Roe v. Wade

U.S. Constitution the first People's Constitution, and still the best.

Abortion is a deeply personal view, and I have no problem with how people come down on it (as long it is thoughtfully decided). While Roe v. Wade fits my personal beliefs (1st Trimester legal, 3rd illegal), it was a lousy and Unconstitutional ruling that invented law from the bench by imagining powers in the 14th (100 years after the fact) that the authors and ratifiers disagreed with, it violated the 10th and 11th, it made things much worse by polarizing and dividing us AFTER 37 states had already legalized abortion. Then Planned Parenthood v. Casey made it a far worse decision (3rd trimester legal, which collided with Roe). Most legal scholars have admitted that it was a lousy ruling, and it made the nation a worse place. And repealing it would do nothing to the places that are outraged over the thought, since that would just push it back to the states (which had already legalized it).

Roe

In June 1969, 21-year-old Norma McCorvey discovered she was pregnant with her third child. She returned to Dallas, Texas, where friends advised her to assert falsely that she had been raped in order to obtain a legal abortion (with the understanding that Texas law allowed abortion in cases of rape and incest). However, this scheme failed because there was no police report documenting the alleged rape. She attempted to obtain an Illegal abortion, but the unauthorized facility had been closed down by the police, so she had the baby and put it up for adoption -- and later McCorvey repented being involved in the case at all, and became a pro-life activist. But at the time she became involved with Coffee and Weddington, who (in 1970) filed suit on behalf of McCorvey (under the alias Jane Roe). A three-judge panel declared the Texas law unconstitutional, finding that it violated the right to privacy found in the Ninth Amendment, and that got appealed up to the Supreme's -- which found a different excuse for overturning the law.

Harry Blackmun was one of the most progressive (least constitutional) justices on the Supreme Court and is best known as the author of the Court's opinion in Roe v. Wade, which prohibits many state and federal restrictions on abortion. Before that, we obeyed the constitution, which said that if it isn't in the Constitution, then it's not a federal issue and left it to the states to decide.

It helps to remember that:

• Before Roe: 37 States had already passed laws legalizing abortion, and the others were on track to legalize it as well
• There were no mass deaths due to coat hanger or back-alley abortions -- that's a myth spread by the far left.
• The most restrictive states are far more liberal with abortion laws than most of the countries in Europe. France, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, etc., all require more checks and don't let as late term of abortions as the U.S.
• If the Supreme Court overturned Roe, it would fall back to the states to decide and no state would outlaw abortion. Some might put a few more restrictions on when/how. The left plays this as "bringing back the coat hangers".

In the end, the Roe ruling was that when it comes to whose life (rights) we need to protect, basically that:

• 1st Trimester, the right of the mother supersedes the baby -- and she can get an abortion
• 3rd Trimester, the rights of the baby need to be protected by the State -- no 3rd trimester abortions
• 2nd Trimester, we should leave it to the states and community standards.

I agree with all of that, by the way, I just disagree with Blackmun's authority to make the ruling. And that didn't last long. The later ruling of Planned Parenthood v. Casey basically lowered viability from 28 weeks to 23 weeks, but it weakened regulatory leeway of the states in the 2nd trimester (stiffening protections for abortions up to 23 weeks). And even then, by strengthening "health of the mother" exemption, it meant that a doctor just had to invent whatever excuse he wanted for terminating a baby up to the moment of birth. In fact, they invented an "undue burden" clause that basically said any reasonable controls on abortion, could create an undue burden: even though most of the rest of the first world had more restrictions than we're talking about. (No spousal notification requirements. But they did allow 24-hour waiting period, parental consent or reporting requirements -- though Blackmun criticized those too, and leftist states just refused to require any of them).

Roe Slides

Roe Slides : 8 items Toastmasters I did a video of a toastmasters speech (2008-2009) on my views on Abortion, which sums up my views that I started researching and forming my views in the late 1970's which annoyed my feminist English or Social Studies teachers. I wrote editorials in the 80's, and I have researched and reflected on my views ever since. This article covers that video and more. The goal is not to attack other people's views, but to share information for those who want to understand the issue deeper. Abortion Limits While the far left will misrepresent any reasonable restriction as trying to "take away a woman's right to choose" or "war on reproductive rights", the truth is most people (including Republicans) support abortion in the first trimester (especially in cases of rape/health of mother). The real question is where are the reasonable places to limit abortions. The dems attack because they don't want to have to defend their fanatical position on the following: Spousal notification - a father can be forced to pay for a child he has no say in, including the ability to test to see if it is really his Parental notification of minors - parents get no say in their child's decision (only procedure your child can get without permission) Informed consent - can you make clinics explain the risks of abortion, or how far in development the fetus is State/Community rights - do you allow communities to set different standards, or is this a federal-only issue? Financing - forcing other people (including churches or the morally opposed) to pay for abortions Any limits - the left supports abortions of full term babies (and beyond). Most of the public does not. Life Begins at... Science says life begins at conception... or at least something like heartbeat, brainwaves or viability. It certainly begins significantly before birth or where abortion activists put it. But that doesn't mean (to me) that's when a human being should get all rights and privileges conferred on them. Something like 1/3rd of pregnancies end in miscarriage, likely more if you include ones where women didn't even know they were pregnant -- so there's some grey areas. I'm not on either extreme that thinks it's just a parasitic clump of cells until the final seconds of birth, nor that it's a sentient being from the merging of the first two cells and before implantation. I fall where the majority do, that abortion should be allowed in the first trimester, but at viability it's getting too murder-ish for me. PragerU: Abortions in US v. EU The EU is far more restrictive on Abortions than the U.S. So the progressives that claim the U.S. should be more like Europe, are usually ignorant or sometimes dishonest. Roe is Judicial Activism Blackmun took copious notes and going through his papers Historians (Jeffrey Rose, Michael Kinsley, William Saletan) have agreed, "Blackmun’s [Supreme Court] papers vindicate every indictment of Roe: invention, overreach, arbitrariness, textual indifference" Edward Lazarus, Blackmun's law clerk who "loved [Blackmun] like a grandfather," wrote: "As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible.... Justice Blackmun's opinion provides essentially no reasoning in support of its holding. And in the almost 30 years since Roe's announcement, no one has produced a convincing defense of Roe on its own terms." A progressive judge with a God complex decided that the laws of the land doesn't matter: he wanted to protect abortion at the federal level, so legislated from the bench to do it. Thus, some people who oppose Roe do it for personal beliefs, others have a completely grounded legal (rule-of-law) reason to disagree with the ruling. I'm in the latter camp. Roe v. 10th and 11th Amendments The dissenting opinion pointed out that the 10th and 11th both disagreed with Blackmun's interpretation of the 14th: 10th, “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.” 11th , “The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.” Nowhere in the Constitution did it mention federal powers over abortions. Those that value rule of law over judicial activism, are disgusted by the Roe ruling. Blackmun had no authority to give the Supreme Court (and the Federal Government) authority over abortion. Roe v. 14th Amendment Blackmun used 14th Amendment as an excuse for enacting Roe: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 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.” Blackmun imagined in the 14th Amendment a power and application that the authors and ratifiers had not: abortion was illegal when it was written/ratified. Nor had anyone else noticed this power and responsibility in the 14th, for 95 years between ratification of the 14th and the Roe ruling. Ask yourself, who is more likely wrong? The authors and every Judge and Constitutional Scholars before (and after) Blackmun, or the Blackmun court/ruling? Roe v. Legal Review Virtually all legal review determined it was a bad ruling: Yale Law: Professor John Hart Ely It "is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be." Harvard Law: Professor Laurence Tribe, "behind [Roe's] own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found." Justices White and Rehnquist, “By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment..., there were at least 36 laws... limiting abortion... thus the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter.” Archibald Cox wrote: "[Roe's] failure.... Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the Constitution." Liberal law professors Alan Dershowitz, Cass Sunstein, and Kermit Roosevelt all expressed disappointment with Roe decision.

Conclusion

The only people that agree with Roe (as a good ruling), are either ignorant, don't give a shit about the Constitution, the rule of law, or ethics: they just want to get their way. Anyone that defends the ruling goes down a few ticks as rational/ethical people in my eyes.

I like the Roe v. Wade framework, even though the Supreme Court had no authority to make it: while it legalized 1st trimester abortions, it banned 3rd trimester, and left 2nd trimester up to states. However a later/worse decision (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) allowed so much doctors discretion and terminations up to 24 weeks (or beyond), and it's so poorly enforced, that virtually thousands of viable babies were born live and crying, and killed because of doctors discretion. Some like Kermit Gosnell were sent to prison for extending the rules beyond those limits, but only after 30 years of cover-ups. So I can be both pro-choice, and against judicial activism and the genocide of viable full-term babies.

If Roe is removed, what happens? The left will convince you that there will be a return of coat-hanger and back alley abortions. Besides the fact that was never happening in the 1960's (there were dozens of cases nationally, not hundreds or thousands), the facts are that abortions will still be widely legal in virtually all states, especially in the first trimester. What you would see is a few states making a few more restrictions to be more like Europe (12-16 week maximum's, informed consent, doctors permission slips, etc) -- hardly any serious obstructions. For the grey areas (people in a restrictive state), the activists will create programs to bus Women to more liberal states to get them, so virtually no change. And remember, if you've taken a baby to 20-24 weeks, you're already well past the time where a coat hanger or a caustic douche is going to get rid of it -- infanticide (and at viability it would be an infant) should be a major deal with serious restrictions and consequences. Most advocates of Roe are not about protecting abortion in their own communities, they're about imposing their will for unfettered 3rd trimester infanticide in communities that find that morally repugnant -- since they know they can't sell that truth to the public, they lie about the consequences to try to dupe the gullible to be "on their side".

Abortion   Planned Parenthood   📚 References More Links Wikipedia: Roe_v_wade People don't care about abortion much, Republicans that favor abortion legal in first trimester 40% (36% of dems oppose), only 13% would ONLY vote for a candidate based on this issue, and only 12% of the population wants it illegal in all cases: https://web.archive.org/web/20120501201825/http://blog.american.com/2012/01/abortion-attitudes-39-years-after-roe-v-wade/ Roe v. Wade (Movie) - https://www.dailywire.com/news/26945/roe-v-wade-film-highlights-deception-behind-jacob-airey?fbclid=IwAR1cFi62fbSukcwY70JFYEGQRaR4vDYWZlenZjtXwT42lo17bZv5cG6e6qM The consequence of judicial activism was the abortion clinic bombings, not JUST of the fanatics that did them, but I disagree with both sides on that. Though I do get why someone who believes in bombing their local community Auschwitz, I just see it as far more nuanced than that. Abortion Abortion is a deeply personal view, and I used to explore people by asking or sharing my views on it and seeing how they respond.This article covers many aspects of the topic, in what I hope is a somewhat neutral and informed way, though I openly have and express my opinions. The point is not to change anyone's mind, and I leave people room for their own personal views. Planned Parenthood Planned Parenthood is an abortion mill wrapped in the facade of being about Women's healthcare. It is true that a small percentage of their money comes from services other than abortions, but you get what you incentivize -- and the majority of their profits come from eugenics, and that impacts how they run their business.

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Roe : Abortion:Toastmasters • Abortion Limits • Life Begins at... • PragerU: Abortions in US v. EU • Roe is Judicial Activism • Roe v. 10th and 11th Amendments • Roe v. 14th Amendment • Roe v. Legal Review •

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