Posted on 07/27/2005 12:34:24 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
As the John Roberts' Supreme Court nomination fight opens, the predicted battle to save or kill Roe v Wade already has taken to the streets, the Internet and the media. But the 32-year-old constitutional right to an abortion may face its gravest challenge not from red state values triumphing on the Supreme Court, but from medical research being carried out in elite blue state universities and in Europe and Asia.
It is the very language of Roe that carries the seed of its own possible irrelevance within the next several years. Roe enunciated the more or less unencumbered right of a woman to obtain an abortion prior to fetal viability. After viability, the right of states to regulate or prohibit abortions arise. The court defined legal viability as "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid."
But medical science is remorselessly advancing on two fronts along paths that may fairly soon seize and destroy in a scientific pincer movement the viability of Roe's reasoning.
When Roe was handed down in 1973, the survivability of prematurely born babies was not medically possible before 28 weeks of gestation. Today, babies born after only 20 weeks of gestation routinely survive -- and thus are viable under the Roe definition (and thus potentially legally safe from the abortionist's medical weapons).
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
You're assuming that words mean something to the justices. They'll either ignore the meaning of the words or find some other compelling societal interest to justify the continuance of Roe v. Wade. Of course, this depends on whether President Bush can replace a few more of these bozos.
I kind of like the simple "words have meaning" approach, not only in the text of the U.S. Constitution, but also in the observation that: if it's not a "baby", well, then you're not "pregnant".
On the technological front, though, advances in medical science have shown the whole extent of the voodoo in Roe v. Wade. The clearest example I can think of is the ultrasound which has stripped the whole veil of mystery about the unborn child. That was not available in 1973, at least not to the general public.
But science makes no difference to abortion supporters because they are operating on a set of pagan religious beliefs and are completely closed to any facts.
Abortion is not about abortion, it is about responsibility-free sex. Gaining the freedom to have sex with an absolute guarantee it will not produce a baby was the biggest "advance" in centuries for a certain type of character. Those who value that "freedom" pretty much value it ABOVE ALL ELSE IN LIFE (and above all lives), though they will never express it that way out loud.
The entire Democratic Party is organized around legal abortion. If you fight to protect abortion they will simply tolerate any other behavior from you.
The Left will do WHATEVER IS NECESSARY to protect that freedom. For example, all the Left has to do is re-define the concept of "viability" -- which they are experts at, since no word is not living and evolving and emanating new penumbras by the second.
It's sad, in a way, to think that our society is polarizing into warring camps over the right to kill babies in their mothers.
Ball's in the GOP's court.
I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, Mia. But it is the truth.
No. I am saying that Roe v. Wade WILL BE MOOTED BY MEDICAL SCIENCE. Technology will de facto overturn Roe. If the fetus is viable from day one, Roe becomes totally irrelevant.
If abortion is the determinative issue, and if all abortions are rendered illegal (and Roe rendered moot) by medical science pushing back viability to day one, why would Roe still matter to you?
It seems to me you are stuck in a time warp disguised as an ethics warp. ;)
I am not arguing that you follow the GOP.
To the contrary.
What I am arguing is that we save the children.
I suspect that goal is consistent with the dictates of your G-d and mine.
i.e., voting GOP is simply a means to that end (by ensuring the defeat of hillary clinton).
The entire Democratic Party is organized around legal abortion. If you fight to protect abortion they will simply tolerate any other behavior from you.
#####
Yes, and more and more people are recognizing that fact. As "pregnant couples" show off the first photo of their baby - still in the womb, the idea that it is something that is up to the mother to keep or discard, is becoming less tolerable.
Using power language and soundbites, like the dems do, we should stress the "ownership" of a fetus is like the "ownership" of a slave - which was ruled illegal by our same constitution.
As a corollary of this point, we can stress that it was the churches in America who started the Abolitionsit Movement. Devout churchgoers and preachers gave up their "right" to own slaves long before Lincoln came along.
Mia T's point is that because public opinion and technology are going to limit abortion in the future, fighting to overturn Roe v Wade should not fracture the conservative movement, thus allowing another Clinton to live in the White House.
Abortion, and Roe in particular, has NEVER been about science. Science has been the excuse.
The talking point now is one of health. It is the upside down notion that abortion "saves life".
The abortion activists are not pushing the buzz words that parental notification is the really "parental involvement" and that "parental involvement" causes death because all families are disfunctional.
It is ALL based on anecdotes like all things on the left. No facts just political power aquisition.
When science has made artificial wombs and there is no longer a SCIENTIFIC reason for abortion, the abortion crowd will STILL demand abortion on demand.
Roe v Wade was passed by the SCOTUS based on a woman's right to privacy, not the right to an abortion.
The right to an abortion is predicated on a woman's right to PRIVACY, a First Amendment issue!
I, along with many others, would like to see Roe V Wade overturned, and then it can become what it always should have been - a state's right issue.
Sorry - I wasn't arguing with you or anyone on this thread.
I just thought it was worth throwing into the mix that the right to privacy was why the SCOTUS wrote law - and wrote law they did, with Roe V Wade. It was the privacy rights, of the right a woman has to her body (Yes, over the life of her baby). Ugh - I hated even typing that horrible argument.
One that I hope is over-turned and thrown out, very soon.
I am not arging for abotion under any circumstances, nor am I trying to justify it or the SCOTUS.
pinging you to some posts advocating surrender.
BTTT
If the Supreme Tyrants were at all interested in the strawman of protecting the child post-viability, then why is it impossible for states to outlaw third trimester abortions?
Because Roe's companion, Doe v. Bolton, is explicit that the state cannot protect the baby, even post-viability, if it "interferes" with the mother's health, which has been defined even as being upset that she won't fit into her prom dress. Certainly, some woman will be made to claim, (put up to it by the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and all the other usual suspects) that forcing her to relinquish her unborn baby so that the little one may grow to term in an environment other than the woman's womb creates a psychological harm, and thus cannot be forced by the state.
And the Supreme Tyrants, if they are unwilling to actually overturn Roe, will not permit the state to act in this way, either.
It is a delusion, a hallucination to think that unborn children will ever be protected in law in the United States without overturning Roe.
Roe must go.
Then the GOP better not nominate a pro-abort.
If it does, then Catholics will have a good reason to vote Democratic.
It is not the Christian Right, but True Christians cannot approve murder. That is sort of like saying the murder of 5 million Jews by Hitler was something that can be overlooked by Christians.
Terrorists only killed less than the number of babies killed in a day with the 9/11 attacks.
And one million babies killed per year is more than:
Auto accidents in the US and Europe kill each year
Cancer deaths in the US
Deaths by crimes
Death by AIDS in the US
All the civilian, terrorist, Iraqi forces, and US forces killed in Iraq since the invasion of Iraq since 2003.
All the civilian, terrorist, Taliban, Afghanistan forces and Allied forces (including US) in Afghanistan since 2002.
Combine all of the above, and it is still less than the number of babies killed in a year.
So Christians have to put abortion first, and the Republicans had better find a President who is Pro-Life, or Hillary may be elected.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.