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June 10, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Attorneys general and district attorneys from nearly two dozen states have declared they will refuse to prosecute violations of duly-enacted laws banning abortion within their jurisdictions, siding with Supreme Court “precedent” over the will of lawmakers and voters in their states.

In a joint statement dated June 2019, a group calling itself Fair and Just Prosecution claimed to represent prosecutors who differed with one another on abortion from both moral and legal perspectives, but were nonetheless united in “our view that as prosecutors we should not and will not criminalize healthcare decisions such as these” (in fact, identifying abortion as “healthcare” is itself a pro-abortion ideological claim, not a statement of fact).

The group invoked the “immense discretion” they reserved to decide which prosecutions to bring with limited resources, and claimed that “resources are better utilized to prevent and address serious crimes that impact our community rather than enforcing laws such as these that divide our community, create untenable choices for women and healthcare providers, and erode trust in the justice system.”

The pro-abortion prosecutors claim Georgia’s heartbeat law in particular has “no explicit prohibition” against “criminalizing women and patients,” when in fact the law is an addition to Georgia’s current criminal code on unlawful abortions, which specifies that the punishable offense is not a woman seeking an abortion, but an abortionist “administer[ing] any medicine, drugs, or other substance whatever” or “us[ing] any instrument or other means whatever upon any woman with intent to produce a miscarriage or abortion.”

They also claim, without evidence or explanation, that enforcing abortion bans would “erode trust in the justice system.” Most remarkably, they claim that abortion bans “ fail to consider the needs and suffering of victims of child molestation, rape, incest, human trafficking, or domestic violence, many of whom experience long-term trauma.” In fact, pro-lifers have long noted that adult child abusers can easily use abortion to destroy the evidence that they’re raping children.

Motivated by near-total abortion bans recently enacted in states such as Georgia and Alabama, the statement was signed by attorneys general and local district attorneys from Alabama, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Columbia.

“This group doesn’t look much like a groundswell of resistance from within pro-life jurisdictions, by any stretch,” Conservative Review’s Nate Madden observes. “Of the group of 42 officials listed on the document, only three hold office in Georgia, one holds office in Alabama, and one is from Ohio. Others on the list come from states with far more permissive abortion laws, such as New York and California.”

The statement is largely symbolic for another reason, as well. None of the latest wave of abortion bans have taken effect yet, and all are likely to be blocked by the courts unless and until the U.S. Supreme Court considers them. Pro-lifers hope such a review will lead to the court finally overturning Roe v. Wade, thereby freeing the American people to decide their own abortion laws.