The Ugly, Unknown Story Behind Roe v. Wade

Life News ^ | September 25, 2013 | Scottie Hughes

[NYer]

It’s not often that I agree with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but she was right for more reasons than she probably realized when she said last year that the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade went “too far, too fast.” Roe protected almost all abortions from the democratic process and led to four decades in which, by even the most conservative estimates, 50 million American babies were aborted and pulled from their mother’s womb.

And, now thanks to a revealing book out this week called Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade by veteran attorney Clarke D. Forsythe, we know that Roe was not just one of the most controversial decisions in the Supreme Court’s history, but also a poorly reasoned rush to judgment based on a wealth of misinformation that has since been debunked. The first to look inside the Supreme Court Justices’ papers, Forsythe shows the liberal supporters of the decision made at least three shockingly erroneous assumptions.

First, the Supreme Court justices thought the decision was good for women’s health. There was a widespread belief in certain quarters that “abortion was safer than childbirth.” In the past four decades, many international studies have shown the opposite. The incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and illegitimate pregnancies is likely higher than it would be if abortion were not available on demand. There’s also a risk of domestic violence against pregnant women who refuse to abort their babies. It’s no wonder that expectant mothers in countries like Ireland and Chile, where abortion is highly restricted, have better health than in neighboring nations where abortion is more widely available.

Second, abortion advocates at the time of Roe were caught up in the wake of two decades of fear about a growing world population. A widely popular 1968 book by Dr. Paul Ehrlich declared that “the battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines – hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” The Journal of the American Medical Association published an article warning “if we breed like rabbits, in the long run we have to live and die like rabbits.” The titles of popular books spoke for themselves. Ehrlich’s best-seller was called The Population Bomb. Another was titled Too Many Asians.

In this vortex of fear about a near future in which there would simply be too many people on earth to feed, abortion seemed almost scientific, at least to those short-sighted enough to believe Ehrlich and his ilk. But we now know there was no “population bomb” (nor are there “too many Asians”). Yes, the population has grown, but famines and starvation did not. Instead, life expectancy and average incomes rose due to trade, technology, and free enterprise – not population control.

Third, the Justices in Roe “thought they were riding a wave of cultural sentiment in favor of abortion,” says Forsythe. They never anticipated the backlash – the push for constitutional amendments, the thousands of people who march on the Supreme Court every anniversary of Roe, or the way the decision dominates the nomination process for Supreme Court Justices.

The Justices made America one of only four countries where women can get an abortion for any reason after viability – the other countries are Canada, China, and North Korea – but polling for the past forty years shows that most Americans want abortion to be legal only in “certain circumstances” before viability. In September 2011, 62% of respondents in a CNN poll supported making all or most abortions illegal. Only 9% of Americans think abortion should be legal for any reason at any time.

Among the influences on public opinion the Justices did not anticipate is the modern ultrasound. As the mother of two, I didn’t need a philosophy treatise to tell me that the child whose ultrasound picture hung on my refrigerator was a living human being. It is a shame that Roe was decided by old men who had likely never seen an ultrasound photograph, and it’s unfortunate that they were subject to misinformation about women’s health, population control, and popular sentiment.

LifeNews Note: Scottie Nell Hughes is the news director and chief journalist for the Tea Party News Network as well as a contributor to Patriot.TV and PatriotUpdate.com. This originally appeared at TownHall.

[NYer]

Ping!

[Jacquerie]

It is way beyond time to enable the states to overturn scotus decisions.

[colorado tanker]

A few liberals have admitted to me that another reason they support Roe is because they believe it eliminates poor minorities who tend to commit more crimes.

[EternalVigilance]

Roe protected almost all abortions from the democratic process

I hate this meme. The right to life is God-given. That's why it is called UNALIENABLE. To think it should be left up to any "democratic process" is to display ignorance of the cornerstone principle of American self-government and liberty.

[Gen.Blather]

In 1793 Thomas Malthus said that food supply could never keep up with population growth. He was wrong then and has been wrong since. But his idea lives on in liberalism today. Economics says that where there is a demand there will be a supply. As long as we’re allowed to burn cheap energy the supply will always be there. The current increase in food cost and the lower supply is due to other liberal policies; paying people not to grow, alcohol in gas and other idiotic money transfer schemes. The danger to population is due to liberalism not food supply.

[Zhang Fei]

A few liberals have admitted to me that another reason they support Roe is because they believe it eliminates poor minorities who tend to commit more crimes.

The way to reduce that population is to cut welfare payments for additional children. What abortion on demand has done is enable women who are capable of raising good kids to have abortions while doing nothing to reduce the tendency of welfare queens to have large numbers of uncared-for kids just so they can get the associated welfare benefits. Abortion on demand is increasing the ratio of dysfunctional to functional kids among all races. It is profoundly dysgenic.

[Oliviaforever]

An individual state cannot make the murder of a ten year old child legal and states should not be allowed to make the murder of pre-born children legal.

We must fight for a Pro Life Amendment to the US Constitution and ends all murder of babies after the moment of conception.

[knarf]

Hitler would be proud.

[Nifster]

This is an example of why the Constitution should be viewed and handled in a strict originalist manner. I am so tired of so called intellectuals trying to tell us what isn’t really there but should be.

If someone wants to amend it then do the work

[Fledermaus]

All liberals are closet progressive eugenicist racist. History proves this to be true.

[frog in a pot]

If someone wants to amend it then do the work.

Bingo!
"...Ginsburg...said...Roe v. Wade went “too far, too fast.”
A telling statement.

The court's work of interpreting the Constitution should be a static, logical exercise, not a foot-race to some political nirvana envisioned by a very few who hold the power to force it on the population.

[Sherman Logan]

To be fair, Roe itself allowed for some state control of abortion after the first trimester. Subsequent interpretations and decisions are what created our present appalling complete lack of restrictions.

[kabumpo]

Wrong - the writer forgot to include Cuba in the list of countries where an abortion can be obtained at whim.

[Carbonsteel]

Sometimes evil has a pretty face.....then again sometimes not!

[Repeat Offender]

I had a black liberal say nearly the same thing. Only his logic was it would mean less people receiving entitlements (larger share of the pie), and lead to less criminals - since poor minorities are more likely to be criminals.

Oh yeah, it was also "unfair" for minority children to be forced to grow up in poverty - therefore it was just better to abort them.

- you can't debate with people like that

[Nifster]

Too bad John Roberts isn’t of a like mind

[Liberty Wins]

What abortion on demand has done is enable women who are capable of raising good kids to have abortions . . .

It has long been known that the only reason SCOTUS passed Roe v Wade was so rich women wouldn't have to go out of the country to get abortions. This happened to a distant relative.

And years of association with RINO Republican women revealed an ugly fact: they hated conservatives because of abortion guilt.

[caww]

<....”only reason SCOTUS passed Roe v Wade was so rich women wouldn’t have to go out of the country to get abortions”....>

Statistics have proven this today as well...most obortions are not teenagers as Obama wants us to believe...in fact they are middle class and above ‘married’ women who simply don’t want their children.

[Sergio]

bkmk