"The abortion debate in this country has been framed as a conflict between abstract interests in life and liberty-fetal life, when it is protected by the state, and the liberty of women to terminate their pregnancies. In 1973, the abortion conflict was settled legally by the U.S. Supreme Court in “Roe v. Wade”, when the Court balanced the two conflicting interests and announced a prescription for future accommodation. However, the Roe decision neither settled the national dispute about abortion nor provided instruction on the proper role of courts in the social drama played out around the life and death issues that advancing medical technology puts in high relief. Instead, the decision seemed only to fuel the acrimony between pro-life and pro-choice advocates and to raise serious questions about the function of the Supreme Court in our constitutional democracy."