First!

Now I'll go read it. Tootles.

1

Here in Kansas, it is illegal to shoot rabbits from a motorboat. In Texas, it is illegal to milk another person's cow.

I think a case can be argued that milking another person's rabbit from a motorboat should also be illegal.

apotheosis,
Only when passing state lines.

Been lurkin on your blog for a while. Love it, thought I'd post something.

R v. W never did sit right with me. I thought that the court exceeded it's authority and "created" a right to abortion. In my opinion, abortion is a medical decision (primarily) and should not be legislated either by the states or the feds. If the Feds want to regulate the doctors and require special training or whatnot....fine. But deciding that abortion is either legal or not is like deciding wether liposuction is legal. Both are (I think) entirely elective surgeries. I have never heard of someone "needing" to have lipo to live. Regulate the doctors, make sure they have training and that the procedure is medically safe for the patient and then BUTT OUT. Medical decisions are to be made by the Doctors and their patients.

There are further moral issues but you don't want any of that. BTW I am 30 and was adopted a year after birth. I am in the "Easily could have been aborted" generation also. I don't like abortion, and would like to see it go away. From a completely non-moral approach I see it as a waste of Taxpayer dollars. If you don't want a kid, Birth Control pills cost $20-35/month (according to my wifes bills). Condoms cost a buck apiece or less (I think, have a wife, been a while since I bought some) and abstinance is free.

Doh...here is my thing and I can go on and on about this. The whole idea that there is a choice is a farce. I think for most women they have no choice. They are looking at raising a child out of wedlock, a man who wants nothing to do with the baby, or that they could never trust to even tell about a baby, making minimum wage, welfare...to me the courageous women are the ones who decide to go through that. Most Men should be ashamed of themselves for allowing the idea that there is a choice at all. The foundation of this is not a womans right. It is men who don't have the sack to become a man and stup up and take responsibility. FURTHER. Why don't we have information about the risks involved in the abortion proceedure, why don't we have demographic info, info about the effects after the fact? This proceedure is common and we have no info why? Further and finally. In the Kerry/Bush debate when Kerry was asked about stem cell research...he turned it around to make it a issue about a girl being raped by her father issue. Why is the law trying to just give abortions to sexually abused girls on the hush and send them back to daddy? WHATin the SAM HELL??? If a teen is pregnant from abuse or afraid of abuse because of abuse the police should be sent to her house. I thought our president answered well that night when he said. We should support programs that reduce the amount of abortions...I would like to add that we should educate the public about all aspects of abortions.--thanks

I think that the determination of viability (which was arbitrarily simplified into trimesters at the time of the decision) was based on a pretty intelligent legal distinction: determining when the life that's dependent on the host reaches a point where it's rights eclipse the host's rights over her own body.

Morally, it's a total punt.

The distinction of viability is clever because the pro-choice argument that a pregnancy is more-or-less a dependent extension of the mother's body, and thus under her legal discretion, loses power once the life reaches a point where it can survive outside the womb as an independent being.

What's dumb is the fact that it's not like it changes the fact that the mother still has to carry to term; the child is still effectively dependent on the mother, though it could survive if removed from the womb prematurely.

Of course, this doesn't really satisfy many people, but that's the legal issue - which rights are subordinate, when.

I don't think that it's a bad compromise, and the way the decision (and subsequent decisons and laws that redefine viabilty according to medical advances) are structured pretty much reflect the majority attitudes about abortion (70% pro-choice in the first trimester), 90% against late-term abortions.

Bill,
I'd like to see that polling. Usually, I hear of just a general for or against abortion, and the latest as the majority at pro-life.

But what does polls have to do with a Supreme Court decision? The question is not so much as whether the law pulled out of Blackmun's ass is good or not, it's whether it was pulled out of his ass.

Sorry, 70- 75% are against last trimester, though I think those numbers are on the rise:

http://www.publicagenda.org/issues/angles.cfm?issue_type=abortion

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/abortion_poll030122.html

And the last part of my comment wasn't addressing the legal argument, sorry, just pointing out that it matched up with popular sentiment.

From a legal standpoint, while components of the decision are arbitrary (but what laws aren't?), it did approach the question from a proper legal perspective of individual rights.

The court had to address the question in a novel way, because not everyone agrees about when a life constitutes a sentient being that's worthy of full protection under the law. And independent viability is a pretty novel way to look at it, if a court is forced to look at the scenario from a legal perspective, and you've got to draw a line somewhere.

Of course, there's the whole other argument that says that a court shouldn't be looking at an issue like this at all. Skipping that, I think the court made a reasonable distinction.

Excellent Topic!

I've got some introductory remarks at a post (The Supreme Court Decision Roe v. Wade: Critiqued) and I'll be adding some more later to that same post. Running off to lunch now

I don't know why there is all the fuss over Roe v. Wade and the threat by the right to overrule it. It isn't the law when it comes to abortion. The law is expressed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).

I am intrigued by gibsonriz's response. That is one of the first arguements that I can respect considering this issue. As I man I have never felt that this was my issue. I have always been responsible and used precautions. I have been married for 21 years and have not entertained the thought of breaking up my marriage and beside my love for my wife, my children have had a lot to do with that priority when times have been hard. How about a compromise? Abortion would be illegal, but everyman would be required to marry any woman that he got pregnant,divorce would be illegal while children were living at home until they are 18 and in the case of out of wedlock affairs the male would go to jail until the child was 18 and the government would care for the welfare of the family. Then maybe I could get around if legislating male responsibility were the answer.

Yea! I was a baby of '81 and I survived the threat of abortion to! More power to the women who have been down that path of an unexpected pregnancy and had the chance to receive an unplanned joy as Feminists For Life say. Check them out:

Legally, I NEVER ever understood the idea that a woman's right to choose to abort a fetus was constitutional. It NEVER made sense to me. I was pro-choice when I was in sixth grade and even wrote an essay for class on it...somewhere along the line I changed my mind.

I was on Malkin's site and went to one of the links and couldn't stop crying...it had nothing to do with legal/illegal...it had to do with tiny fingers, toes, eyes, ears...ripped to shreds, burned from saline solution, some the size of a dime and others the size of a football. It was horrible!!!!!!!

What about those babies' rights? Isn't every life equal under our Constitution? Protecting the innocent...isn't that what our laws are all about?

If a fetus is just an extension of the mother's body...why don't we allow people to go have an arm lopped off...I don't think a doctor would be allowed to do this for no reason whatsoever...even if the woman requested it as her "choice".

I sympathize with the difficult decision some women have to make, but in the large majority of cases it is due to the consequence of their own behavior (not always, I know) and isn't the law supposed to make people more responsible and accountable.

Okay...perhaps not the most legal of arguments, but still not necessarily on the 'morality' of the issue either. There's no religious argument to me...it's about those toes, fingers, and eyes that broke my heart. If you can handle it, go to Michelle's site and click on those links. They are more powerful to me than any legal argument.

Oh yeah...and I'm a '78 baby who survived the abortion era (but is that era really over yet?)

BTW, didn't R v W ignore the 10th ammendment to the constitution?

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

If the Constitution does not Expressly say "There is a Federal right by all women to have an abortion if they so choose" doesn't ammendment 10 say that the laws regarding that particular subject "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."?

Doesn't the court overstep it's bounds by denying to the states or to the people the right to regulate the abortion question at the State/Personal level?

Of course this interpretation can be used on any number of other topics as well.

Well, I for one support Roe v. Wade. Not because I like the whole aborting fetuses thing, but because I like eating babies. If you abort them too early, there's just not as much to go around. They don't start putting on weight til close to the end anyways.

Well, I for one appreciate the impetus to actually go and read this thing. I've been arguing about abortion for years, yet I've never actually taken the time to read up on the subject.

The thing I actually found the most interesting was the fact that the decision leaves the scope of legal abortions much narrower than many commentators seem to assume. The decision, in fact, only legalizes abortion until "approximately the end of the first trimester," and mentions this fact several times. This leads one to wonder why, when *any* steps are taken by the government to regulate abortion, the predictable screaming about "overturning Roe v. Wade" is heard. As far as I can tell, all such recent attempts have been completely consistent with this decision.

As far as the actual reasoning goes, I have to agree that it kind of stinks. I actually agree, more or less, with the conclusions of the court, but in the absence of any actual case law, I agree that Blankmun seems to have pulled a great deal of this directly from his posterioral nether regions. In particular, I'm wondering what purpose is served for American law by pointing out that laws regarding abortions might have been less restrictive than the operative one from Texas, in the past. Well, great. Who cares?

I think the best part of the argument is the appeal to the right of privacy. I believe (as I think Justice Blankmun does) that the right to privacy does live in the 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th, and 14th amendments, despite it's lack of explicit mention in the constitution. Of course, the issue of whether abortion (or abortion only in the first trimester) is covered by the right to privacy is an issue on which we could probably argue 'till we're blue in the face.

In short, I think that this decision is basically a kludge. I think that Justice Blankmun had a really crappy fount of existing law to work from, and that can explain the fact that the decision isn't as, ah... rigorous as some others I've seen.

Roe v. Wade was issued when I was taking constitutional law in law school. The professor discussed it in class. The statement that most sticks with me is, "The Supreme Court took it upon itself to write an abortion statute here, and, in my opinion, they wrote a pretty good one, but what they did isn't constitutional law."

Life is quite precious to me, it is a struggle to keep and preserve it. I think that this amazing country should legally preserve all life - a tough statement, as some people are sitting right now waiting to die. In nursing homes and hospitals (how far away is euthanasia?), in abortion clinics, and on death row. Tough call, all around. All I know is that I like babies, and thank the Lord daily that I get to live in a place that allows me to have them.

Can I still abort monkeys?

I wouldn't say he just pulled the opinion out of his ass, just part of it. Unfortunately it is a poorly reasoned, written and overly broad opinion. But not entirely incorrect.

At the core is an issue the constitution addresses only obliquely, but which was the very foundation of our government; the right of self-determination. (Unfortunately, this has been turned into a right of privacy, which is misleading.)

The 4th and 14th ammendment imply this and the 14th ammendment is at the hard of Roe v. Wade. The question is can the state by caveat force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term in ALL circumstances? The 14th ammendment clearly says "no."; that a state cannot deprive a person of life, liberty or property with due process.
(The 10th ammendment also implies this, but is so vague that nobody wants to touch it with a ten foot pole less it actually come to mean what it says.)

Thus, the constition does clearly state that abortions cannot be completely banned. At the very least, an exception was clearly permissible if the life or health of a mother was threatened in the opinion of a competent physician. This was the original issue raised by Roe's physician; it was unclear where the line was drawn. Does the woman have to be on the verge of death? What if her health was so impared it resulted in depriving her of liberty and property?

There was an addition issue that, unfortunately, was quite muddled. Namely, before the first trimest, a fetus is entirely dependent on the Mother for survival. Around the twelfth week, the fetus becomes autonomous save for receiving nutrients via the umbilical court and the protection the womb provides. (An unviable fetus will often spontaneously abort at this point, though some may happen later--about 50% of all pregnancies spontaneously abort, though many happen so early, it often appears to the woman to simply be a heavy period.) This raises the question as to the right of life and liberty to the unborn. It is hear that Blackmun totaly blew it--he meanders through a confusing, pointless and poortly written discussion of viability.

Still, in the end, he opted for the first trimester argument and stated that the State may "regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health." (Where I get confused is legal scholars claim this distinction doesn't exist in Roe v Wade, yet there it is!)

Unlike many conservatives, I believe the court was obligated to hear this case and render judgement for it went to the heart of the 14th ammendment. I also think the summary outlined in section XI is correct. While Blackmun's reasoning and writing is shallow, I think it's fundamentally correct. I also think the real "pulling out of the ass" has been done by subsquent courts who have ignored section XI.

While I believe there is a defacto right to an abortion before eight weeks of pregnancy, after than point, I oppose it for ALL reasons except when a mother's life is directly threatened (after 24 weeks, I oppose all abortions, no exceptions.)

Morally, however, I have a real problem with a society so cavalier about abortion, especially when so many alternate forms of birth control are available. I also think the courts have been completely, and dangerously, wrong with it's idiocy concerning parental notification--you want law pulled out of asses, there you go.

I think it's bad case law and a violation of the 10th amendment. The argument should have been left to the states to decide, as it was before Roe v Wade. Some states had already legalized abortion, just as if Roe V Wade was overturned, abortion would still be legal in those places that decided to allow it.

Re: The 10th ammendment.

The purpose of the 10th ammendment was to limit the power of government. It recognizes that rights do not flow from the government, but rather exists already. A right does not have to be explicitly mentioned in the constitution to exist.

However, the 14th ammendment clarified that an individual's rights end when they deprive a person of life, liberty or property without due process. The State provides the mechanism of due process.

Thanks Patrick. I don't know if forcing laws onto men to take responsibility would be the answer. It seems to me to be a state of the heart issue. MEGS...I liked your post.
I wrote a song about it in 2000 and posted it in my newly formed myspace account...I was sure to link to IMAO in my first blog
www.myspace.com/NurturedInPurple

dang sorry the link is broke...copy paste

There is no 10th Amendment anymore. Once the Supreme Court starts finding new Constitutional rights in the emanations of the penumbras in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th Amendments (see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 1965), then all of a sudden, anything the Supreme Court wants to regulate federally becomes either a "due process" or an "equal protection" issue--then suddenly the federal government is empowered to supercede the states thanks to 5th and 14th Amendments. There is literally nothing that can't be made federal if the whims of a plurality of 9 unelected and unaccountable judges deem it so.

THAT is the biggest problem with the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade, not the threat of its repeal. So what if we repeal it? If a new Supreme Court decision suddenly *gasp* throws out Roe, then, guess what? It goes back to the 10th Amendment and is reserved to the states! What does that actually mean? It means state laws, which everywhere except the Deep South protect abortion, are controlling. So unless you decide to live in someplace like Alabama, your "right to choose" (or as I call it, your "right to murder the unborn") remains intact.

Here here! well put old man!

neeeed funny. -gasp ok i done posted on this topic enuf

I take issue with the concept that every woman in an unplanned pregnancy or considering abortion is the victim of a man that did not take responsibility or step up to the plate or whatever. It is men that have NO rights in this discussion. I have known men that begged their girlfriends not to abort their child, to no avail. the woman did not want to put her body through pregnancy yet or whatever. Yes, men can take responsibility by using birth control and or marrying the mothers. But what happened to empowering women to care for themselves. There are plenty of birth control methods that the woman can follow to protect from these accidents, even if the man she is screwing will not. And, you can always keep your knees together.

No, it is the fathers who are totally ignored in this issue. No say in the matter whatsoever. This is wrong. I realize that this was not a legal critique of the RvW ruling, nor was it moralizing on the right or wrong of it all.

This country was founded on the principle that we are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights by our Creator. The first one mentioned is life.

The constitution was rejected until these God given rights were spelled out. Among these is that no one should be denied life without due process.

Sorry, I didn't read the court decision. But when discussing this topic with a pro-lifer I look for common ground. It is usually found in the 3 notions safe, legal and rare. Rare is where they find out how much of a conscience they have.

As to the legality of RvW I cannot argue whether it is founded on correct constitutional assumption or not. I do think they were trying to establish an important fundamental precedent on what type of issue the government should be involved in.

Look, it is perfectly okay for a society as a whole to feel a certain way about an issue without passing laws to control it. I am against abortion. I am also against giving the government control of that type of issue. As a society, i would love to see us progress to a point that abortion is not even an issue anymore, a point where it has been esentially eliminated from our culture, without ever banning it through law.

ANd there are ways to achieve this. It is our right to constantly be working to reduce and eventually all but eradicate abortion without giving up this right to decision making about our own bodies to the government. This, I believe, is what RvW was trying to do. Establish that the government wasn't going to be the big fix. SOciety was going to have to address it themselves. As it should be.

The can of worms that is opened by the government passing law on these issues is frightening, and the hypothetical snowball effect of such law would eventually become reality.

We have to look at who has abortions and why. Then we, the society, can create programs to address each of those cases. Science fiction had a great concept in a story I do not recall that put birth control drugs in the drinking water. Then, if you wanted to get pregnant what you had to go out and buy was the Pregnancy Pill. The downside in that story was that the government controlled who got the pill, or the right to have children, which is wrong. But such a scenario does establish that the only women that get pregnant were definately only ones that wanted to. No accidents, no incest or rape pregnancies. Every child conceived by parents that specifically set out to make it happen. Now, drugging the water is not something I would support either, sci-fi is sci-fi, but the concept is intriguing. If everyone that is against abortion put all their money and effort and brainpower into social initiatives to reduce abortion rather than to fighting the pro-choicers and trying to get it banned by the government, you might accomplish something. Without anyone giving more rights to the government.

To anyone that did not skip this post because it is soooo long, thank you.

The rant is over!

Bill,
Gotta argue with the viability issue. The non-viability of a child extends far beyond birth. That child is dependent on its mother (or at the very least on someone) for several more years. If viability is the basis for determining rights, it could in theory still be protectable to kill a two year old. Granted that's out there, but no more so that arbitrarily drawing lines down trimesters as to when the fetus becomes a child, etc.

And gibsonrlz, I'll take issue with one thing you say in particular, because it is spot on wrong. You say it is not a choice for "most women." BS. For VERY FEW women percentage-wise is it not a choice (and I'm talking about rape here.) For the rest (the vast majority), it is a choice. Welfare, poverty, no husband are NOT valid reasons to terminate a baby's life. That's called selfishness. Time for them to GROW UP. They made their choice when they decided to have sex (again, I'm talking about that vast majority of abortion-seeking mothers who were NOT raped.) Time for them to grow up and take responsibility for their decisions - not use their situation (which they got into themselves) as an excuse. As Alen said, "abstinance is free."

So sorry Frank, perhaps I crossed that line you set in the sand regarding this thread. But it needed to be said.

As a resident of the state where this whole kerfuffle started (Texas), I have to say that I pretty much agree with the Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, although I do have a quibble with the route by which the Court got there; i.e., via the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Fourteenth Amendment served to reaffirm the rights of citizens of the United States, as well as to incorporate new citizens under the perview of that concept of citizenship -- specifically, those former slaves who had been freed as a result of the Civil War and subsequently recognized as citizens by the Thirteenth Amendment. (I tend to interpret Constitutional-Amendment arguments with an awareness of the historical context in which the Amendments were adopted.) Basing a right to privacy on the Fourteenth Amendment was sloppy, pure and simple, when other Amendments (the Fourth and the Ninth in particular) would seem to me to be more apposite. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time the Court made the right decision for the wrong reason. (Bush v. Gore comes to mind in this respect.)

The complaint about references to "trimesters" that I've read here basically doesn't hold water, in my view. It was clear to me on reading the opinion that, in the context of the Court's reasoning, the term 'trimester' referred to identifiable points of demarcation in fetal development: the first trimester being the period from conception to "animation", as the Court puts it; the second trimester being the period from the onset of "animation" to "viability", when the fetus can conceivably survive outside the womb; and the third trimester being the period from "viability" to actual birth. Nowhere in the opinion is there any indication that the Court had anything more rigid in mind. Indeed, the Court even acknowledged that the duration of these "trimesters" could, and did, vary quite widely from one pregnancy to another. In this context, the references to "trimesters" was entirely appropriate.

What really concerns me in all of this is the degree to which the reasoning and conclusions of Roe v. Wade have been twisted, warped, perverted and, when necessary, even completely ignored by abortion activists. I have the distinct impression, after reading the decision in its entirety, that those people who are so diligently pursuing an unassailable right to unrestricted abortion have never taken the time actually to read the decision on which their entire dogma is allegedly based.

The bottom line is that I think the Court made the right decision. That said, I will state that I have a problem with abortion per se; just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

All I'm going to say about this issue, I've said before:

If the pregnancy is wanted, it's a child.
If the pregnancy is unwanted, it's a fetus.

When does life begin? When do laws cover life? When someone decides whether or not they want that life to happen.

I'd just like to give my two cents as a woman who has experienced an "unwanted pregnancy". I became pregnant at 18. My baby girl was adopted by a loving couple with another adopted child. Her father and I are still together. We made the decision together.

The whole issue is responsibility. Not just a man's responsibility. It's the responsibility of the woman to look out for herself. (I'm going to discount cases of abuse here...I don't have the stats, but I'm guessing that's merely a tiny fraction of all unplanned pregnancies). If you're going to have sex, use protection. If you're using protection, understand that nothing save abstinence is 100% effective. I personally know 2 girls that became pregnant on birth control pills and one that became pregnant with condom use. If you become pregnant it is your responsibility to protect this child. I will not go into a 'when does life begin?' argument. Suffice it to say I believe life is there at the moment of conception, and being that the developing child has different genetic makeup from the mother it is not merely an extension of her body. Any woman who has carried a child will tell you this. I would never kick myself in the bladder, but trust me, a baby will. If, like myself, the woman does not have the means to raise her child and wants a better life for him/her, it is her responsibility as a parent to make that happen through adoption. The moment a person has sex the potential for pregnancy is there. Believe it or not, sex is not just recreation, it is designed for procreation. Any woman who has an abortion is just being irresponsible.

I know this is completely ignoring the question (sorry Frank)...but there is absolutely no rational reason for abortion. People just like to evade responsibility for their actions.

Yay! I wasn't aborted!
The qucks recommended it. They said I might have brain damage (maybe I do, I do tend to do wierd stuff) but anyways, my parents, not being evil, said "no way" or something of that sort. So here I am.

R v. W is the progency of the sophistry of liberal idealism and judicial cynicism. It demonstrates a fundamental and cynical mistrust and abdication of democracy and constitutionalism, which is a philosophy of government that recognizes that a physical, written document provides boundaries and most importantly, ACCOUNTABILITY, for the exercise of power.

R v. W is ultimately premised on the notion that the Constitution is a living document whose meaning changes independent of any democratic activity or amendments passed in accordance with the language of the document itself. The holy annointed who have the ability to "read" the People's dominant social realignments and recast Constitutional meaning in the image of the new and allegedly "true" society, are the unelected justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Granted, constitutional interpretation is often necessarily complicated and unclear. The U.S. Constitution includes many subjective standards, e.g., no "unreasonable" searches or seizures, or "cruel and unusual" punishment. Yet, such is not the case with the issue of abortion.

It is transparent that Blackmun and a majority of the court believed that it was simply tyrannical that the government should prohibit a pregnant woman from terminating her pregnancy. And in an earlier case, they clearly found it tyrannical that the government should prohibit a doctor from informing his patients about contraception. In a recent case, the court found it tyrannical to prohibit sodomy. But, while such laws may be dumb or unwise, such laws represent the democratic will of the people and are not expressly trumped by any contrary constitutional provisions.

To get around the barriers to "enlightenment" posed by democracy and constitutionalism, the Supreme Court declared the Constitution a living, breathing document.
The conclusion that there is a "fundamental" right to abortions is based on a presumption that there is a "fundamental" right to privacy, stacked on a presumption that the constitution prohibits infringement of unenumerated "fundamental" rights.

This understanding of the Constitution renders irrelevant and redundant the Bill of Rights' ACTUAL prohibitions on, for example, inhibition of free speech, unreasonable searches and seizures, inhibition of free exercise of religion, and cruel and unusual punishment. All of these other "fundamental" rights would presumably STILL be protected under the R v. W constitution, even if the language creating those rights were excised from the Bill of Rights. This is clearly not consistent with constitutionalism. The idea that the document is LIVING and automatically CHANGES is sophistry that removes the very core of constitutional accountability and grants judges vast undemocratic power.

Little by little power has accreted to the judicial branch, such that today, one of the most contentious political issues surrounds the appointment of Supreme Court justices. Liberals cry of the danger posed by conservative justices, but this problem is one of their own making. They politicized the Court by pursuing social change and "civil rights" through the courts, rather than through legitimate democratic avenues. The Supreme Court is also to blame for permitting this accretion of power to happen. I believe it resulted due to the hubris and sanctimoniousness of the Court following its role in ending segregation. Brown v. Board was big and had pretty solid footing in the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection clause. But it led the court to believe it was to be a force for "good." And following their liberally enlightened values, they stepped to the fore to "save" the country from itself. For Congress or the President to act to derail the Court would have been vastly unpopular, given the Court's hero status with the left.

Now it is largely accepted that the Court is political. And at this point, I think, there's nothing that can be done to undo the damage to the Court and American government caused by R v. W and other civil rights caselaw.

The Supreme Court's renouncement of R v. W would be an aggressive move to recapture the proper role of the Courts in American government, but that action itself would be overwhelmingly and cynically viewed as a political act. Therefore, it is unlikely that the Court can ever again be de-politicized to pre-Civil Rights era levels. R v. W. f'd it up good.

I wonder what Blackmum is thinking now? Maybe: "Gee, it sure is hot here."

My thoughts: Abortion should be left up to the states.

I believe that abortion should be discouraged through the endorsement of programs that provide alternatives to abortion, without making girls into baby-mills(such as extra welfare per child). However, it should still be allowed.

Abortion 1st/2nd month: mistakes happen, birth control fails, rape, incest, mother too young for the pregnancy to be healthy(also comes under statutory rape), medical condition that contradicts pregnancy and birth.

Abortion 2nd trimester: Well, I'm a bit of a darwinist, so I would allow abortions in the case of retardation/handicap.

Third trimester: Health of the Mother, and only in cases where they can't just do a C-section. Extreme preemies suffer many problems, though I do wonder how much of this would still occur if you simply subracted a year from their age for the purpose of determining when they go to school and stuff.

Thanks for the link Frank. I also, had never read the actual document. Not being a lawyerly type (all that legalese has given me a headache!) I can't really say much about that. I did find it interesting however, that they cited all the way back to Roman times, and that abortion, although illegal, was more accepted in the 1800's than in the mid-1900's.

With all of the medical advances and technology of today, the viability issue is constantly changing. Father's rights and responsibilities are not addressed as they should be (IMO why there's so many deadbeat dads today). There used to be a stigma of being an unwed mother. If only there were an equal stigma today of being a deadbeat dad!!! (Especially when friend of the court does not enforce as they should!)

With all of the options for preventing pregnancy available, abortion should be extremely RARE! Education, education, education. The PBS show "Miracle of Life" should be required viewing by 8th grade. Most ignorant girls think, "it won't happen to me" might change their minds if they knew that 7-10 MILLION little swimmers get a chance every time! Them odds ain't so good!

Thanks again for the link.

Also, whoever can defend partial birth abortion ought to have THEIR brains sucked out of their head!

Roe v. Wade (Henry Wade, Dallas County DA when I grew up there) might be the second worst SCOTUS opinion ever delivered.

I think Dred Scott was worse.

This is such a difficult area. I was pro-choice when I was younger, and have grown increasingly conservative as I got older. I think the court erred in its attempt to legislate from the bench and that RvW is just plain bad law; however, I am not sure what would be better.

I do think that the fanatic opponents of things like counseling and waiting periods are right to be scared, because those things would, I believe, dramatically reduce the number of abortions among women who fall into the "have a choice" category as defined above. And I am not, unlike Blackmun, just pulling that from my a**.

20 years ago I was in college, waiting tables and scraping by, and had an abortion because my boyfriend at that time wanted me to. No one counseled me about options and alternatives, or ever showed me exactly what I was "aborting". Even so, I tried to climb off the table during the procedure when I had second thoughts, and the nurses held me down until it was done.

10 years ago I had my first baby, and when I saw the ultrasound of him in the womb my joy was mixed with horror as I realized the baby I had aborted 10 years before was not much younger than the living, breathing being with the beating heart I saw on the screen.

I guarantee that if I had been shown a picture of what that baby looked like, or been offered counseling and a waiting period, I would never have aborted it (him? her?). And looking back now, I know that what I saw as an impossible situation was just...life. I would have found a way to raise that baby as so many women have. The culture of absolute right to abortion on demand just made it so easy and painless and guiltless that I took the easy path.

Except it really isn't the easy path. That is the lie in all of this. The guilt & pain just increase with age and wisdom, as we grow to understand and appreciate life.

However we choose to legislate this issue, denying young women the full truth about what they are doing to their baby and themselves is truly criminal.

I'm sorry, but their is no right to have an abortion described in the constitution. Nor is their a right to privacy described in the consitution. For crying out loud the 14th Ammendment was about protecting POLITICAL RIGHTS!!! Do you actually think that in the 19th century when the Radical Republicans were passing voting rights for former slaves it is conceivable in any way they intended that cover termination of a pregnacy of women (who hadn't even been given the right to VOTE YET!!!)?! Come on! This is a legal discussion after all, not some living document silliness!

And don't give me this "Bill of Rights" garbage. With all due respect, of course. The idea that the FOUNDING FATHERS(!!!), among their idea of important rights for citizens, abortions would have been included is ludicrious and absurd.

Jim puts it nicely. It would be so much better if they just declaired: "We want abortion to be legal, even though there is no precedent for it, and the majority of the public would never approve of it. We simply want to create a new law." I could at least respect their honesty. Even if I were Pro-choice, I hope I could disagree with their claim of historical/constituitional precedence.

I think it is the same reasoning behind lots of modern re-writing history (or the Constitution). The 2nd Amendment was provided to give the masses power against authoritative tyranny, not merely for self-defense and hunting. The 10th Amendment was to place the majority of the governing role on the individual states, until two groups of states disagreed over their authority and a war ensued. Even income tax was originally prohibited under the constitution.

I think the written constitution and separation of powers are preserved as ideas for our civics textbooks to create the illusion that our government is not arbitrarily administered and guided primarily by its own self-interests and self-perpetuation.

I wrote about this already on my blog...giving my reasons why Roe was such a bad decision. In a nutshell, the word "privacy" does not appear in the Constitution, and the first time a right to privacy was "discovered" was in a contraception case in 1965. The court then expanded this "penumbra" to include a right to an abortion. Roe is the worst decision since Dredd Scott, and even more poorly reasoned.

The Maternal Lien: A Real World Solution to the Abortion Controversy

Regarding Baby Roe…I just emailed McCorvey’s ministry to ask if that’s public knowledge. If they respond, I’ll fw the info. Saline procedures are still performed, but not as commonly as in the 70s and 80s. I believe they’re only performed after 16 wks. Currently, the most common abortion procedure (early on) is dilation and aspiration curettage, which you may read as “removing all of the pregnancy tissue by gentle suction” or “the force of the vacuum pulls the placenta and fetus parts through the suction tube into a collection bottle,” depending on where you get your info.

I read the court decision last year and could see it was baseless. There were around 2 dozen states w/ anti-abortion laws already on the books at the time. What was the legal precedent to override the states’ decisions? I wasn't going to post a comment here until I read Momof2couldabeen3's post. So to her I say: I'm so sorry you didn't get the support you needed 20 years ago. You (and many friends and family members like you) are the reason I can't stay away from my local crisis pregnancy center. I hope you find the healing you need.

I have to ask whether abortion is the best we can do for ourselves? The majority of the women who fill out the intake forms at our center state in writing that they are against abortion. Many go so far as to call it murder (I'd agree). Yet, when they walk through our doors, they often see no other way through their perceived crisis. Where's the choice in that? "Empowering" women to act against their own conscience? Essentially telling them a 9 month commitment is an obstacle they can’t overcome that would somehow bring about the end of their world? Women facing a crisis pregnancy need honesty, emotional support, supplies, education, and hope. What they don’t need is empty rhetoric from the politically ambitious or from those who’ve never truly examined the issue.

The main reason I hate abortion is that I detest lies. Roe v. Wade, Casey, the whole Pro-Choice machine, are founded upon lies. As Frank’s link details, Bernard Nathanson (co-founder of NARAL and now a pro-life advocate) is outspoken about the lies on which he formed NARAL. If Roe really protects women then why is McCorvey still trying to have her case overturned? http://www.roenomore.org/crossing_over/welcome.html. Same goes for Sandra Cano (Doe v. Bolton). http://www.txjf.org/cano.html. It incenses me that NARAL and Planned Parenthood employ the rhetoric of "choice" and "empowering women" when they consistently deride crisis pregnancies centers- one of the few places a woman can attain support and practical resources if she CHOSES to give life to her child.

On the viability issue... I just don't buy it. If we allegedly become human and worthy of life when we prove ourselves viable, then we’d better sound the alarm for all our grandpas w/ pacemakers, cousins who are dependent on dialysis, etc. If the fetus becomes human at some point during gestation, then what exactly is it the day prior to that transformation? At the point of conception it's stamped w/ a unique genetic code; within 3 weeks it has a heartbeat; at 9 wks it has detectable fingerprints. It's human, and lack of viability is not an excuse to remove protection. It's the REASON TO ADMINISTER protection.

Abortion 2nd trimester: Well, I'm a bit of a darwinist, so I would allow abortions in the case of retardation/handicap.

By that reasoning, you must also not have any objections to "euthanizing" post-birth retards, right? I think YOU are a tard.

what I always find incredibly interesting is the dicotomy ... those who fight the hardest to protect the practice of removing life before birth .... are the same people that srceam about the horror of capital punishment.

Interesting.

RvW was the second instance of the court moving from it's counterbalance of the other 2 arms of the law ... and usurping all the power unto itself.

Beo, you are an ass for dropping debate and going personal. You are part of the problem.

Here is a true life scenario;

I have friends, a married couple. They had a little girl, and then their second pregnancy, a little boy, had problems. I am no doctor but the circumstances were that the child was born with numerous defects. No eyes or ears. Missing numerous organs, and some of those that did develop were not in the abdominal cavity where they belong and/or defective beyond functioning. The problems were totally inoperable. Outside of the womb, he was incapable of sustaining life and died a short while later.

They had the circumstances studied and it was determined to be caused by genetic defects, not just random developmental malfunction. Specifically because he was male. The couple's chromosomes could combine up to make perfectly healthy girls, but any male child they conceived would always have these same genetic defects. Everytime.

Since then they had two more girls, amazingly almost identical, like triplets born years apart. Luckily they did not conceive anymore male babies, but if they had, they would have had an abortion. And justifiably so. No rape, incest or risk to the mother. Just no legitimate reason to go throught he emotional pain of carrying the child for nine months just to watch him die, alone, on a table.

These people are good parents and good christians. The nicest people you would ever meet, and caring and generous beyond words.

But you would pass laws that imprisoned them for not subjecting themselves to such emotional pain.

This is why the government should not be involved. Because it doesn't matter why MOST abortions take place, there are always other circumstances.

Almost everyone would like to see the majority of abortions turn instead into adoptions for couples like my wife and I who cannot have our own. But quit taking the freaking lazy way out of supporting sweeping laws they may not effect you so should be imposed on everybody, quit trying to give the government powers they do not deserve to have and quit judging less you yourself be judged.

So I think it is you who are the 'tard' as you put it, and everyone else who is so demented as to think that this is purely black and white issue.

My apologies Frank, but it gets on my nerves when grown ups lack the simple ability to discuss an issue without throwing insults around.

Chris

Monica - Good post.

"... the developing child has different genetic makeup from the mother it is not merely an extension of her body. Any woman who has carried a child will tell you this."

I've never thought of it in those terms.

Life IS precious.

Chris:

I also had a 'tard' instinct toward you when I read your comments of leaning toward Darwin. After reading your second post I understand what you meant, but the way you wrote it the first time made it sound like any child with any type of defect is okay to kill...i.e. downs syndrome. Some of the sweetest people in the world have downs but some people would abort because it's too much for them...this is selfish.

I also know someone who had an abortion because the child literally had no brain. If it were me...I'd still probably carry it...maybe...I really can't say because that's a really tough one. Maybe it would have lived for a few minutes or a day, but who am I to take this life.

The example you give is as extreme. I'm surprised they even risked getting pregnant again...I don't know that I would be that brave.

So, I understand why beo said what he did...cause I admit that was my first reaction. Thanks for clarifying your comment. I definitely think your friend's situation was different than just a standard minor retardation or defect issue.

Thanks Megs...Only problem is that the original comment about darwinists and retardation was not mine. It was a poster named Firethorn. I never made comment about when or why or if I would approve abortion. ANd I do not know who Firethorn is. But whoever they are they offered their thoughts to the discussion without attack or insult on anyone else, and whether Beo agrees or disagrees with Firethorns comments, he was in the wrong to lower himself to insult rather than rebuttal.

You and I have now had a grown up exchange. It is so much more productive. Perhaps Beo would have found out more about Firethorn's opinion if he would have asked rather than insulted.

All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can -- and must -- be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. -- by Robert A. Heinlien --

Nuff Said.

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