Abortion – whose choice is it anyway? part 1 of 3
Is abortion a personal or state decision? Who should decide if a woman impregnated through an act as heinous as rape should deliver the child? If a woman’s health or life is threatened by her pregnancy, should the state decide her fate? How much concern should the state exercise over the body of any of its citizens? These are just a few of the questions that need to be answered in the current abortion debate.
Abortion in general terms is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy before the fetus becomes fully viable. A right is defined as a moral or legal entitlement, and choice, for the purpose of this article, is simply the right or authority to choose.
My research on anti abortion laws in the United States led me to an 1857 Texas statute stating; “if any person shall designedly administer to a pregnant woman or knowingly procure to be administered with her consent any drug or medicine, or shall use toward her any violent or means whatever externally or internally applied and thereby procure an abortion, [such person] shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than two years… (Drucker, 10).” The Texas law even went further by ruling providers of abortion equipment as accomplices. Not even women whose lives depended on an abortion were safe from the state’s policing.
In March 1970, two young attorneys, fresh out of law school, decided to challenge the constitutionality of the Texas abortion law. Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington agreed to represent Norma L. Mcorvey (Jane Roe) who claimed she was raped. The rape was not mentioned in the hearings, as the young attorneys deemed her claims questionable (wikipedia.com). Though a district court ruled in favor of Jane Rowe, the state refused to go against their abortion laws. Undaunted, Roe’s attorneys appealed and the case went all the way to the US Supreme Court. The attorney representing the state of Texas was Wade, hence, this benchmark abortion case became known as Roe versus Wade.
The US Supreme court found the Texas anti-abortion laws to be in violation of a woman’s basic right to privacy, ruling that though “the Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy” the court found support for a constitutional right of privacy in the first, fourth, fifth, ninth and fourteenth amendments as well as the penumbra of the Bill of Rights. The court further reasoned that “this right of privacy” was “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy”. The court, in agreeing with Texas legislatures, stated that the state does have an interest in preserving and protecting the health of pregnant women, however, the interest of the state must always be weighed against the rights of its citizens.
