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The Richmond Federalist Society and the University of Richmond Law Students for Life are sponsoring a debate at noon on Title X funding, October 21, at the University of Richmond School of Law. The debate participants are William Saunders, senior vice president of legal affairs and lead counsel for Americans United for Life, and Stephanie Toti, staff attorney for the U.S. Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. Ms. Toti argued against Virginia’s partial birth abortion law in front of  the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals during that drawn out, two-year process. There’s less doubt as to Mr. Saunders’ position. The two should provide for an engaging give and take, to say the least. To RSVP, or for more information, please contact Carl Tate at t82028@aol.com.

In yesterday’s decision handed down by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding Virginia’s ban on partial-birth abortion/infanticide, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson had this to say in his concurring opinion:

Perhaps fine art, great invention, sustained prosperity, or enhanced longevity mark the quality of civilized life. Perhaps, I say, because there must be something more. How a society treats its most vulnerable members may do more than grandiosity to shape its lasting worth. A partially born child is among the weakest, most helpless beings in our midst and on that account exerts a special claim on our protection. So we can talk at length about facial challenges and as-applied challenges, and “standard D&E” procedures and “intact D&E” procedures, and “anatomical landmarks,” and “disarticulation,” and “fetal demise.” And we can deploy this terminology to disguise what is happening, in the name of our founding document no less.

The future, however, will not be similarly misled. The fact is that we — civilized people — are retreating to the haven of our Constitution to justify dismembering a partly born child and crushing its skull. Surely centuries hence, people will look back on this gruesome practice done in the name of fundamental law by a society of high achievement. And they will shudder.

One can only pray that he is right.