The Reshaping of the Supreme Court

For young Americans interested in social issues, this in perhaps the defining moment of our lives. Everyone knows the effects of Roe v. Wade; we live with them like we do a disease inside us, its poison simultaneously killing us and rendering us helpless in its wake. Over thirty years passed, and millions upon millions of babies killed. The statistics, as statistics always do, leave us unmoved, after awhile. Who really can picture 40 million babies dead? And when you've pictured it a thousand times, and nothing's changed, you start to go a little numb.

But now we're waking up again. President Bush has the opportunity to make a decision that will win him love and honor in the hearts of social conservatives from now until the time he--and we--pass away. He has the chance, it seems (pending Rehnquist's retirement), to reverse the generational curse. It strikes me that he may not even know how significant the decision is to name O'Connor's successor, and yet I hope he does. One almost feels compelled to plead with the air--as one does when watching the hometown team fight back--for the President to appoint a decidedly pro-life justice. Oh, we say to ourselves, anything, anything for the lives of the innocents.

And yet one need not plead with the air. We may plead with our great God, and know He hears us. He weeps with us over the small crosses that dot our country; now, we pray that He works mercy in our country, and arranges our judicial bench so as to save infants. May grace have its triumphant work in this country once more.