NationStates Jolt Archive

I was talking with a an attorney, who happens to be a friend of mine recently and I asked him how it is possible for certian judges to be legaly correct in saying that Roe V. Wade does not set a precedent of women having a right to abortion. The attorney told me that contrary to popular belief that Roe V. Wade was never intended to set the precedent for the right to have an abortion. At the time that Roe V. Wade was brought to court abortions were very rare, only preformed during extreme circumstances such as rape or the mother's life being in danger. Roe V. Wade was actualy deciding if it was legal for states to punish doctors who preformed abortions. The Supreme Court ruled to protect the doctors preforming abortions. The attorney also said that some how lay people such as you and me have come to interpuit this case as saying that women have the constutional right to have an abortion. Before you go and start attacking my attorney friend's views or education let me give you a little background on him. He went to Duke University Law School, He is pro choice, He believes that the Supreme Court needs to grant women the right to an abortion because eventualy enough people are going to go back and examine Roe V. Wade and when they do the monentum set in motion from the realization of the true meaning of Roe V. Wade they might not side with the Pro-Choice camp.

These quotes come directly from the final decision of the Supreme Court (http://members.aol.com/abtrbng/410us113.htm and http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Roe/):

State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life- saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy.

This says that laws that make abortion criminal are a violation of the 14th Amandment.

For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.

Abortion is legal up until the end of the first trimester.

For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

Abortion is possible in the second trimester. Basically, it ruled that laws prohibiting abortion were unconstitutional.

well im not a constitutional scholar like your attny friend OBVIOUSLY is but really, misconception or not, abortion on demand has been utterly legal in this country ever since 1973. i dont see how there could possibly be a misunderstanding of the ruling by every anti-abortion activist of the past 33 years. does your friend think that no-one on either side has ever read the actual supreme court ruling?