Defend the rights of the poor and needy

America is holding her collective breath and waiting. Will the highest court in the land judge righteously? Will the Supreme Court of the United States defend the rights of the neediest and most vulnerable people in the land?

For nearly five decades has America thus been waiting. Year after year, all eyes look to see if nine black-robed judges might utter the magic words that would protect the lives of all. Year after year another million children have been lost, their parents wounded, their families hollowed out.

But why are we waiting? Is not God’s command clear and immediate? “Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:9). The imperatives are personal and singular. Nothing in these words requires others to act. Much less do they require you to wait for permission to act.

Imagine a nation where citizens are legally forbidden to stop a public lynching. Consider a country where it is illegal to defend some ethnic or religious class. 

Would such laws be valid? Should we obey them? Would the situation be improved if such outrages were performed in a clinic dedicated to the purpose? Would the perpetrator be justified if the legal guardian first signed a form granting consent?

These are not imaginary scenarios. Looking back, we are not hampered by moral uncertainty. We judge evil harshly—and rightly so. Corrie ten Boom, Oskar Schindler and Harriet Tubman are uncontested heroes. The Nuremberg defense abjectly failed to lessen the villainy of Rudolf Hess and Herman Göring who were “only following orders.” The cold, steady eye of posterity inevitably sees through even the densest fog of the cultural wars.

With this 20/20 vision, we assure ourselves that we would have been on the right side of history had we lived in those days. But we blind ourselves to what our own posterity will judge us to be. 

And what is it, exactly, that we praise in Schindler, ten Boom, and Tubman? The word is “interposition.” They interposed themselves between innocent victims and government actors who hunted them down. They saw injustice in real time and acted to protect the innocent. 

Interposition is neither insurrection nor complicity in evil. It is the full and free use of your own resources and position to do always, and only, the right thing. Ten Boom lied to the Nazis. Tubman defied the Fugitive Slave Act. Schindler bought slaves from the Nazis in order to save them. 

In every case, interposition involves both wisdom and personal risk. It recognizes that government authority has limits. “Under God,” means that the most powerful ruler remains subject to “Nature’s God.” It also means that even the lowliest official has a divine mandate to resist evil from above. 

In early May, an anonymous actor leaked a draft opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson, written by Justice Samuel Alito. The leak triggered pro-abortion activists into obnoxious and illegal contortions designed to keep the draft from becoming the official opinion of the Court. Will the five signatories hold the line, or won’t they? We will soon find out.

But Alito’s draft is far more than just one possible opinion. It changed the game by exposing both Roe and Casey for what they are. They are not constitutional, statutory, judicially sound, or moral. Even if the assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh, or the illegal protests at Justice Barrett’s home, or the current blockade of the Supreme Court were to succeed in cowing the Court and suppressing this opinion, Alito’s words cannot become unsaid.

Roe and Casey have forever lost the fig leaf of judicial legitimacy. They were nothing but naked power grabs from the start. Through this leaked draft, the world has been given the rare opportunity to know the judgment of posterity in real time. What will our children and grandchildren say about us? Read Alito’s opinion and you know. 

Nevertheless, the draft stops short of justice. It declines to protect every human life as legitimate governments are duty-bound to do. Rather, it merely takes the federal judiciary out of the game. 

One illegitimate claim to power has been deflated. But justice will still require wisdom and courage on the part of every office holder. If SCOTUS’ ultimate opinion follows Alito’s draft, the battleline will shift from the judicial branch to the legislative—where it properly belongs. But the duty of interposition will not have changed in the slightest. 

The unborn will still need governors to protect them from federal injustice. State legislators will still need to craft laws that defend the innocent from congressional overreach. County commissions, city councils, fathers, mothers and grandparents can no longer wait for nine black-robed judges to do the right thing. Each one, every day, without exception must be both wise and bold to do always, and only, the right thing. “Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.”