I doubt there's going to be any serious legal challenge to Roe v. Wade anytime soon. It's pretty much considered the law of the land in legal circles and stare decisis no matter how badly the Warren court ignored state's rights when creating a "right" that doesn't explicitly exist in the Constituion.
The partial birth abortion ban can be easily distinguished from Roe. Roe protects first trimester abortions, not those in the later stages. Partial birth abortions are more necessary as the pregnancy progresses into those later terms. States can regulate as a woman's pregnancy progresses under Roe v. Wade.
Roe (and later Casey, et al) protects abortion throughout all 9 months.
If it happens before my six year old daughter reaches child-bearing age—that’s soon enough for me!
This is the beginning of the end for blatant, wanton baby killers. That’s what’s important. All the others will fall like dominos if conservatives and anti-baby killers keep applying the pressure!! Save all the babies that can be saved! That’s my fervent prayer! :*)
The partial birth abortion ban can be easily distinguished from Roe. Roe protects first trimester abortions, not those in the later stages. Partial birth abortions are more necessary as the pregnancy progresses into those later terms. States can regulate as a woman's pregnancy progresses under Roe v. Wade. I agree with you on both points - that Roe is unlikely be overturned anytime soon and that this case is clearly distintuisable from Roe.
While I think Roe represents remarkably bad law - in the sense of reasoning from precedent - I do think the fundamental reason Roe will endure is that it represents something close to the practical compromise the majority of Americans want on abortion: not too readily available as a general matter because I don't think anyone other than a NOW activist thinks abortion is just wonderful, but not illegal if I (or my daughter or girlfriend or wife) 'needs' one.
Roe was and is bad science as well, but the three 'trimester' compromise Roe represents our ambivalence - early enough on in a pregnancy most people (not being philosophically or religiously consistent) are not deeply troubled by an abortion; as the pregnancy progresses the matter gets more difficult; and, at some point, most people see it as unacceptable.
So, as I see it, the question is not whether something like Roe will stand as a compromise, but whether the post-Roe decisions that vastly expanded the right to an abortion will stand. I would not be surprised if we ended up in 5-10 years in a position much closer to the situation shortly after Roe than where we are now.
Wrong. For all intents and purposes, Roe v Wade makes abortion on demand legally acceptable for whatever reason a woman chooses throughout her entire pregnancy. Until now. This is why removing the most heinous type of abortion procedure and upholding the ban on PBA was such a historic decision.
Yes. This doesn’t weaken Roe, but it does give the possibility of a limit on Roe.
Roe says, on its face, abortion at will during the first trimester.
Today’s decision eliminates a procedure for later-term abortions, but doesn’t prevent the cutting up of the fetus in utero. That’s the next place to fight. Given that babies can live outside the womb at 22 weeks and earlier now, having medically at-risk women carry the baby until that point and then trying to save the baby becomes a real medical strategy. There remains the issue of babies who are discovered, after 12 weeks, to be horribly deformed, but that’s an argument that the other side can make, so that they’re arguing for eugenics.
Limit abortion to the first trimester, and you have limited it to post-pregnancy birth control. That’s still 90% of the problem.
The way to go after that isn’t Roe, it’s to keep pushing out dramatic ultrasound photos, emphasize the age at which babies feel pain, and push towards the idea that a developing baby, at least after the point of pain, is a PERSON. If more and more people start to believe that, it will be more and more possible, over time, to get a court to SAY that, and that would strike a mortal blow to Roe.
But there is more. It really won’t do to outlaw abortion without having a fully articulate and articulable plan for dealing with about 1 million more poor welfare babies every year. The usual conservative handwave about private sector and religious charity will not cut it, because it is unrealistic and will not work. If we really outlaw abortion, we are going to have to prepare the groundwork for an expansion of the Social State to embrace at least 1 million new poor kids on relief every year, year after year, 18 million ADDITIONAL minor welfare recipients. That’s the reality of a no-abortion regime, the “Latin American” reality. Abortion is illegal in Latin America, and one of the reasons there is such a burgeoning perpetual poverty problem is precisely that: babies who would be aborted by the underclass in America are born in Latin America, and every human being has the same physical needs for food, shelter, clothing, etc.
Pro-lifers have to get their minds around the fact that if we really abolish abortion, we are going to have to increase the social welfare state quite dramatically. We cannot force people to have babies who are then plunged into poverty. The electorate will NEVER accept that, and we should not propose it. It is irresponsible and unChristian to boot. Fact is, we have to have a fully articulated economic and social welfare plan for dealing with about 20 million additional minors on welfare every year once 2 decades or so after abortion has been repealed. It’s a demographic reality that half of the two million abortions every year are to the welfare poor. End abortion, the welfare poor will have those 1 million babies every year, and the numbers will rapidly accumulate.
Abolishing abortion means higher taxes and, unless we REALLY fix the education system to specifically lift up the underclass, more crime. It most certainly does. It also means a LOT more handicapped and congenitally ill children are born who are currently aborted, and THAT means higher Medicaid costs across the board. It most certainly does.
Doing God’s will and saving babies and caring for the poor, the weak, the sick and the orphan comes at a steep price. Let’s not kid ourselves. Abortion is a cheap way to keep social welfare and medical costs way down, not to mention crime, which is also supressed by eliminating so many of the unborn underclass. We are not credible if we don’t face the full reality, and accept the higher social welfare burdens that our beliefs require. If we will not do that, because we want to have our pro-life and our low-taxes, small social welfare state cake and eat it too, we’re not credible. The country won’t go that way. Pro-life means saving babies. It ALSO means feeding, clothing, housing and educating millions more poor babies, year after year, and providing government medical insurance for the congenitally ill whose parents cannot afford to pay for medical care. We shepherd them to birth by outlawing abortion, we have taken on the responsibility of shepherding them all the way to adulthood in all of those cases where the poor underclass woman has aborted precisely because she DOESN’T have the means or the will to raise a child. That child will become OUR collective social responsibility. There will be 1 million additional ones every year, about 20 million in 20 years. And that will go on forever. We have to plan for that, and platitudes won’t do.
Not saying that I agree with Roe, but the 9th amendment makes it clear that the rights explicitly listed in the constitution are not an exhaustive list.
It is scary that politically active people in this country believe that rights must be explicitly listed to be right retained by the People. Remember, the constitution is a document that puts limits on government power.
Yes, except that Doe v. Bolton, decided the same ugly day in 1973, sharply limits that regulation by defining "health of the woman" so broadly as to be meaningless. The court has *not* allowed broad restrictions on abortion after the first "trimester."
Ramesh Ponnuru’s outstanding book, “Party of Death” explains why the “first trimester protection” idea is a myth, especially in light of Casey. Roe is just such a bad case, badly written, that it goes far beyond what the public has been told.
Today is a great step in the right direction!
Stare decisis true, but the Sct does overrule itself. Two words- Dred Scott.