Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center
Date: Friday, 8 Jan 1993 10:42:06 EST
From: Marty Helgesen <MNHCC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: What The Supreme Court Said

In a few days it will be the anniversary of the pair of 1973 Supreme
Court decisions that legalized abortion on demand for the full nine
months of pregnancy.  Many people are still under the erroneous
impression that the Court legalized only early abortions because
statements to that effect still appear in the media.    There is some
excuse for the media having said that at first, because Roe v. Wade
seems to make that distinction, but there is no excuse for them con-
tinuing to repeat it after the facts were pointed out as they were
repeatedly by pro life organizations and individuals.

The Court's language which led to the misimpression is:

     "(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first
trimester, the  abortion decision and its effectuation must be left
to the medical judgement of the pregnant woman's attending physician.

     "(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the
first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health
of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in
ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

     "(c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promot-
ing its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it
chooses, regulate and even proscribe abortion except where it is
necessary, in appropriate medical judgement, for the preservation of
the life or health of the mother."  (Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113, at
164)

Obviously (a) provides no authority for forbidding abortion, nor does
(b), which permits only restrictions such as requiring that abortions
after the first trimester be performed in hospitals or clinics with
emergency equipment rather than in a doctor's office.  We are left
with (c), which covers only approximately the last ten weeks of
pregnancy.  However, the exception clause makes (c) ineffective and
meaningless when it is read in conjunction with the companion deci-
sion Doe v. Bolton, as the Court said it must be.  In that decision
the Court gave the word "health" a meaninglessly broad definition:

     "We agree with the District Court, 319 F. Supp., at 1058, that
the medical judgement may be exercised in the light of all factors -
physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age -
relevant to the well-being of the patient.  All these factors relate
to health."  (410 U.S. 179, at 192)

The Court also struck down the requirement for a second medical
opinion:

     "The statute's emphasis, as has been repetitively noted, is on
the attending physician's 'best clinical judgement that an abortion
is necessary.'  That should be sufficient.  The reasons for the
presence of the confirmation step in the statute are perhaps appar-
ent, but they are insufficient to withstand constitutional chal-
lenge."  (410 U.S. 179, at 199)

Therefore, a woman who wants an abortion during the last trimester of
her pregnancy need find only one doctor, the abortionist himself, who
will say that the pregnancy endangers the mother's health, using the
meaninglessly broad definition of health quoted above.  The possible
restrictions permitted in (c) can be evaded easily and have no prac-
tical effect.  We are left with abortion on demand for the full nine
months of pregnancy.
-------
Marty Helgesen
Bitnet: mnhcc@cunyvm   Internet: mnhcc@cunyvm.cuny.edu

"Experience beats in vain upon a congenital progressive."
        --  C. S. Lewis
Newsgroups: talk.abortion