Abortion In The United States

"Justice Brennan’s remark, although clearly dictum, proved extremely important. Some analysts speculate that “Eisenstadt’s’’ innovative rationale was invented with “Roe v. Wade” in view and claim that the case was, in reality, “Roe’s” only true precedent (Noonan, 1979, p.21). As a matter of fact, “Eisenstadt” dealt only with contraception-the decision whether to “beget” a child. But Justice Brennan, writing for the majority, added the reference to the decision whether to “bear” a child. Was it really done with “Roe v. Wade” in mind? In any event, this language did help establish a constitutional basis for a woman’s right to abortion. A pro-family orientation which culminated in “Griswold” was abruptly abandoned. Now, it was the individual’s privacy in matters of procreation, protected. (A little over a decade later, in 1977, Justice Brennan clarified, once again, “Griswold’s “true meaning.” He stated that “Griswold” not only held that a state could not prohibit a married couple’s use of contraceptives but that the state could not intrude on individual decisions relating to childbearing (Carey v. Population Services”, involving State restrictions on the distribution of contraceptives to minors). The metamorphosis of “Griswold” was complete: from protection of marital privacy to protection of individual autonomy in matters involving procreation.)"

"Was the “Roe” majority correct in relying on the above cases? Some constitutional scholars claim that all of those cases taken together delineate a sphere of interests which the court now grouped and denominated as “privacy.” That privacy is implicit in the liberty protected by the 14th Amendment. The individual has the right to make the fundamental decisions that shape family life: whom to marry, whether and when to have children, and with what values to rear those children. [T]he family unit does not simply c0-exist with our constitutional system; it is an integral part of it.” (Heymann, Barzelay , pp.772-772). In reply, it has been noted that “roe v. Wade” may not be seen as a vindication of the family: in fact, it is profoundly hostile to it. “The family unit which they say is an integral part of our constitutional system was rejected by the Abortion Cases…”(Noonan, 1979, p.21). Jane Roe, the challenger of the Texas statute, was single and to decide her case on the basis of marital privacy was not apposite. As emphasized by Noonan, “Roe v. Wade” is “a massive departure from the long line of cases… correctly [portrayed] as a vindication of the family” (Noonan, 1979, pp. 21-22) Second, as pointed out by the same scholar, all the precedents “treated family rights as having a natural basis superior to the law of the state… All of these cases rested on the supposition that the family rights bring protected were those of persons, and that these persons could not be unmade at will by the state” (Noonan, 1984, pp. 672-673). The “Roe” decision was thus schizoid: “[A]t the same time that it invoked such precedents (…) the Court, when treating of the unborn, felt free to impose its own notions of reality” by denying the humanness and the personhood of the fetus (Ibidem, p. 673)."

"[U]nder Roe, even a viable fetus is not entitled to constitutional protection in its own right: it must depend on what the state may consider a compelling interest. If the state decides not to protect the “potentiality of life,,”a viable fetus would not enjoy any protection in the abortion context. The only conflicting interests, as seen by the majority, are those of the woman and of the State. The rights of the fetus (and, possibly, of the father) have been completely ignored."

"The list of weaknesses of the ruling in “Roe” may be continued almost endlessly: (a Which specific constitutional provision was violated by the Texas abortion statute? Did the Court not act as a super legislature, imposing its own standards that cannot be derived from the Constitution? Did the Court invade the realm of political process to which the power to amend the Constitution was given? Did it violate the constitutional structure it was obliged to protect? b) Why was the state’s interest not sufficiently strong to sustain the Texas statute until the moment when the fetus becomes viable? If, as the majority seems to suggest, life is a process, may not the State protect it prior to viability?; c) Is the answer to the question of “when life begins” really irrelevant to the determination whether the fetus is a person within the meaning of the 14th Amendment? Is it possible to distinguish between certain life proesses (present, no doubt, at any stage of pregnancy from fertilization on) and “life? Can the presence of “life” be established without recognizing that it must reside in a “person?” Is the statement that the viable fetus, that is, capable of “meaningful life,” is still not a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment defensible as a matter of law, logic, and public policy?; d) Does the United States Supreme Court have the power to ‘restrict the protection of fundamental liberties to those classes the Court deems worthy?” (Destro, p.126). Was Justice Blackmun exceeding his power when he described the fetus as less than a person “in the whole sense?” Does that mean that it may be treated as less than human? (Noonan, 1979, p. 17) May the Court disregard(under the guise of avoiding deciding the issue “when life begins”) the unquestionable humanity of human beings and then deprive them of their personhood?; e) How important for the “Roe” majority were social policy implications? Were purely financial considerations relevant? The “Roe” decision is silent on this point, but Justice Blackmun, dissenting in “Beal v. Doe” (1977), one of the abortion funding cases stated clearly: To be sure, welfare funds are limited and welfare must be spread perhaps as best meets the community’s concept of its needs. But the cost of a nontherapeutic abortion is far less than the cost of maternity care and delivery, and holds no comparison whatsoever with the welfare costs that will burden the state for the new indigents and their support in the long, long years ahead (at p. 463). And Justice Marshall, another member of the “Roe” majority, made the point in “Beal v. Doe” that the effect of precluding abortions would be to “regulate millions of people to lives of poverty and despair” (p.462). Is it acceptable, as a matter of humanistic social policy, to view abortions as a relatively cheap method of improving the quality of life of those allowed to be born? Is life in poverty and despair not worth living?"

"f) The majority has anchored the ruling in the woman’s right to privacy, encompassing her decision whether or not to terminate the pregnancy. At the same time, however, under both “Roe v. Wade’’, and ‘’Doe v. Bolton’’, a major role in the process o decision-making is to be played by the woman’s physician. “[f]or the period of pregnancy prior to this compelling point, the attending physician in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, without regulation by the state, that, in his medical judgment, the patient’s pregnancy should be terminated.” (“Roe v. Wade”, p, 163). Similarly, in “Doe v. Bolton”, the court held that the physician’s medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors… All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment” (p. 198). If so, is the woman really free to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy? Was the Court correct in abdicating the whole responsibility to physicians?; g) Was the Court right in assuming that a physician would (should?) act as a “medical counselor” or was the Court simply naive about how the medical profession would implement the “Roe v. wade” scheme? Both opponents and proponents of abortion agree that today most abortions are performed in special abortion clinics, that a doctor sees each patient just before the procedure, and counseling by a doctor takes place very rarely (Appleton, p.201; Wardle, p.24); h) The “Roe” trimester approach was based on the state of medical knowledge and practice in existence in the beginning of the 1970s. At least two dramatic changes have taken place since then which seriously undermine the basic premise of the decision. First, in the early 1970s, infants generally were not considered viable before twenty-eight weeks of gestational age and under 1000 grams of fetal weight. Today, due mainly to advances in neonatal care, infants become viable much earlier, occasionally at 23 weeks. Survival rates for infants weighing even less than 750 grams are increasing and some experts are of the opinion that it is arguable whether any lower limit of viability is medically appropriate (Rhoden, p. 1465). As viability occurs much earlier now, abortions may be prohibited at earlier and earlier stages of pregnancy. By this ironic twist of events “Roe v. Wade: may one day become a “right0to-life” decision (Rhoden, p. 1454). But, in the late 1980s, second0trimester abortions are safer than they were in the early 1970s. If the same trend continues, at some time in the future maternal health interest will become compelling much later than the Court decreed in “Roe v. Wade”. In other words: abortions become safer and the line drawn by the Roe majority at the end of the first trimester must be thus moved further toward the birth. But in view of the advances in prenatal care, the viability marker, fixed in 1973 at the end of the second trimester, must be moved back toward the conception. It is probable that in the future the lines will pass each other “creating an overlap and (constitutionally) a hopeless contradiction within Roe) (Wolfe, p.308)"

"i)Left-wing critics of “Roe” claim, in turn, there exists an inevitable tension between the constitutionally recognized woman’s right to “reproductive freedom” and the role assigned by the Court to physicians who are to act as primary decision-makers even on non-medical issues (Appleton, p.226). These critics of the 1973 decision view abortion restrictions as constitutionally impermissible gender-based discrimination: legislation that singles out abortion for differential treatment is discriminatory because only women become pregnant and have abortions (Law). Another writer suggests that under the proper analysis abortion laws should be seen as unconstitutionally singling our pregnant women as unwilling “good Samaritans” who are obliged to endure life and health-threatening burdens (Reagan, p.1569)."

"Justice Powell acknowledged that arguments continue to be made [that] we erred in interpreting the Constitution.” But the majority refused to retreat from “Roe v.. Wade”: “Nonetheless, the doctrine of “stare decisis”, while perhaps never entirely persuasive on a constitutional question, is a doctrine that demands respect in a society governed by the rule of law. We respect it today, and reaffirm “Roe v. wade” (p.420). It is very difficult to resist the temptation to notice that the reliance by the majority on the doctrine of “stare decisis” was perverse. It should not be forgotten that in reaching the “Roe” decision the Supreme Court applied the concept of privacy in a novel context and discarded a long series of precedential decisions establishing the constitutionally protected area of privacy only in the field of familial relationships. Interestingly enough, the “Akron” majority, having declared the allegiance to the “stare decisis” principle, significantly modified the “trimester approach” mandated by “Roe”. As may be recalled, there the Court held that during the entire second trimester of pregnancy, laws regulating abortion procedure for maternal health reasons were constitutionally permissible. Ten years later, in “Akron”, an ordinance requiring all second trimester abortions to be performed in a hospital was declared unconstitutional because early second trimester abortions may now safely be performed in clinics. This means that the rigid “trimester approach” was not deemed viable by the same majority which had imposed it in “Roe”."

"Justice O’Connor emphasized that “the Roe framework [is] clearly on a collision course with itself. As the medical risks of various abortion procedures decrease, the point at which the state may regulate for reasons of maternal health is moved further toward actual child-birth. As medical science becomes better able to provide for the separate existence of the fetus, the point of viability is moved further back toward conception” (p. 2505)."

"Justice White was no less straightforward in his dissent. The majority was insecure “over its handiwork in “Roe v. Wade” and well aware than in “Roe it essentially created something our of nothing” (at 4636). In his view, a woman’s ability to choose an abortion was “a species of ‘liberty’ that is subject to the general protections of the Due Process Clause.” For White, however, this “liberty” was not so “fundamental” that “restrictions upon it call into play anything more than the most minimal judicial scrutiny” (at 4630). “[T]he time has come to recognize that “Roe v. Wade”…’ departs from a proper understanding’ of the Constitution and to overrule it” - he emphasized (at 4629). It is pertinent to note that justice Rehnquist did not file a separate dissent but joined both White’s and O’Connor’s dissenting opinions."

"In 1973, against a background of increasing litigation surrounding contraception and abortion, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the companion cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Jane Roe, who we know today as Norma McCorvey, challenged a Texas abortion law that prohibited abortions in all cases except to save a woman’s life. Unlike Roe, the statute at issue in Doe v. Bolton was based on the Model Penal Code of the ALI. Doe’s lawyers, acting on her behalf as well as several doctors, nurses, clergy, and social workers, alleged that the Georgia law was an unconstitutional undue restriction of personal and marital privacy. In a landmark 7 to 2 decision, the Supreme Court held that the “right of privacy . . . is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” The Court also recognized that the decision of whether to have a child is unique to every woman and her life circumstances, and therefore must be a personal, individual decision. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will consider in consultation. In invalidating the Texas and Georgia abortion laws, the Court effectively invalidated the abortion laws of all but four states. However, even in recognizing the fundamental right to obtain an abortion, the Court also held that this right was not absolute. To this end, the Court took a trimester approach toward to regulation of abortion, holding: 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. 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. For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. The right to privacy so central in Roe was well-recognized prior to that case, and has been repeatedly affirmed since Roe. As the Roe Court itself stated, “In a line of decisions . . . going back perhaps as far as [1891], the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution.” Indeed, prior to Roe, the Court explicitly recognized the fundamental nature of a woman’s right to control her reproduction. The Court has also recognized the intensely personal nature of the decision of whether to have children. In Eisenstadt v. Baird, affirming an unmarried individual’s fundamental right to obtain contraception, the Court stated “if the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child." A woman’s right to control her own body, articulated in Griswold, Eisenstadt, Roe, and Doe remains just as fundamental today. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized its continued viability: “Roe is clearly in no jeopardy, since subsequent constitutional developments have neither disturbed, nor do they threaten to diminish, the scope of recognized protection accorded to the liberty relating to intimate relationships, the family, and decisions about whether or not to beget or bear a child.” Moreover, the Court recently reaffirmed the fundamental right codified in Roe, and recognized how central reproductive freedom is to the lives of women. In Lawrence v. Texas, discussing the dimensions of the privacy right, the Court stated, “Roe recognized the right of a woman to make certain fundamental decisions affecting her destiny and confirmed once more that the protection of liberty under the Due Process Clause has a substantive dimension of fundamental significance in defining the rights of the person.”"

"Roe’s implications for women were profound and wide-reaching. The most immediate result, of course, was to rescue women from the back alleys, and provide access to safe, legal abortion for women who chose it. Today, abortion is one of the safest and most commonly performed medical procedures. In stark contrast to the soaring death rates from illegal abortions prior to Roe, the current death rate from legal abortion at all stages of gestation is 0.6 per 100,000 procedures. Indeed, a woman's risk of death during pregnancy and childbirth is ten times greater than the risk of death from legal abortion. Moreover, Roe marked a new beginning in women’s ability to control their own fertility and to choose whether or not to have children. Roe recognized that a woman deciding whether to continue a pregnancy, and only that woman, must make the personal choice that is in keeping with her own religious, philosophical, and moral beliefs. This freedom of choice led to the increased freedom in other areas; as the Supreme Court noted in 1992, "the ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives."31 Without this freedom, generations of women would be relegated back to constant fear of pregnancy and its consequences. Fewer women would be able to complete their educations, decide when they wished to have children, and how to order their lives to best accommodate work and family. However, these basic, fundamental rights of women have been under attack since the ink was dry on Roe and Doe."

"As the Supreme Court so aptly stated in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, While [Roe v. Wade] has engendered disapproval, it has not been unworkable. An entire generation has come of age free to assume Roe’s concept of liberty in defining the capacity of women to act in society, and to make reproductive decisions; no erosion of principle going to liberty or personal autonomy has left Roe 's central holding a doctrinal remnant; Roe portends no developments at odds with other precedent for the analysis of personal liberty . . .. Despite the fact that history demonstrates that the unavailability of legal, safe abortion does not prevent abortion but only leads women to seek unsafe abortions, it is abundantly clear that Roe’s protections are indeed in jeopardy."

"What then, would happen if Roe were overturned? Contrary to assertions that bans on abortion--including first trimester abortions--would occur in only a few states and take considerable time to enact, it is probable that many states would revive and enact immediate abortion bans. Moreover, in the absence of Roe, states would be given free reign to erode Roe; one only need look at the number of state restrictions placed on abortion provision in 2004, discussed supra, to know this is an all too real possibility. The move toward criminalizing abortion could be immediate: four states (Alabama, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin) have abortion bans in place that have never been declared unconstitutional or blocked by courts. Roe’s reversal could “trigger” these laws; that is, state officials could immediately begin enforcing these bans the day Roe is overruled. Another 13 states have abortion bans on the books that have been blocked by courts as unconstitutional. . If Roe was overturned, officials in such states could immediately file suits asking courts to set aside the orders that prevented enforcement of the laws. And, in the remaining states, legislators would be free to introduce and enact new severe restrictions or bans on abortion. Ultimately, abortion would likely remain legal in small number of states, but even in such states women’s access would likely be severely restricted. This would create a daunting, patchwork system of abortion statutes: a woman’s right to obtain an abortion would be entirely dependent on the state in which she lived or her ability to travel to another state--assuming the states that keep abortion legal would permit non-residents to obtain abortions in that state. For those women who are able to navigate this patchwork system, the need to travel and the increased demand for a dwindling number of abortion providers could lead to dangerous delays in the provision of abortion care. Even more frightening, however, is the plight that women who do not live in provider states, and are unable to travel to those states, would face. In essence, overruling Roe would force a return to the two-tier system of abortion access that was in place before 1973: women with the financial ability to travel to other states may still be able to exercise their rights, whereas low-income women (disproportionately women of color and young women) would not. We would see a return to the days of back-alley and self-induced abortions; a return to the day where women -- our daughters, our sisters, our mothers, and our wives -- sacrificed their health and lives because they felt they were left with no other option. Re-criminalizing abortion, or so severely restricting it so as to make it practically unavailable, will not end the practice of abortion; it will end the practice of safe abortion."

"In addition to the grave -- and unacceptable -- health risks women would face if forced to return to the back alleys, overruling Roe would also signal a rollback of the autonomy and equality women have achieved since Roe. Roe was not only a decision that legalized a medical procedure and protected women’s health; it was -- and is -- a decision that gave a woman the option to make the reproductive choices that were right for her health, her family, and her life. Roe protects a woman’s bodily integrity, but, just as importantly, protects a woman’s right to be responsible for the choices she makes and the options she chooses. A woman’s ability to decide when and if she will have children will ultimately make her a better mother, if she chooses to become one, and helps ensure that children are brought into families that are willing and able to both financially and emotionally care for them. A woman’s ability to control her own reproduction ensures that she can make the medical decisions central to her physical and emotional well-being. And this autonomy allows women to make the choices we perhaps now take for granted: whether and when to marry, whether and when to have children, and whether to pursue educational opportunities or a professional career. As the Supreme Court stated in upholding Roe’s central protection for a woman’s right to choose abortion, the liberty of the woman is at stake in a sense unique to the human condition and so unique to the law. The mother who carries a child to full term is subject to anxieties, to physical constraints, to pain that only she must bear. That these sacrifices have from the beginning of the human race been endured by woman with a pride that ennobles her in the eyes of others and gives to the infant a bond of love cannot alone be grounds for the State to insist she make the sacrifice. Her suffering is too intimate and personal for the State to insist, without more, upon its own vision of the woman's role, however dominant that vision has been in the course of our history and our culture. The destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her spiritual imperatives and her place in society. Finally, because the constitutional protections enunciated in Roe underpin so many other rights, Roe’s demise could open the door to encroachments on other fundamental rights grounded in privacy. For example, access to birth control is dependent on the privacy right articulated in Griswold and echoed in Roe. Contraception availability is crucial toward reducing unintended pregnancies, reducing the number of abortions, and improving women's health. In addition, improved access to contraception will allow more women to control the timing of their pregnancies. This, in turn, helps reduce infant mortality, low birth weight, and maternal health complications during pregnancy. Thus, undermining the privacy right will serve to endanger women’s health and lives even beyond the abortion decision."

"I am a mother and a sister. In addition, I have had the privilege to teach thousands of students -- young men and women -- over the more than 25 years I have been teaching. Each of these individuals has come of age in a era where his or her private decisions to have sex or remain celibate, to use birth control or not, as well as to resort to a safe and legal abortion if needed or to carry a pregnancy to term, were available options. This right has, for women in particular, given them a power over their destinies that women who came before me did not enjoy. The United States, I have always taught, is a land where rights once hard won, are not to be taken for granted, but to be held precious. No right can be more important nor more fundamental than a woman’s right to control her bodily integrity free from governmental interference. As the Court itself has concluded, to do so could be disastrous."

"People are usually surprised to learn that the Roe v. Wade decision was many hours old before I even heard about it. I came home from work-the first day I had been able to work in years, due to depression-and picked up the evening paper. Connie was taking a shower while I read the newspaper. Some newsbreak in the Watergate scandal had captured most of the ink, but in the lower right-hand corner of the Dallas Times Herald I noticed a news item announcing a Supreme Court decision about abortion. “Could this be me?” I thought. The words announcing the Court’s decision gripped me. It “was” me! I had won! And yet it seemed so strange. I had already delivered my baby and placed her for adoption, so it really wasn’t relevant to me-I couldn’t abort a child who had already been born. In the article, I was referred to only through my pseudonym, Jane Roe, so even though they were talking about me, it felt like they were talking about someone else. But I had won. There was some satisfaction in that, anyway. Of course, you might well be wondering how I could have been so far removed. Why wasn’t I at the Supreme Court when the case was argued on my behalf, for instance?"

"As soon as Sarah Weddington had my name on the affidavit, I had served my purpose. She called me back all right-four months after my child was born. “Sarah,” I said. “I had a baby “four months ago”. Where were you then? I didn’t hear from Sarah again. She had said everything was going to be okay and that she would be there, but she wasn’t. This lack of relationship was not exactly a disappointment to me. Though Sarah had passed herself off as my friend, in reality she used me. When I sat down with her and discussed the possibility of getting an abortion, Sarah knew where I could get one, because she had gotten one herself three years before. When I asked her if the court’s decision would come in time for me to get an abortion, she gave an evasive answer. And she did so with the full understanding that it would come way too late to help me. If Sarah Weddington was so interested in abortion, why didn’t she tell me where she got hers? Because I was of no use to her unless I was pregnant. She needed a pregnant woman who would sign the affidavit. If she told me how and where to get an abortion (or introduced me to people who knew, since, as a lawyer, she might have to cover herself, she wouldn’t have a plaintiff. And without a plaintiff, somebody else might get their case before the Supreme Court first. That’s why Sarah actually tried to talk me out of getting an illegal abortion in Mexico, as she had done."

"Debbie Nathan, a proabortion writer, wrote in the Texas Observer (September 25, 1995): “By not effectively informing [Norma] of [where she could get an abortion], the feminists who put together Roe v. Wade turned McCorvey into Choice’s sacrificial lamb-a necessary one, perhaps, but a sacrifice even so.” I never signed up to become a sacrificial lamb for anyone; I was just a young woman who needed help and who turned to the wrong people. After I gave up my child for adoption, I spent year searching the faces of children I passed on the streets and in supermarkets. “Is that her?” I’d ask myself. “Could that be my child?”"

"A number of years later, I read in the newspaper about an abortion clinic being bombed. “Why would anyone want to do that? I thought. I read the entire article and was surprised when one of the bombers referred to “baby killing” going on inside the clinic. I had never been inside a clinic and could not imagine what the man was talking about, but that night, I had a dream in which I saw little babies lying around with daggers in their hearts. It was a horrific vision and I kept Connie up for hours, trying to figure out what it meant. The next morning, I realized I needed to make some sort of sense out of this abortion business. Was Jane Roe, after all. What, really, had I done?"

"Well, how do they kill a baby inside a mother’s stomach, anyway? I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind. I realize it sounds very naïve, especially for a woman who had already conceived and delivered three children. Though I had seen and experienced more than my fair share of the world, there were some things about which I still didn’t have a clue-and this was one of them. Ironically enough, Jane Roe may have known less about abortion than almost anyone else."

"The first time I met Flip face-to-face was during a book signing for my book I am Roe It was a hot June night in Dallas, and my appearance had been announced via flyers, posters, newspaper notices, and the radio, so it was not hard for the antis to be informed and prepared. Rescue was out in full force. Ironically, it was Ronda Mackey-the woman whose daughter eventually got me to church-who distributed a list of tough questions that people could ask me during the open question-and-answer time. After I became a Christian, I finally saw a copy of one of these sheets: Questions to Ask Norma McCorvey (Don’t let people see you looking at this paper) 1. What happened to the baby that you were trying to abort? 2. Have you had an abortion since Roe v. Wade? Have you used you “right to choose”? Why or why not? 3. Ninety-five percent of women who had an abortion said if they had any other choice, they would have taken it (survey done by Nurturing Network). You were in a difficult situation when you were pregnant during Roe What would you have needed in order to give life to your child, or not want an abortion? 4. The Alan Guttmacher Institute determined that over 90 percent of the women who had an abortion suffered complications (physical and/or emotional). What are you doing to help or counsel women after the abortion-especially those who are hurt from it? There were many questions like this, but the last one may have been the most intriguing: 9. It seems the abortion industry has just been using you from the beginning. They used your sad situation to get abortion legalized, then they didn’t even call you when the case was won in the Supreme Court. They didn’t have anything to do with you until the Webster decision, when it seemed like Roe would be overturned. Have you ever intellectually questioned how the abortion industry operates, or the arguments they use? Have they-the feminists and abortion providers-listened to you and changed anything? I think you can see why Ronda eventually ended up being so successful in reaching out to me!"

"Good morning. My name is Norma McCorvey. I'm sorry to admit that I'm the Jane Roe of Roe v Wade. The affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court didn't happen the way I said it did, pure and simple. I lied! Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffey needed an extreme case to make their client look pitiable. Rape seemed to be the ticket. What made rape even worse? A gang rape! It all started out as a little lie, but my little lie grew and became more horrible with each telling. Not only did I lie, but I was lied to. I did not come to the Supreme Court on behalf of a class of women. I wasn't pursuing any legal remedy for my unwanted pregnancy. I did not go to the Federal Courts for relief. I met Sarah Weddington to find out how I could obtain an abortion. She and Linda Coffey said they didn't know where to get one. Sarah already had an abortion but she lied to me just like I lied to her! She knew where to get one, obviously, but I was of no use to her unless I was pregnant. Sarah and Linda were looking for somebody, anybody, to use to further their own agenda. I was their most willing dupe. Since all these lies succeeded in dismantling every state's protection of the unborn child, I think it's fair to say that the entire abortion industry is based on a lie."

"It was my pseudonym, Jane Roe, which had been used to create the "right" to abortion out of legal thin air. But Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffey never told me that what I was signing would allow women to come up to me 15, 20 years later and say, "Thank you for allowing me to have my five or six abortions. Without you, it wouldn't have been possible.""

"I am dedicated to spending the rest of my life undoing the law that bears my name. It is my sincere prayer that there be no 30th anniversary of Roe v Wade. I would like nothing more than to have this law overturned, either by an act of Congress or a reversal in the Supreme Court."

"Senator ASHCROFT. Now, Ms. McCorvey, you indicated that there were a lot of misrepresentations when you sought to have an abortion back in the 1970’s, and you indicated that you weren’t valuable to those who wanted to use you if you had an abortion. You needed to continue to be pregnant? Ms. MCCORVEY. Yes, I had to stay pregnant."

"Thirty-three years ago, I came before the United States District Court Northern District of Texas Dallas Division as the Plaintiff “Jane Roe”, the young woman whose case legalized abortion in the United States, “Roe v. Wade” At that time, I was an uninformed young woman. Today I am a fifty-five-year old woman who knows the tragedy that arose from my unsuspecting acquiescence in allowing my life to be used to legalize abortion."

"In 1970, I told this Court in the form of an affidavit that I desired to obtain an abortion never really understanding the ramifications."

"My personal experience with this three-decade abortion-experiment has compelled me to come forward, not only or myself and the women I represented then, but for those women whom I now represent. It is my participation in this case that began the tragedy, and it is with great hope that I now seek to end the tragedy I began."

"Previously, the courts, without looking into my true circumstances or taking the time to decide the real impact abortion would have upon women, used me, my life, and my circumstances to justify abortion. Those judges who made the earlier decisions never had the advantage of the real facts to base their decision because the entire basis for Roe v. Wade was built upon false assumptions. Consequently, the decision as rendered in a vacuum totally devoid of findings of facts and solely based upon what abortion advocates wanted women. Because the courts allowed my case to proceed without my testimony, without ever explaining to me the reality of abortion, without being cross-examined on my erroneous perception of abortion, a tragic mistake was made - a mistake that this Court has the opportunity to remedy."

"The years following the Roe v. Wade decision have been very difficult, in a number of respects, but my life was never easy."

"[W]hen I became pregnant with the “Roe” baby, I was really in a predicament. My mother expressed her disapproval and told me how irresponsible I had been. She made it clear that she was not going to take care of another baby."

"Although I knew I was pregnant, I waited for a while before I went to the doctor. While I was waiting to be examined, I questioned the some of ladies in the waiting room about whether they knew where a woman could go to have an abortion. A lady told me where an illegal clinic was located and told me that it would cost $250.00. Following our discussion, I told the doctor that I wanted to have an abortion, but he refused stating that abortion was illegal. He didn’t believe in abortion and gave me the phone number of an adoption attorney."

"When I had saved about two hundred dollars, I took a cross-town bus to the illegal clinic, which turned out to be a dentist’s office that had been closed down the previous week. For some reason, I felt relieved yet angry at the same time. All my emotions were peaking; first, I was angry, then I was happy, and then I’d cry. From the abortion clinics, I took the bus to my dad’s apartment and decided to speak with the adoption attorney. The attorney set up the meeting and referred me to Sarah Weddington, the attorney who represented me in Roe v. Wade."

"Following the adoption attorney’s introduction, Weddington invited me out to dinner. Although Weddington and I were about the same age, our lives were quite different. She was a young attorney, and I was homeless and lived in a park. Unconcerned about politics, I sold flowers and an underground newspaper that described the types and availability of illegal narcotics. At the time, I simply sought to survive. During our initial meeting, I met with Sarah Weddington and her friend, Linda Coffee. Both Weddington and Coffee had recently finished law school, and they wanted to bring a class action suit against the State of Texas to legalize abortion."

"During our meeting, they questioned me, “Norma, don’t you think that abortion should be legal?” Unsure, I responded that I did not know. In fact, I did not know what the term abortion” really meant. Back in 1970, no one discussed abortion. It was taboo, and so too was the subject of abortion. The only thing I knew about the word was in the context of war movies. I had heard the word “abort” when John Wayne was flying his plane and ordered the others to “Abort the mission.” I knew “abort” meant that they were “going back”. “Abortion”, to me, meant “going back” to the condition of not being pregnant. I ever looked the word up in the dictionary until after I had already signed the affidavit. I was very naive. For their part my lawyers lied to me about the nature of abortion. Weddington convinced me, “It’s just a piece of tissue. You just missed your period.” I didn’t know during the “Roe v. Wade case that the life of a human being was terminated."

"That evening, the two female lawyer and I discussed the case over a few pitchers of beer and pizza at a small restaurant in Dallas. Weddington, Coffee, and I were drinking beer and trying to come up with a pseudonym for me. I had heard that whenever women were having illegal abortions, they wouldn’t carry any identification with them. An unidentifiable woman was often referred to as Jane Doe. So we were trying to come up with something that would rhyme with “Doe”. After three of our pitchers of beer, we started with the letter “a” and eventually reached “r” and agreed on “Roe”. Then I asked, “What about Jane for the first name?” Janie used to be my imaginary friend as a child. I told them about her and how she always wanted to do good things for people, and it was decided – I became Jane Roe, by the stroke of a pen."

"These young lawyers told me that they had spoken with two or three other women about being in the case, but they didn’t fit their criteria. Although I did know what “critieria” meant, I asked them if I had what it took to be in their suit. They replied, “Yes. You’re white. You’re young, pregnant, and you want an abortion.” At that time, I didn’t know their full intent. Only that they wanted to make abortion legal, and they thought I’d be a good plaintiff. I came for the food, and they led me to believe that they could help me get an abortion."

"After our meeting, I went to my father’s apartment and began to drink alcohol heavily. I was depressed with my plight in life. I tried to drown my troubles in alcohol. Shortly thereafter I even attempted suicide by slitting my wrists. When my father questioned me about what was troubling me, I responded that I was pregnant again. When he asked me what I was going to do, Iresponded that I was thinking about having an abortion. He inquired, “What is that?” I said, “I don’t know. I haven’t looked it up yet.”"

"Later, Weddington and Coffee presented the affidavit for my signature at Coffee’s office. I told them that I trusted them and that I did not need to read the affidavit before I signed it. I never read the affidavit before signing it and do not, to this very day, now what is written in the affidavit. Both Weddington and Coffee were aware that I did not read the affidavit before I signed it. At no time did they tell me that I had to read it before they accepted my signature. I told them that I trusted them. We called ourselves “the three musketeers.” I know now that is one place I went wrong. I should have sat down and I should have read the affidavit. I may not have understood everything in the affidavit and I would have probably signed it anyways. I trusted the lawyers."

"My lawyers never discussed what an abortion is, other than to make the misrepresentation that “it’s only tissue”. I never understood that the child was already in existence. I never understood that the child was a complete separate human being. I was under the false impression that abortion somehow reversed the process and prevented the child from coming into existence. In the two to three years during the case no one, including my lawyers told me that an abortion is actually terminating the life of an actual human being. The courts ever took any testimony about this, and I heard nothing which shed light on what abortion really was."

"In 1972, Sarah Weddington argued in the courts, presumptuously on my behalf, that women should be allowed to obtain a legal abortion. The courts did not ask whether I knew what I was asking for. The abortion decision that destroyed every state law protecting the rights of women and their unborn babies was based on a fundamental misrepresentation. I had never read the affidavit, and I did not know what an abortion was. Weddington and the other supporters of abortion used me and my circumstance to urge the courts to legalize abortion without any meaningful trial which addressed the humanity of the baby, and what abortion would do to women. At that time, I was a street person. I lived, worked, and panhandled out on the streets. My totally powerless circumstance made it easy for them to use me. My presence was a necessary evil. My real interests were not their concern."

"As the class action plaintiff in the most controversial U.S. Supreme Court case of the twentieth century, I only met with the attorneys twice. Once over pizza and beer, when I was told that my baby was only “tissue” and another time at Coffee’s office to sign the affidavit. I had no other personal contacts. I was never invited into court. I never testified. I was never present before any court on any level, and I wasnever at any hearing on my case. The entire case was an abstraction. The facts about abortion were never heard. Totally excluded from every aspect and every issue of the case, I found out about the decision from the newspaper just like the rest of the country."

"In a way, my exclusion, and the exclusion of real meaningful findings of fact in Roe v. Wade, is symbolic of the way in which the women of the nation and their experiences with abortion have been ignored in a national debate by the abortion industry. The view that is presented is the view of what the abortion industry thinks is good for women. The reality of women’s experiences is never presented."

"I never had an abortion gave the baby up for adoption. It was only later in life that I was confronted with the reality of abortion. Being unskilled and uneducated, with alcohol and drug problems, finding and holding a job was always a problem for me. But with my notoriety from Roe v. Wade, abortion facilities, usually paying a dollar an hour more than minimum wage, were always willing to add “Jane Roe” to their ranks."

"Even scholars who agree in principle with the outcome of Roe have criticized the Court’s blanket approach to creating a federally protected right to abortion. Justice Blackmun’s assumption that “the lack of consensus” about when life begins means that “abortion must be permitted,” rather than left to state legislatures, has been criticized as “arbitrary” and unwarranted. When Roe determined that states could not protect preborn humans as persons, “the Court effectively decided that the Constitution requires their exclusion.” Other commentators have contested the central holding of Roe but do not believe the Constitution justifies a blanket policy prohibiting abortion either. Some in this camp have argued that a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution is the best or only way to respond to Roe’s inadequacies.13 Some have advocated returning abortion policy to the states. The late Justice Antonin Scalia frequently noted his opposition to Roe and his belief that individual states should determine their abortion policy through democratic processes. In either case, if Roe’s critics are correct, constitutional scholars must revisit whether the Fourteenth Amendment protects prenatal life or whether each state may choose to permit abortion."

"In the eighteenth century, Coke’s description “quick with child” (the point at which the child is first able to move, then considered to be the beginning of existence) was equated with “quickening” (the point at which the mother first feels fetal movement). This distinction was intended to protect prenatal life as soon as it could be discerned, not to exclude human life from protection prior to that point. Once again, “quickening was a flexible standard of proof—not a substantive judgment on the value of unborn human life.” The Roe Court made much of the quickening rule in its rush to dismiss the personhood of the preborn, but failed to see that the rule was merely a tool of criminal law, not a statement about the value of life prior to perceptible movement in the womb. The “quickening” distinction survived in common law until emergent medical science discovered “that human life began at fertilization,” allowing medical examiners to prove prenatal life and cause of death due to abortion with greater certainty. After this discovery in the early nineteenth century, British courts instructed jurors that “quick with child,” which had earlier meant “formed and animated,” now meant “from the moment of conception.” When determining whether to grant temporary reprieve from execution for a pregnant woman, for example, the court in Regina v. Wycherley81 reinterpreted common law to reflect that new scientific fact in 1838."

"How did the Roe Court avoid the strong historical basis for considering prenatal life “persons” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment? Besides relying on the inaccurate Means brief, Justice Blackmun examined: (1) narrow exceptions to the common law rule against abortion, such as to save the life of the mother; (2) varying degrees of punishment for the crime of abortion, including occasional immunity for women who procured abortions; and (3) the supposed lack of contemporary consensus about the status of preborn humans, to determine that human beings in utero were never “recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.” These arguments against constitutional personhood for the preborn have been repeated by advocates of a state-by-state approach to abortion."

"The Roe Court supposed that narrow exceptions in state abortion statutes for the life of the mother indicated that prenatal human beings were considered nonpersons. But these exceptions were not based “on a legislative preference for the life of the mother over the life of the child, but on the general defense of ‘legal necessity,’” which is connected to self-defense. Only the impending death of the mother was considered a grave enough reason to consider abortion. The acknowledgement of these rare circumstances “does not demonstrate a lack of legislative recognition of the personhood of the unborn child.” Even if Justice Blackmun were correct that Texas’s exception for the life of the mother violated equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, it would not indicate that prenatal life is excluded from the Amendment’s protections. It would only show that Texas inconsistently applied the protections of the Amendment."

"The Roe Court pointed to the varying severity of charges and punishments among state laws proscribing abortion prior to and after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment as evidence that states did not believe in preborn personhood. In some jurisdictions, the maximum sentence for abortion was less severe than for murder. The Court believed this suggested that the law did not include fetuses as persons during this period. But the principle permitting legislatures to determine how to classify and punish different types of unlawful killing is one of historical provenance. It says nothing about the personhood status of the victim. In his Lectures on Law, the early American legal scholar and founding father James Wilson recognized that policy-driven ranges of punishment for crimes of killing were permissible.144 He wrote that “grades of solicitude, discovered, by the law, on the subject of life” exist, and he acknowledged that the law may consider “different degrees of aggression” against life. How these various “degrees may be justified, excused, alleviated, aggravated, redressed, or punished,” he said, “will appear both in the criminal and in the civil code of our municipal law.”"

"Roe, I believe, would have been more acceptable as a judicial decision if it had not gone beyond a ruling on the extreme statute before the Court. The political process was moving in the early 1970s, not swiftly enough for advocates of quick, complete change, but majoritarian institutions were listening and acting. Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict. The public funding of abortion decisions appear incongruous following so soon after the intrepid 1973 rulings. The Court did not adequately explain why the "fundamental" choice principle and trimester approach embraced in Roe did not bar the sovereign, at least at the previability stage of pregnancy, from taking sides. Overall, the Court's Roe position is weakened, I believe, by the opinion's concentration on a medically approved autonomy idea, to the exclusion of a constitutionally based sex-equality perspective. I understand the view that for political reasons the reproductive autonomy controversy should be isolated from the general debate on equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities for women and men. I expect, however, that organized and determined opposing efforts to inform and persuade the public on the abortion issue will continue through the 1980s. In that process there will be opportunities for elaborating in public forums the equal-regard conception of women's claims to reproductive choice uncoerced and unsteered by government."