High Court Asked to Overturn Roe V. Wade

[Neil D]

[:"blue"] Congratulations, Bush women. The day that this passes is the day you loose your choice on reproduction and become a baby making machine.... [/]

WASHINGTON - The woman once known as "Jane Roe" has asked the Supreme Court to overturn its landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion 32 years ago.

Norma McCorvey, whose protest of Texas' abortion ban led to the 1973 ruling, contends in a petition received at the court Tuesday that the case should be heard again in light of evidence that the procedure may harm women.

"Now we know so much more, and I plead with the court to listen for witnesses and re-evaluate Roe v. Wade (news - web sites)," said McCorvey, who says she now regrets her role in the case.

The politically charged issue comes before the court as both sides gird for a possible bitter nomination fight over Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's replacement should the ailing justice retire this term. At least three justices, including Rehnquist, have said Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overturned.

Two lower courts last year threw out McCorvey's request to have the ruling reconsidered.

But in a strongly worded concurrence, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) judge Edith H. Jones criticized the abortion ruling and said new medical evidence may well show undue harm to a mother and her fetus.

The last major abortion decision by the Supreme Court came in 2000, when the court ruled 5-4 to strike down Nebraska's ban on so-called "partial-birth" abortion because it failed to provide an exception to protect the mother's health.

Justices since then have shown little interest in wading back to the emotional issue.

[Dr. Shane]

One would think that her timing could be better but maybe she knows something we don't. Remember if Roe v. Wade is overturned the issue goes back to the states and to the polls. So "we the people" get to decide instead of judges. Isn't that how it should be?

[Neil D]

Quote:

---

One would think that her timing could be better but maybe she knows something we don't. Remember if Roe v. Wade is overturned the issue goes back to the states and to the polls. So "we the people" get to decide instead of judges. Isn't that how it should be?

---

You may be correct, but I am assuming worst case senerio, where the Supreme Court reverses itself, and then it become law thru out the nation....

Not a good thing in my opinion. I would prefer your senerio to mine....

[bevin]

Quote:

---

So "we the people" get to decide instead of judges. Isn't that how it should be?

---

The judges have no power to enforce their rulings. We have appointed them and ask them to draw black and white lines through gray areas to avoid civil war. Having agreed to let them make the ruling, we enforce the rulings because we want the rulings to decide issues - rather than allowing mob rule.

As a society we are looking for a set of laws that 99%+ of us can agree to abide by. Such laws form the backbone of a stable and safe society. 51% is not good enough.

One of the biggest risks of democracy is the majority imposing their will on the minority. This is only marginally better than the minority imposing it on the majority. As an SDA, you should really value the right to be different, even though you are in a small minority.

Because of the need to avoid civil war, and the need to have the vast majority of our citizens agree to enforce the law, it is NOT appropriate to ban abortions. There are far too many people who oppose such a ban. Of course it would also be wrong to force people to have an opportion. Allowing choice is the path that has the largest support group right now. It is the path that avoids the breakdown of the rule of law.

All this is independent of the moral issues about abortion. Very moral people are both for and against. It is not a clear-cut moral issue - although some can pretend it is such by dismissing everyone who disagrees with their particular stance as some-degree-of-evil.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

We have descussed the abortion issue on other threads. There is no Constitution protection spelled out for abortion. The Constitution does not mention abortion, reproductive rights or even privacy. When you talk about the minority being protected from the majority most of us think of religious minorities as protected by the First Ammendment or racial minorities as protected by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.

The Tenth Ammendment reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Abortion as such was reserved to the states and the people in them.

However in 1973 the Supreme Court decided that the word "others" in the Nineth Amendment included the right to privacy. How they came to that conclusion is what is often called bad law by many.

The Nineth Ammendment reads, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people"

So you can see it is a bit of a jump to say the founders were refering to privacy and even more so to abortion. There is a right to privacy but it is spelled out in the Third and Fourth Amendments. The 3rd prohibits the government from forcing the citizens from having to house soldiers during time of peace and the 4th prohibits searches and seizures without warrants issued upon probable cause.

[Nicodema]

I heard this item on the news today, but it was not made clear what the nature of the harm is to which Ms. McCorvey refers. Are there newer studies and statistics showing a greater degree of risk and danger to the woman than was previously thought in a procedure of this nature? We all know what happens to the fetus, OK ... I was curious about her reference to "harm to women" in her request to the Supreme Court. She said, [:"purple"]"the case should be heard again in light of evidence that the procedure may harm women"[/] and I was wondering, in what way?