Even though all fifty states and the Federal Government have laws against murder, murder continues to happen. But it is not protected by law, it is against the law of the society.
Currently, a very mistaken court, in 1973, made the killing of unborn individual human beings something legal in our society. From that beginning we see how far the society has degenerated into protecting the right to kill these unborn for any reason the woman has, as long as her hired killer writes some mish-mash about her health on the kill orders.
A more appropriate approach would have been to recognize that there is a precedent for allowing pregnancy termination, with two sub-set realities: self defense is a concept in our founding principles and is to be found throughout common and natural law. In the following two scenarios, a woman ought have the right to terminate a pregnancy, but this doesn't carry with it an automatic 'right to a dead second individual, a baby': 1) if a pregnancy actually endangers a woman's/girl's life, she ought have the right to end that pregnancy; 2) if a woman/girl is raped and thus impregnated via a criminal act, she ought have the right to terminate that pregnancy (she was forced into the increased risk to her life in sustaining a pregnancy).
The single principle of self-defense is at the heart of both the above sub-sets, but should not carry an automatic right to kill the innocent if it is possible to save the innocent unborn without violating the woman's right to choosing self-defense.
Will America ever reach the stage where the above is the norm? I cannot say, but I do know that technology is advancing so rapidly that even an early pregnancy which a woman chooses to end under the principle of self-defense will soon be sustainable (gestationally) outside her body, so the termination of a pregnancy need not have death of a second individual involved in the not so distant future.
Not exactly. What Roe did was strike down all state laws regarding abortion, whatever their approach - that's important. Abortion was in fact legal in many states, though there was the facade of medical necessity that was imposed - a requirement that was surely skirted on many an occasion. I dunno how many abortions were performed before Roe, though I have seen estimates as high as a million and a quarter annual.
Roe also gives the states the option of banning all abortions (w/ a life of the mother exception) after viability, a line which is blurry at best (depends how you define "viable"), but begins at around 24 weeks.
The single principle of self-defense is at the heart of both the above sub-sets, but should not carry an automatic right to kill the innocent if it is possible to save the innocent unborn without violating the woman's right to choosing self-defense.
Many folks in the pro-life movement would disagree with this approach WRT rape/incest, the rationale being that the unborn shouldn't be killed simply because they were conceived due to a criminal act - it isn't their fault, after all.
Snidely