February 15, 2023
Hey Siri, what does a district attorney do? With a small amount of research, you’ll find that district attorneys are a “public official who acts as prosecutor for the state or the federal government in court in a particular district.” When examining their roles further, one learns that these law professionals are tasked with “recommending sentencing, initiating further investigations, and presenting cases against suspected lawbreakers.”
In a quick summary, you could simply say they’re legal professionals who make sure that the law is upheld. Most prosecutors do this job faithfully, but since the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the emphasis of abortion laws focused on the state level, we’re seeing politics rise above the rule of law for more than 80 different individuals who hold this high office.
Take Florida prosecutor Andrew Warren who reportedly pledged he “would not pursue criminal charges against seekers or providers of abortion or gender transition treatments.” As noted on Students for Life Action’s (SFLAction) previous blog, Governor DeSantis did the right thing by dismissing Warren from his role as he would not uphold the state’s 15-week abortion limit, and the case was subsequently taken to court.
However, we are now seeing more follow in Warren’s misguided footsteps and put their politics (and personal agenda) above the law. In states that have introduced or enacted life-saving laws since the Dobbs decision, some prosecutors promise to NOT bring charges against abortion crimes.
This raises the question of what district attorney wouldn’t want to prosecute the abortion lobby (who gets rich from ending preborn lives) in violation of state laws? We also question the validity of the famous talking point “safe, legal, and rare” that abortion activists peddled for years.
Now that the preborn are protected in law in certain states, suddenly these prosecutors don’t want to keep things very legal. And that’s not going to fly with principled leaders like the Republican lawmakers in Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Texas who have “introduced bills that would allow state officials to either bypass the local prosecutors or kick them out of office if their abortion-related enforcement is deemed too lenient,” according to a new report by Politico.
The article highlights the following legislative consequences in response to rogue prosecutors:
- Texas has several bills being pushed so that state attorneys general or private individuals can request the court to remove a district attorney (or prosecutor) who does not charge abortion-related violations.
- In Georgia, headway is being made on a prosecutorial oversight commission that would “discipline or remove local prosecutors who demonstrate a willful and persistent failure to perform his or her duties.”
- The South Carolina House is looking to empower state attorneys general so that they may prosecute abortion-related cases rather than district attorneys.
- In Indiana, draft legislation aims to permit a legislatively appointed special prosecutor to step in and uphold the rule of law when political prosecutors fail to do so.
One of the bill sponsors for the draft Indiana legislation, State Senator Aaron Freeman, told reporters, “Whatever issue we’re talking about — whether it’s marijuana, abortion, enforcing homicide statutes, enforcing whatever the law is — the law is on the books, and the law is supposed to be applied equally across the board among our citizens.”
SFLAction is giving major kudos to these bold leaders for demanding that elected officials who were placed to carry out the law do so without creating political headlines for themselves. We’ve also noted the importance of engaging in races to allow for more prosecutors and judges who do not wish to legislate from the bench.
As a major grassroots mobilizer, SFLAction will continue to bring awareness about these legislative solutions brought forward in key states as we monitor the rogue leaders who wish to keep abortion anything BUT safe, legal, and rare.