The Abortion debate. Roe vs Wade

There is no better case to explain the debate around abortion than the US Supreme court case of Jane Roe vs Henry Wade.

In this case, Jane challenged the Texas law against abortion and the law was struck down making the abortion procedure legal

Abortion is a controversial topic & the world over, people are divided into two camps, pro-life & pro-choice. Some may think it is about religion but nothing can be further from the truth. The right to life & the right to choose are fundamental rights across religions & cultures

McCorvey ( Jane Roe), who had grown up in difficult, impoverished circumstances, previously had given birth twice and given up both children for adoption. At the time of McCorvey’s pregnancy in 1969 abortion was legal in Texas—but only for the purpose of saving a woman’s life.

That time there was secret abortion in the US but they were very expensive because they involved either bribing a Doctor or travelling to a country where abortion is legal.

After trying unsuccessfully to get an illegal abortion,...

McCorvey was referred to Texas attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, who were interested in challenging anti-abortion laws.

In court documents, McCorvey became known as “Jane Roe.”

Roes Lawyer argued;

Abortion affects women disproportionately

A pregnancy to a woman is perhaps one of the most determinative aspects of her life. It disrupts her body. It disrupts her education. It disrupts her employment. And it often disrupts her entire family life.

Because of the impact abortion has on the woman, this is a matter which is of such fundamental and basic concern to the woman involved that she should be allowed to make the choice as to whether to continue or to terminate her pregnancy.

The right to privacy and to chose.

The court decided that;

Regardless of exactly which of its provisions were involved, the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of liberty covered a right to privacy that generally protected a woman's decision whether or not to abort a pregnancy.

The Court reasoned that outlawing abortions would infringe a pregnant woman's right to privacy for several reasons: having unwanted children "may force upon the woman a distressful life and future"; ...

...it may bring imminent psychological harm; caring for the child may tax the mother's physical and mental health; and because there may be "distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child"

The Court, however, rejected the notion that this right to privacy was absolute. It held instead that the abortion right must be balanced against other government interests. Some limitations on the right to choose to have an abortion:
1. the mother's health,
2. the fetus's life.

Pro-Life.

When it came to the issue of the life of the fetus, all sides could not agree on what point does life begins, from conception to birth.

The court did not decide on that because it felt it could not speculate or pretend it knows.

In 1973, the Supreme Court struck down the Texas law banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure nationwide. The court declared that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment.

The court divided pregnancy into three trimesters and declared that the choice to end a pregnancy in the first trimester was solely up to the woman.
In the second trimester, the government could regulate abortion, in order to protect the mother’s health.

In the third trimester, the state could prohibit abortion to protect a fetus that could survive on its own outside the womb, except when a woman’s health was in danger.

Pro-Choice arguments.

1. woman has the right to chose what she can and can't do with her body.
2. The foetus exists inside a woman's body, therefore, she has the right to decide whether the foetus remains in her body

3. the right to abortion is vital for individual women to achieve equality and their full potential.
4. banning abortion puts women at risk by forcing them to use illegal abortion.

Pro-life arguments.

1. A foetus is not the same sort of thing as a leg or a liver: it is not just a part of a woman's body, but is (to some extent) a separate 'person' with its own right to life.
2. people do not have the complete right to control their bodies. ...

... All people are subject to various restrictions on what they do with their bodies - and some of these restrictions such as laws against suicides or mercy killing are just as invasive.
3. Deliberately killing an innocent person is wrong.