, you know, this whole idea of arguing the personhood doesn't begin until the child is aware of their surroundings and has cognitive, high cognitive capabilities. He said, basically, that's totally not true, that the person is a person.

But what's more significant here is it did away with these myths that the left propagates. And now we have a court decision that, like I said, historic. Let's go get another couple of calls. Yeah. Let's go to Pam in Washington State on Line 3. Hey, Pam, welcome to Sekulow. You're on the air.

Hey, Pam. Thank you for taking my call. We're just so thrilled. And we thank you guys so much for all the hard work you've done over all these years. We've been fighting against abortion for a good 30 years as well. And we support you guys in what you do.

And from 1973, that was a terrible decision. I remember that. But what you guys do, President Trump and all the people you mentioned before. And we do know God is on the throne. And these beautiful babies are, at the moment of conception, are His children. No doubt about that. And no doubt also that this – God was in control of this.

This allowed – I'm going to say it this way. Justice Alito, who I've had tremendous respect for, for almost 25 years, 30 years now, I will tell you something. This was his magnum opus. This was his moment. And what a decision.

And I think he eviscerates the dissent, who acknowledges there's not really a constitutional firm, foundational foundation for any of this. So, again, I want to just close the broadcast out by thanking all of you. Those of you that are just standing with us now, recently joined the ACLJ. Those of you that have been with us for a number of years. Those of you who have been with us from the beginning. It was great to hear from people from the beginning today.

Thank you. We could not have done it without you. This would not have happened without God, obviously. And I think about those early cases and the team that we had then. It was a small, ragtag team.

But we were able to go across the country defending freedom and liberty and standing up for the unborn. And the end result of that today, after doing this for 40 years – I've been practicing law now for 43 years. Stuart Roth and I graduated law school in 1980. He and I have been practicing together since then. Andy O'Connell was shortly after that.

Pat Monahan, shortly after that. I mean, this team has been together. A lot of us have been together for four decades. But to see these decisions come out and our cases being a part of those decisions is just overwhelming. But thank you. Your support of the ACLJ makes all this possible.

Without you, it just doesn't happen. So I want to say from all of us, thank you. And to our next generation of leadership, at least we're giving you an opinion. An opinion you could work with as you battle it state to state now.

That's right. I mean, the battle – we're ready to go, folks. And their state's already taken action today. And we're ready to go. ACLJ.org. Stay updated with us as we begin the next phase of this battle.