...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
It would appear to me that any state which allows abortions to occur would be depriving a person of life, and therefore would be violating the Fourteenth Amendment. But I am not a Constitutional lawyer, so what do I know?
Let's see what those wiser than me had to say. Justice Rehnquist’s dissenting opinion in Roe summed it up pretty good:
Even today, when society’s views on abortion are changing, the very existence of the debate is evidence that the “right” to an abortion is not so universally accepted as the appellant would have us believe.
To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment. As early as 1821, the first state law dealing directly with abortion was enacted by the Connecticut Legislature. By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, there were at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures limiting abortion. While many States have amended or updated their laws, 21 of the laws on the books in 1868 remain in effect today. Indeed, the Texas statute struck down today was, as the majority notes, first enacted in 1857 and has remained substantially unchanged to the present time.
But that was a dissenting opinion, so let's take a look at the concurring side. Chief Justice Burger’s concurring opinion says:
I do not read the Court’s holdings today as having the sweeping consequences attributed to them by the dissenting Justices; the dissenting views discount the reality that the vast majority of physicians observe the standards of their profession, and act only on the basis of carefully deliberated medical judgments relating to life and health. Plainly, the Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortions on demand.
As you can see from Chief Justice Burger’s concurring opinion, when he ruled in favor of Roe, he did so under the presumption the most doctors are ethical, and would only perform these procedures if there were a medically viable reason for it. As organizations like Planned Parenthood and doctors like George Tiller have shown us, this is not the case!
With more than one million abortions performed in this country annually, it can no longer be considered a medical procedure, it now must be considered an epidemic.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Franco
Excellent piece, well thought out and well worded. It's nice to see a stand being taken for the unborn when convenience silences a million a year.
2 - Nelson
"The argument that crushing a babies skull is a 'constitutional right' is the most outrageous thing I have ever heard"
Not knowing the difference between plural and possessive is the most outrageous thing I have ever seen.
3 - Clavos
Not knowing the difference between plural and possessive is the most outrageous thing I have ever seen.
Obviously, you lead a sheltered existence.
4 - Andy Marsh
I personally don't think it's any of my business to decide what someone else does with their body...having said that...I really don't want to have to pay for a lot of unwanted children...I have two of my own...and they ain't cheap!
But you two guys...Charles and Franco...you keep trying to make those choices...for women...maybe fork up some duckets too...you want 'em...you can have 'em.
...and another thing
WTF is up with the grammar police around here all of a sudden? Is this place being overrun by a bunch of crazy english majors all of a sudden?
5 - Sisyphus
"Is this place being overrun by a bunch of crazy english majors all of a sudden?"
"English" should be capitalized.
6 - Clavos
Bwahahahahahahha!
Andy, my friend, you walked into that one big time!
Don't you know that "crazy English majors" is a tautology?
7 - Andy Marsh
Clavos - after I looked it up...yeah...I guess it is!
Look..spelling...and grammar...and punctuation...and anything else that goes along with rite'n ain't my thing! but I'm workin' on it!
8 - Dave Nalle
I'm all for abortions - frequent and low priced if possible. But I do think you have to draw the line somewhere and the obvious place has to be at the point where if you popped the baby out it could live without any artificial life support.
Dave
9 - Andy Marsh
I agree with you Dave...but reading the article and the 1st comment...I get the impression that these two don't believe the court went far enough.
10 - Dave Nalle
There are certainly plenty of issues one could raise with the article - including the excessive use of italics which caused me not to want to actually read it.
For example:
With more than 1 million abortions performed in this country annually, it can no longer be considered a medical procedure, it now must be considered an epidemic.
Does that mean we have an epidemic of bunions or minor melanomas or crooked teeth, all of which are dealt with through millions of medical procedures annually?
Think your statements through. The epidemic is the unwanted pregnancies, not the abortions. The abortions are the treatment for the epidemic. Good thing we HAVE a treatment for this one, unlike AIDS or Ebola.
Dave
11 - Dave Nalle
Someone forgot to properly edit this bit from the article. I'll fix it:
Hopefully this will be only the first step in a series of laws which will eventually do away with the
abortion on demandsociety we currently live in.There we go. That's fixed.
Dave
12 - MyBodyMyChoice
Dave & all,
The thing is--this ruling doesn't pertain only to viable fetuses. Now, by federal law, if I am a woman who is 13 weeks pregnant and my life is endangered by the pregnancy, and my doctor believes that a dilation and extraction abortion is necessary, it's now illegal.
It's disturbing to see people arguing the propaganda of "Partial Birth Abortion," when that's not what the law actually states and that's not the reality. That language is propaganda meant to mobilize people based on emotional appeals that are not based in fact.
Justice Ginsburg said it best:
"Today's decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously. It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability and postviability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health."
"Thus, legal challenges to undue restrictions on abortion procedures do not seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather, they center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature."
13 - Charles
Unfortunately Justice Ginsburg's dissenting opinion was more of a politcal statement than a legal statement. The media has been echoing her for the last 24 hours claiming a womans health is now at risk which is a complete falacy. For those of you who have no idea what this lawsuit was actually about, [Sorry but I have had to remove this link because the site says "Please resubmit your search
Search results are only retained for a limited amount of time.Your search results have either been deleted, or the file has been updated with new information" Comments Editor]. It clearly says:
"This subsection does not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself."
14 - Arch Conservative
It's disgusting how those who perpertrate infanticide with unrestrained glee seek to frame every single abortion as a matter of choosing between the woman's life and health and the child's life.
Most abortions are not in fact decisions that weigh the mother's life against the baby. Most abortions are rather the mother deciding that she would rather murder her baby because she's "not ready" to have kids or "it's not the right time." Well guess what.........life throws curveballs at all of us and a lot fo the time we're wholly unprepared to deal with them. However, a decent person makes the right decision not the easy one. having and abortion is, in most cases, the epitome of selfishness.
Oh I'm tired of this whole "if you're pro-life you must help support all the babies argument." That is complete bullshit. I bet all you asshats spouting that argument believe it would be immoral to murder your next door neighbor right? Does that belief mean you should be responsible for his financial and social welfare? Being pro-life does not obligate anyone to support babies. it simple means that you oppose the unecessary murdering of babies. Simple as that.
You can't even begin to imagine the smile that crossed my face when I heard the news yesterday. Although I am pro-life I often wish that those in charge at naral, NOW, planned parenthood and all of the other vile organizations that claim to care about all women but in reality are just tools for the far left, had been aborted. How's that for irony? Fuck you, I hate you all, and I hope you rot in hell for eternity for the blood that is on your hands.
15 - Andy marsh
Depends on the neighbor there arch!
16 - Dave Nalle
if I am a woman who is 13 weeks pregnant and my life is endangered by the pregnancy, and my doctor believes that a dilation and extraction abortion is necessary, it's now illegal.
That's just as much propaganda as the positions you see coming from the pro-life side on this issue. At 13 weeks there are multiple options for abortion and a dilation and extraction abortion would never be the only option. It's more expensive, but they can do an orthroscopic equivalent of a dilation and extraction without any actual dilation required and achieve the same results.
Dave
17 - Dave Nalle
[Dead link deleted]
Having now reread and refreshed myself on the bill, several things are very clear.
First, the bill unequivocally protects the right of physicians to perform the procedure when the life of the woman is in danger from the fetus or other causes. Hell, it even repeats it TWICE. See sections a and d(1).
Second, the definition of partial birth abortion is such that in the 13 week example given above dilation and extraction would be perfectly legal because it would not count as a partial birth abortion because the fetus would be non-viable and would die on its own. See section b(1).
In short, the comment in #12 is clearly repeating disinformation about the PBA law which is just not true. For that matter, Ginsburg's objection appears to also be erroneous based on the actual text of the law, because the law in no way blurs the line between viability and non-viability, as viability is the absolute standard it sets for whether or not the abortion is legal.
Dave
18 - Christopher Rose
Dave, those links still don't work after a short period of time so I have to delete it again. You need to link to the actual article, not the search results, which expire...
19 - Dave Nalle
Christopher, I was pretty sure I linked to the text, not the search page, but here's a link to the bill from a different source which avoids the LoC's annoying search script.
Dave
20 - Charles
Here is another link to the bill
21 - Christopher Rose
Thanks, guys.
22 - steve
chipping away at the silent tragedy of abortion...I love it!
23 - zingzing
silent?
abortion?
wait... abortion? what's that? I'VE NEVER HEARD OF IT!
gimme a break, steve. i mostly agree with the idea of banning partial birth abortion (if that is what this does), but, "the silent tragedy of abortion?" that is ridiculous. i laugh. i think i peed a bit.
24 - steve
the media and the liberals suffered a major loss...which I am excited about. It IS a silent tragedy not talked about nearly enough. Pick up some depends if it makes you leak! =P
25 - zingzing
i dunno. i'm a liberal and i'm not too upset. there are better ways to abort. and how exactly does the media lose out because of this?