23 Responses to Roe v. Wade

1. milliganp says:

   July 1, 2022 at 1:26 pm

   The deeper question is “to what extent should law reflect particular religious belief”? As a Catholic I believe life is precious (sacred) from conception to natural death. I can’t add the word natural before conception because artificial conception exists and creates human beings with immortal souls millions of times a year. Similarly “nature” aborts 10’s of millions of conceptions every year.
   In Irealnd, a once Catholic country, abortion was introduce via an ammendment to the constitution – subject to a referendum – and the passage of a new law.
   In the USA, Roe vs Wade, was decided on the interpretation of a constitutional ammendment passed in 1866 at which time abortion was not a political issue.
   The problem in the USA is that abortion became legal without any recourse to the national legislature. It is difficult to envision the framers of the 14th ammendment ever considering its application to matters like abortion and gay marriage. Just as the framers of the second ammendment (1791) did not envison mass murder with late 20th century assault weapons. It is a sad reflection of the peculiarities of US politics and constitution that so few matters are dealt with by legislation.

   Reply
2. David Smith says:

   July 2, 2022 at 8:55 pm

   Quentin writes ( https://secondsightblog.net/2022/07/01/2612/ ) :

   // But I expect that some readers will disrespect this view — claiming that the mother is entitled to control her biology, and, so permitted, to undertake abortion as required. Let’s talk about it. //

   Killing is killing, whether you do it out of anger or to rid yourself of an inconvenience. And the “thing” the mother is killing is a human being. It’s as simple as that. All the rest is commentary.

   Reply
3. John Candido says:

   July 2, 2022 at 10:42 pm

   The ideological disposition of the majority of US Supreme Court Justices is slanted too far to the right-wing of politics, which explains their decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the bolstering of gun owners to conceal & carry a weapon, and the government’s power to reduce pollution by companies has been reduced.

   I do not agree with all three judgements.

   I support reasonable gun control as the majority of gun owners & non gun owners support gun control.

   A majority of Americans support the right of governments to protect wildlife and the environment,

   A majority of Americans support the right of women to obtain medical abortions after consulting with their doctor.

   One way around this predicament is to increase the number of justices sitting on the US Supreme Court to 15 or more, which will limit any president trying to influence the ideological leaning of the court.

   Abortion should be viewed as a natural part of health care.

   Abortion is an issue that you either support or do not support.

   I have always supported the right of women to obtain an abortion in consultation with their doctor.

   Abortion is a controversy where disagreement is inevitable.

   Reply
   • pnyikos says:

     July 12, 2022 at 4:12 pm

     “A majority of Americans support the right of women to obtain medical abortions after consulting with their doctor.”

     Can you document a poll to that effect? If so, please do. I’ve never heard of a poll that addressed the public’s support of “medical abortions” [i.e. non-surgical abortions, done using mifepristone = RU-486].

     In your penultimate paragraph, you leave off the word “medical.” Is that what you really meant all along?

     Roe v. Wade put it very differently: “in consultation with the attending physician,” viz. the abortionist.

     When one hears the words “her doctor”, one naturally thinks of “her family doctor” or “her gynecologist.” I’ve long wondered how often, and for how long, women generally see this other doctor who is supposedly “theirs”.

     Reply
4. David Smith says:

   July 3, 2022 at 1:24 am

   John Candido writes ( https://secondsightblog.net/2022/07/01/2612/#comment-66327 ) :

   // I do not agree with all three judgements. //

   The purpose of the American Supreme Court is limited to saying whether or not a proposed law written by the Congress and signed into law by the President is within the scope allowed it by the American Constitution. To say that you disagree with a decision of the court, then, is to say either that you have studied constitutional law and have decided on *that* basis that the court’s conclusion is incorrect or that you simply don’t like it for some reason extraneous to what it is.

   Reply
   • pnyikos says:

     July 12, 2022 at 4:40 pm

     Unfortunately, John Candido used an inaccurate description of the West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency decision. It did not “limit the government’s power to reduce pollution”. It merely ruled that the EPA overstepped its mandate by the way it was trying to limit carbon dioxide production, and that it needs a more explicit mandate by Congress to do that.

     By the way, I dislike the idea of calling carbon dioxide, which plants absolutely need to survive, a “pollutant.” While there can be no debate about its having an effect on global temperatures, there is still a lot of uncertainty as to the effect of incremental amounts. The Lancet, one of the world’s three most prestigious medical journals, did a very thorough report last year which included the following data:

     Between Jan 1, 2000, and Dec 31, 2019, … The global mean ambient daily temperature increased at an average rate of 0·26°C per decade (SD 0·44) between 2000 and 2019, varying from the highest rate of increase in other regions in Oceania (0·48°C per decade [0·23]) to the temperature decreasing at a rate of −0·16°C per decade (0·53) in Southern Asia .

     The EU has set 2050 as the date of no more burning of fossil fuels, but the Biden administration seems to want an even earlier date. I’ve seen one claim of 2030, which would be catastrophic to the economy. Congress definitely needs to be involved in this.

     Reply
5. David Smith says:

   July 3, 2022 at 1:24 am

   John Candido writes ( https://secondsightblog.net/2022/07/01/2612/#comment-66327 ) :

   // I do not agree with all three judgements. //

   The purpose of the American Supreme Court is limited to saying whether or not a proposed law written by the Congress and signed into law by the President is within the scope allowed it by the American Constitution. To say that you disagree with a decision of the court, then, is to say either that you have studied constitutional law and have decided on *that* basis that the court’s conclusion is incorrect or that you simply don’t like it for some reason extraneous to what it is.

   Reply
6. galerimo says:

   July 3, 2022 at 3:46 pm

   Thank you Quentin for the invitation to talk about it.

   In your anticipation that some readers will disrespect this view I can assure you and all other contributors of my respect for their opinions.

   Judging by the title our topic is clearly a legal one and in light of the responses it has mostly maintained that focus by contrast with the Catholic view.

   We are not talking about morality here. We are talking about law. And that is my intention too with this contribution.

   I like John’s idea of expanding the numbers who sit on the bench of the US Supreme Court. I think it might achieve a broader perspective and a greater balance.

   Like a jury, twelve would be a good number.

   Making laws never provide justice. That is the job of those who interpret and apply the laws.

   The American Supreme court has ruled that a right to an abortion cannot be found in the US constitution.

   The court does not say that no such right can exist or can be found within systems of justice. It says that the constitution does not confer such a right.

   This right however has become established in law in many countries.

   US President Bill Clinton said in 1992 that abortion should be , “safe, legal and rare”
   Which to my mind stresses the fact that banning it does not stop it.

   An article written by one American Philosopher in 1971 questioned that if a person believes that the foetus is a human being why would a woman for that reason be obliged to carry it in her uterus?

   And if we use brain activity as a measure of the presence of human life when trying to establish the point of death then why not birth?

   If that were the case then the time when the sense of hearing smell and touch are developed in the foetus and myelin becomes present along some neural pathways, could be said to be when human life emerges

   And that would be around the 23rd week of an average 40 week pregnancy.

   Points I think worth including as we talk about it.

   Reply
7. David Smith says:

   July 3, 2022 at 7:05 pm

   galerimo writes ( https://secondsightblog.net/2022/07/01/2612/#comment-66333 ) :

   // We are not talking about morality here. We are talking about law. //

   Are we? Some are and some are not. “The law” seems to me a red herring, as are so many arguments in pubs and on the Internet.

   Reply
8. FZM says:

   July 3, 2022 at 8:57 pm

   The question of a right to abortion that pre-exists (or exists independently of) any legal system or polity is a tricky one. Given that rights are obligations placed on other people to act in certain ways, without a legal system and political authority to implement its judgements, they will be hard or impossible to enforce.

   Some difference between the American and British political systems may be perceptible here, because the right of access to abortion in Britain is more obviously and directly the product of politics, something voted into existence by parliament supported by public opinion. Before the latest US Supreme Court judgement, the right in the US seemed to be in some way above normal executive/legislative politics, and now it has been left to the individual states to decide and vote on again.

   One of the features of the developing debate seems to have been the push to move beyond the idea of ‘Legal, safe and rare’, and the idea that abortion is a political topic, to make it something more absolute:

   https://unherd.com/2022/06/the-left-killed-the-pro-choice-coalition/

   Reply
9. John Candido says:

   July 4, 2022 at 12:09 am

   The number of judges sitting on the US Supreme Court must always be odd so that a single judge can break an even number of judges deciding in favour or against any legal question.

   Reply
10. John Thomas says:

    July 4, 2022 at 5:16 pm

    Many pro-death people are rioting, in America, because of the ending of Roe v Wade; Apparently, some are carrying placards which read: BURN DOWN CHURCHES. FOLLOW SATAN – says it all, I think (and yes, several churches have been burned down. Don’t worry. God can do without churches; and God WILL have the last word). I pity these people on Judgement Day (no, I really do pity them – they have been cruelly deceived).

    Reply
11. David Smith says:

    July 5, 2022 at 1:27 am

    John Thomas writes ( https://secondsightblog.net/2022/07/01/2612/#comment-66340 ) :

    // Many pro-death people are rioting, in America, because of the ending of Roe v Wade //

    That’s it, in a nutshell. The invisible elephant in this room has hung around its neck a placard bearing these words: “All women should be accorded by their governments the right to kill their own children, so long as those children are still in their wombs.”

    Reply
12. David Smith says:

    July 5, 2022 at 1:38 am

    In my previous post ( https://secondsightblog.net/2022/07/01/2612/#comment-66344 ), I offered this as a generally unarticulated but honest position of pro-abortion-rights people:

    // All women should be accorded by their governments the right to kill their own children, so long as those children are still in their wombs. //

    Here is Quentin’s position ( https://secondsightblog.net/2022/07/01/2612/ ) :

    // the child in the womb has the right to be develop quite simply as a human being — and will continue this process — developing throughout life just as you and I do. That would include its growth — just as we at our great ages continue to develop, and will do so until normal death. The only exception might be the baby who, left in the womb, would itself die and perhaps threaten the life of its mother. //

    I suggest reading them together.

    Reply
13. galerimo says:

    July 9, 2022 at 6:04 am

    Perhaps the Beadle may be justified in his opinion of the Law.

    Ironically, Norma McCorvey (aka Jane Roe of Roe v Wade) ended up going full term and giving her baby up for adoption.

    Henry Wade, the District Attorney of Dallas County and the one to whom Norma would have been accountable, is reported never to have even read the decision.

    But Wade, the forgotten loser, turned winner, never lost a case that he personally prosecuted, most notably the one against Jack Ruby for shooting Lee Harvey Oswald.

    And if Mr Bumble were to do a quick count, it would tell him there have been 14 Democrat administrations and 10 Republican in the USA since the decision Norma obtained in 1973.

    From that very day the Republican Party vowed to reverse Roe v Wade and worked unceasingly to do so.

    From then on, they methodically and consistently vetted all their Judiciary appointments at every level.

    Until finally, Trump appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett and they won.

    Now, given the relatively young age of the court, the conservative right is likely to have power for quite a while to come.

    Mr Bumble was, after all, speaking only about the obligation to keep his own wife in order.

    The Law might be less of an ass if it took heed of him, for every female it tries to control!

    Reply
    • pnyikos says:

      July 12, 2022 at 5:12 pm

      From that very day the Republican Party vowed to reverse Roe v Wade and worked unceasingly to do so.
      From then on, they methodically and consistently vetted all their Judiciary appointments at every level.

      Actually, it was the Democrats who carefully vetted their nominees to make sure they were fully committed to preserving Roe v. Wade and its minor modification, Casey v. Planned Parenthood. Republicans, at least until Trump, had to do their utmost to find justices who had a track record totally free of abortion opinions either way, and sometimes they guessed wrong, as with Sandra Day O’Connor and David Souter.

      There even rose a phenomenon I dubbed “the Hatch Ratchet”, after the influential Republican Senator Orrin Hatch: He was comfortable with the appointment of Ruth Bader Ginsburg despite her strong abortion rights opinions, because she was a Clinton appointee, and he said, “A pro-choice President deserves a pro-choice Justice.”

      If I recall correctly, only three Senators, all Republican, voted against her.

      The Hatch Ratchet, then, worked this way: with each Democratic appointee, it would only click to the left; with each Republican appointee, it would be anybody’s guess whether it clicked left or right. It was only in 2016, with Trump, that the Hatch Ratchet became a thing of the past.

      Reply
14. David Smith says:

    July 10, 2022 at 1:23 am

    Galerimo, your post indexed https://secondsightblog.net/2022/07/01/2612/#comment-66354 addresses only the political maneuvering that resulted in the appointment of three justices to the American Supreme Court whose legal thinking inclined them to decide that the 1973 Supreme Court decision discovering in the American constitution a “right” of women to kill their own babies was bad law because it was a logical overreach. Why is the politics of such importance to you, and not the legal validity or invalidity of the 1973 decision?

    Reply
15. galerimo says:

    July 11, 2022 at 12:37 pm

    Thanks David.

    To my comment,We are not talking about morality here. We are talking about law.

    You replied “The law” seems to me a red herring, as are so many arguments in pubs and on the Internet.

    But later when I discuss the political and social context of the 1973 legal decision you ask why I discuss that and not the legal validity or invalidity of the 1973 decision?

    Perhaps the confusion arises because, with Quentin’s title of Roe v Wadethere is an opportunity to focus on what has legally taken place in the US and what are the legal consequences.

    Rather than the usual restating of the Catholic position, there is value in examining the context and content of what actually happened others have to say. Especially those immediately affected.

    The legal reality facing citizens of the US now that what was lawful for 50 years is no longer so, according to their Federal law, is quite a shock for many.

    And just how legally enforceable will this new reality be?

    After all, medical abortion will still be widely available even if surgical abortions will be restricted to a smaller number of states.

    And what does it mean for US citizens when President Biden signs and executive order to protect access to reproductive healthcare services, as he did just a few days ago?

    still lots there to talk about!

    Reply
16. David Smith says:

    July 11, 2022 at 9:45 pm

    galerimo writes ( https://secondsightblog.net/2022/07/01/2612/#comment-66358 ) :

    // To my comment, We are not talking about morality here. We are talking about law.

    You replied “The law” seems to me a red herring, as are so many arguments in pubs and on the Internet.

    But later when I discuss the political and social context of the 1973 legal decision you ask why I discuss that and not the legal validity or invalidity of the 1973 decision? //

    Touché. In my defense, I’ll say that to me the only substantive issue here is morality, but if we must discuss the current issue of an American court decision – and I have to agree that the title Quentin gave to his opening essay – “Roe v. Wade” – might at least seem to suggest that he had it in mind that we should discuss the legal issue, at least in part – I’d much prefer to discuss the decision itself rather than the political aspects of it, which are secondary matters, at least so far as substance is concerned, since they are merely fallout from the recent legal ruling.

    •

    // The legal reality facing citizens of the US now that what was lawful for 50 years is no longer so, according to their Federal law, is quite a shock for many. //

    Wouldn’t you agree that laws based on seriously flawed reasoning ought to be expunged? I confess that I’ve not studied in any depth the legal implications of this most recent ruling, but if, as I think it’s reasonable to conclude from even a superficial reading of the news, the 1973 ruling was overturned on the basis that it was founded on an absurdly fanciful interpretation of the American written constitution, there seems little if any solid legal reason to argue against its nullification. In fact, from the little I’ve learned about the indignant public and mainstream media uproar that has followed in the wake of this recent ruling, that objection is based not on legal arguments at all, but upon a conviction that the 1973 law – now nullified – had resulted in a highly desirable outcome in that it gave all women living in America legal permission to kill their own babies so long as they were still in the womb and that nullifying it would probably result in future baby killings becoming more difficult to arrange since their legality would henceforth depend on the laws of each of the fifty states. If as you say “many” people were “shocked” by this recent decision, they must have been very naive or out of touch, since this decision had long been predicted in the news. I think I may understand in part the reasoning behind what I take to be your suggestion that if a law has been on the books for fifty years it should be accorded a great deal of respect, since that might be the case in countries that depend on legal precedent much more than does America, whose government relies upon a written constitution.

    Reply
17. galerimo says:

    July 15, 2022 at 7:39 am

    Yes, it is a boring topic!

    I think I should know.

    Mine have been the most tedious of contributions.

    I hope it won’t be long before we are provoked by fare more fit for the well fed!

    But, one more yawn that I would like to include inour talking about it,

    Those who pointed to past statements from the Supreme Court, in which they said Roe v. Wade was a settled precedent,

    are right to feel betrayed with some of the majority Judges for misleading senators during their confirmation hearings.

    And now that it is done, I hope we will see real care from pro-life ranks in support of those faced with serious issues of pregnancy.

    Will the megaphones be silent and the rosaries cease because of a perception the problem has been solved with changing an interpretation of the law-

    In America?

    Reply
    • pnyikos says:

      August 2, 2022 at 2:18 pm

      // Those who pointed to past statements from the Supreme Court, in which they said Roe v. Wade was a settled precedent,

      are right to feel betrayed with some of the majority Judges for misleading senators during their confirmation hearings. \\

      There is a great deal of specialized information on the abysmal Opinion of the Court on Roe v. Wade that the justices had no real reason to research until the Mississippi law came to the attention of the Supreme Court. So there may have been no intent to mislead.

      // And now that it is done, I hope we will see real care from pro-life ranks in support of those faced with serious issues of pregnancy. \\

      Have you ever heard of SPUC, galerimo? You will see some examples of real caring for women from this UK pro-life organization if you follow them long enough.

      As for the USA, it is full of crisis pregnancy centers that provide women with necessities brought on by pregnancy and birth, including finding jobs for the women who come to them for help.

      All this has been done by the Columbia, SC based organization, A Moment of Hope, for women, and there are several more doing their part in the city and in the surrounding counties.

      And it extends to working for laws that pinpoint this kind of need. Mississippi, the very state that brought the Dobbs case, has begun to do just that. An article in The Center Square, Jun 24, 2022, titled “Roe v. Wade: Mississippi seeks protections for women and children” talks of how House Speaker Phil Gunn will introduce a bill for that as soon as the next legislative session begins.

      Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who argued the Dobbs case in front of the Supreme Court, is backing the effort to craft the bill, and said,

      “Now, our work to empower women and promote life truly begins. … The task now falls to us to advocate for the laws that empower women – laws that promote fairness in child support and enhance enforcement of it, laws for child care and workplace policies that support families, and laws that improve foster care and adoption.”

      Reply
18. David Smith says:

    July 19, 2022 at 1:46 am

    Abortion on demand is really a terrible thing, looked at dispassionately. I imagine that Roe vs. Wade was decided in the sudden public passion for feminism and sexual license that burst into flame in the late sixties. The socially privileged children of that overheated age have been in political, financial, and cultural power ever since, and their influence throughout the Western world has been dominant and pervasive. But now, they’re dying off, and their amoral and sex-obsessed fervor is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Roe was a logically and legally absurd decision, and its nullification was long overdue. The passions of the present age are different, and those of future generations will be different from those of the present. Change in human communities is a constant, both because humans live for only eight decades and because, since the human mind has an irresistible bent for making increasingly powerful and socially invasive tools, technology will force us all into unpredictably shaped Procrustean Beds.

    https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Future-Shock-by-Alvin-Toffler/9780593159477

    —

    Reply
19. David Smith says:

    August 6, 2022 at 7:50 am

    In America, thank God, there is life after Dobbs. And if, as is evidently currently expected, the Democratic Party loses control of both House and Senate in the upcoming election, there will not be, at least for two more years, a strong move to pass a law legalizing abortion throughout the country. In that case, there is a chance that the next generation will come of age understanding that the issue of abortion “rights” is a very problematic one and not, as has been the popular understanding for nearly a half century, a settled question, with open season on unborn children. People who have been conditioned to accept abortion on demand as normal and acceptable will in time pass on, and the horror of legalized child killing may once again become glaringly obvious.

    Reply

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