"Pointing to a lack of contemporary consensus about pre- born personhood, the Roe Court asserted that they “need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins,” thereby failing to resolve the crucial question at the crux of the case. Much like the hunter who shoots into a quivering bush without identifying his target, the Court decided, in effect, that the human being in utero “is a non-person without stopping to consider whether or not he is a human being.” Admitting its ignorance on this important question, the Court’s only legally sound response would have been to “err on the side of life, and therefore to legally prohibit virtually all abortions.” After all, the Constitution expressly prohibits deprivations of life without due process of law, while notions of a right to privacy or a liberty interest protecting so-called reproductive rights are at best implied and unenumerated. As explained in Part II, originalist methodology establishes that the Fourteenth Amendment protects every biological member of the human family. Thus, authorizing the killing of a living organism “without knowing whether that being is a human being with a full right to life” would constitute willful judicial recklessness, “even if one later discovered that the being was not fully human.”"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p.566
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the
1424 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Roe v. Wade →
Related Quotes
"Harry Blackmun questioned Weddington again on the issue of fetal personhood, as did Potter Stewart. They wanted her t…"
"In 1938, seven Justices heard a constitutional challenge to a federal ban on shipping adulterated milk in interstate …"
"The Court has simultaneously transformed judicially created rights like the right to abortion into preferred constitu…"
"Beyond these paltry authorities, the Court adds only the argument that we should not “encourage a kitchen-sink approa…"
"JUSTICE BREYER, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR and JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting. The procedural posture of this case l…"
"JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting. The Court’s order is stunning. Presen…"
"By the time that Michael Taylor sent out his communiqué, pro-life lawyers had been preparing legal arguments in Roe a…"
"Lawyers for the states of both Georgia and Texas argued that abortion restrictions were appropriate because the state…"
"Pro-life lawyers had complained before about the poor quality of state attorney’s attempts to defend restrictive abor…"
"Ellen McCormack’s Long Island-based organization, Women for the Unborn, which now had 2,000 members, submitted a brie…"