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Abortion 3
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Abortion
- Gold Folder Created: August 2009
“Curses on the law! Most of my fellow citizens are the sorry consequences of uncommitted abortions.”
~ Karl Kraus
“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”
~ Pope Benedict XVI
Is any issue as touchy or as prone to inciting emotional responses as the complicated topic of elective abortion? Elective abortion means the voluntary termination of a pregnancy for reasons other than protecting the endangered life of the mother. Commentators on the abortion issue have varied definitions of what constitutes "voluntary," but most of the controversy on this issue centers on abortions that are not "medically necessary."
The most fundamental question related to abortion is whether elective abortion should be allowed and to what extent it should be regulated. On one side of this question are those who describe themselves as "pro-choice" and favor the mostly unhindered availability of abortion to women. On the other side are those who call themselves "pro-life" and see abortion as the murder of unborn babies. The number of reported abortions has been declining in recent years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 245 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2000, down from 344 in 1990.[1] The year 1990 is generally considered a peak year for elective abortions following a trend beginning with the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.[2]
Roe forms the focal point for most discussions regarding elective abortion. This landmark case allowed certain restrictions on late-term abortions, but established most abortions as protected under the Constitution. Finding a right to privacy buried in the "penumbra" of the Bill of Rights, the majority represented by the writing of Harry Blackmun interpreted a constitutional freedom for elective abortion.[3] A "penumbra" is a "space of partial illumination (as in an eclipse) between the perfect shadow on all sides and the full light."[4] Hidden in this ambiguous shadow, according to the seven-justice majority, was a key to a constitutional right that had only been referenced for the first time thirteen years earlier in Griswold v. Connecticut.[5] This "penumbra" has resulted in almost 50 million legal elective abortions.[6]
Prior to the Roe decision, abortion laws varied from state to state, with most states banning it unless certain criteria were met. Abortion was allowed in cases in which the life of the mother was threatened by not having the procedure, and in some states it was also allowed if the woman had been raped, was unmarried or had non-life threatening health concerns that would be complicated by pregnancy. The Supreme Court ruling protected access to abortion as part of the constitutional right to privacy (the one hidden in the "penumbra"). However, Roe also permitted individual states to pass laws banning abortion after viability—the point at which a fetus could survive outside of the womb—so long as those laws made exemptions for the woman's health. The Supreme Court revisited the Roe decision in 1992, when it ruled on laws that Pennsylvania had passed to regulate abortion. The laws required that women wait 24 hours to get abortions, that their husbands be notified and that the parents of underage girls be notified. In its decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court ruled that states could put restrictions on abortion, but only if they did not place an "undue burden" on women seeking the procedure. The court upheld the waiting period and parental notification law in Pennsylvania, but rejected the requirement that wives tell their husbands as an undue burden.[7]
President Obama stands to have a major influence on the abortion debate with any judicial appointments he makes as president. With six Supreme Court Justices already well into their 70s now, it seems likely that the current President will get to appoint at least two new Justices in a first term alone, possibly five or six in a second term. No recent President has had such an opportunity; President Nixon appointed four Justices in his five years, but the six presidents since then have combined to appoint only ten Justices over thirty-five years [abortion2 image].
A President committed to appointing Justices like Scalia and Thomas (as virtually all recent Republican candidates for President have said they are) would need only one Justice appointment to eliminate the constitutional "right to abortion" first recognized by Roe v. Wade and then narrowed by Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992. Justices Scalia and Thomas have long sought to return to a more "originalist" interpretation of the constitution which denies the "penumbra" rights first enumerated by the Griswold court and they likely have the support of the two Bush 43 appointees, Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts-leaving them one vote short of the five necessary to overturn Roe. All of the next five likely retirees are supporters of decisions (a) protecting a constitutional right to abortion and (b) refusing to overturn Roe. If any Republican similar to recent past Republican nominees prevails in 2012, the Court very likely would have at least six votes to overrule Roe.[8]
Scott A. Moss, an associate professor of law at University of Colorado Law School, predicts that the first term of an Obama presidency simply will preserve the status quo that the Constitution protects abortion rights; the second term could see a return to the broader right to abortion that Roe announced but that has been rolled back in recent years.[9] Both of the likely retirees during President Obama's first term-Justices Stevens and Ginsburg-support the broad form of the right to abortion that Roe announced, so replacing them with even the strongest abortion rights supporters would not change any votes at the Court. In a second term, President Obama could bring about a return to the stronger Roe-era abortion rights of the 1970s and early 1980s by replacing two Justices: (1) most significantly, Justice Kennedy, who, in 5-4 votes at the Supreme Court, has voted (along with Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts) to allow various abortion restrictions, including blanket bans on the procedure alternately known as "partial birth" or "intact D&X" abortion; and (2) secondarily, Justice Souter, who in Planned Parenthood v. Casey voted to allow abortion-restricting, "informed consent" disclosures and "waiting periods" for an abortion following an initial abortion consultation.[10]
The federal courts are an important battleground on the abortion debate, but they are one of many fronts where this contentious issue is consequentially debated. State legislatures are full of bills dealing with everything from parental and spousal notification requirements, waiting period laws, restrictions on what kind of abortions can be performed and even "personhood" amendments, which would define a fetus as a person under the state's equal protection clause. Last year, Colorado voters decided 3-to-1 against a similar measure to define fertilized human embryos as people in the state constitution. Pro-lifers have tried and failed to put similar "personhood" amendments to votes in Georgia and Oregon. North Dakota's Legislature recently rejected a "personhood" bill.[11]
The legal environment for abortion in the United States is cloudy and varies by state and is constantly changing with court rulings, legislative acts, popularly voted propositions and executive orders. Please read more about it in the "Further Research" links below.
Which side of the issue the author sides with largely taints news about abortion issues. The pro-choice authors paint those who oppose elective abortion as women-hating chauvinists who oppress with their moralistic hypocrisy. Pro-lifers are aghast at the inhuman treatment of unborn by commercially motivated abortion "doctors." For this reason, it is important to identify the source of information and arguments whenever they are presented. In their desire to persuade others of the rightness of their positions, some advocates blur the facts or misinterpret data. The use of funny facts happens on both sides of the abortion debate. In this article, I will take greater pains to identify original data sources in text as well as in footnotes.
Pro-life commentator Corey Widdison wrote that abortion is one of the most contested personal and political topics of our day. It raises emotions so high that it causes bombings at abortion clinics and abortion doctors being murdered in the street. It is so highly volatile because each side cannot comprehend why the other side thinks the way they do. Pro-lifers, for the most part, believe that abortion is murder…period. And pro-choice people believe that it’s their body, their choice, stay out of it. The people on the side of Pro-choice act like having an abortion is as common and as simple as getting your tonsils taken out. If you were to go onto the Planned Parenthood website you could better understand what I mean. They state statistics of more than 1 out of 3 women in the U.S. have an abortion by the time they are 45 years old. A statement like that makes you think that your situation is not unique and that so many woman do it that it’s not a big deal. They talk about the procedure like it’s a dental check up. And of course, Widdison notes, suggestions that you are killing a living person would never come out of their mouths.[12]
Widdison is critical of Planned Parenthood's characterizations. If it is not murder, he asks, what would you call the following procedures? Suction Aspiration is one abortion procedure that is done in the first trimester of pregnancy. The procedure involves a suction tube with a sharp edge that is inserted into the womb and dismembers the body of the baby. But does that really sound like murder to you? Another procedure is called a D&C (Dilatation and Curettage). In this procedure the cervix is dilated to allow a loop shaped knife to be inserted into the body to cut the baby into pieces to be removed. Do you think all those women knew that this is what was going to happen? I truly hope not. Did they know that their baby had a heart beat at the time of the abortion? I know this because the heart begins to beat around 22 days from conception.[13]
Douglas Burns, a columnist at the Daily Times Herald, asks, “If abortion were legal, what should the penalty be for a woman who has an abortion and a doctor who provides one?” Burns then tries to answer his own question: Should they be fined - as we do with speeders on our highways - or should they be strapped into an electric chair? Misdemeanor or felony? Bob Vander Plaats, a pro-life Iowa politician and current gubernatorial candidate, says that at the very least the doctor should lose his license. But Vander Plaats does not describe any penalty for the mother.[14] Plaats, like many discussing the abortion issue, is reluctant to go into much detail about his views. Former Iowa State Senator Jerry Behn is not thus inhibited. Buhn told Burns that he "hadn't really gone there in his mind either" when I asked him what penalties should be meted out for abortion. In the case of the doctors who provide the abortion, Behn said they are, in his mind, guilty of "premeditated murder." "It's going to make it look like I'm a warmonger running around looking for doctors to execute," he said as the interview progressed. But Behn said, "In principle it's the doctor I really get frustrated with. It is as premeditated and cold-blooded as you can get."[15]
Some radical pro-lifers have taken justice into their own hands and tried to meet their own retribution on abortion doctors. The result is acts of violence against abortionists. While advocates on both sides of the abortion issue condemn this violence – some call it “terrorism,” others label it “mislabeled passion” – it has become and remains a key part of the elective abortion discussion. "If anyone has an urge to kill someone at an abortion clinic, they should shoot me," said the late Cardinal John O'Connor, preaching to his New York City flock in 1994. "It's madness. It discredits the right-to-life movement. Murder is murder. It's madness. You cannot prevent killing by killing."[16] The cardinal's famous sound bite was part of a larger debate during the mid-1990s, as pro-life leaders articulated precise reasons why frustrated activists on the fringe of their movement should reject violence. This debate remains tragically relevant, after the killing of late-term abortionist George Tiller while he was serving as an usher at Reformation Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kan. The alleged gunman Scott Roeder has expressed sympathies for the views of activists who — as in his "Defensive Action Statement" — argue that this kind of violence is morally justified. "We ... declare the justice of taking all godly action necessary, including the use of force, to defend innocent human life (born and unborn). We proclaim that whatever force is legitimate to defend the life of a born child is legitimate to defend the life of an unborn child."[17]