Source: http://advocatesaz.org/2015/01/22/roe-v-wade-repercussions-on-the-movement-for-reproductive-rights/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 10:43:43+00:00

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Each January, reproductive justice advocates celebrate the Roe v. Wade decision because it is absolutely essential that a woman is able to obtain an abortion if that is what she decides — because she, and she alone, should decide her future and fate. However, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade was never about women’s rights. Numerous legal scholars in favor of reproductive rights have taken issue with how Roe v. Wade was handled. Their criticisms are largely that: (1) the Supreme Court went beyond its role of judicial power and into that of legislative power by making abortion legal in all 50 states, and (2) the Supreme Court failed to make the decision about a woman’s right to choose her own future. Below is only a brief cross-section of these criticisms.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (aka the Notorious RBG) has openly disagreed with how the court handled Roe v. Wade. Speaking to the ruling overstepping its role, Ginsburg felt that it “moved too far, too fast,” with the underlying opinion that it should be the states that are given the power to decide these legislative matters for themselves versus the Supreme Court deciding it for them (especially given that the Supreme Court should not have legislative power within the system of checks and balances).
Ginsburg felt other cases through the court system at the same time were more reflective of real issues women face relative to their bodies and their future. For example, she stated that if the court had instead heard the case of U.S. Air Force Capt. Susan Struck, they would have had to view abortion within the context of it being a decision that a woman makes about her life and her future. In this case, Struck became pregnant while serving in Vietnam. The Air Force gave Struck the choice either to terminate the pregnancy or resign from the Air Force, but she wanted both to keep her job and continue her pregnancy. The Air Force eventually allowed Struck to retain her position and, thus, the Supreme Court never heard the case. However, Ginsburg noted this case as one that clearly demonstrates that abortion law is about a woman’s decision about her body and her future.
Finally, in 1973, renowned Constitutional law scholar John Hart Ely famously critiqued the ruling. Ely observed that Roe v. Wade was influenced by the 1965 Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut, which stated that existing laws outlawing contraception were unconstitutional because they violated a married couple’s constitutional right to privacy. Because Ely cites Griswold v. Connecticut as one that influenced Roe v. Wade, it is worth mentioning that this case was also not about women’s rights. The original court ruling stated that a woman could only obtain birth control as part of a married couple making a decision together rather than as a woman making a choice about her future.
What is unusual about Roe is that the liberty involved is accorded a far more stringent protection, so stringent that a desire to preserve the fetus’s existence is unable to overcome it — a protection more stringent, I think it fair to say, than that the present Court accords the freedom of the press explicitly guaranteed by the First Amendment. What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers’ thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation’s governmental structure. Nor is it explainable in terms of the unusual political impotence of the group judicially protected vis-a-vis the interest that legislatively prevailed over it.
More than 40 years after the Roe v. Wade decision, 53 percent of Americans want it upheld, while only 29 percent want to see it overturned. In addition, an estimated 30 percent of women will have an abortion by the time they are 45 years old, making it one of the most common medical procedures in the United States. Although abortion is common and access to it is supported by the majority of Americans, discourse surrounding the issue of women’s rights to make their own health care decisions has been distorted in recent decades.
If the Roe v. Wade case had either been framed as being about a woman’s right to choose her own future, or the Supreme Court had heard another case that better demonstrated that right, it may have smoothed the path to women making their own health care decisions without obstacles from influential groups, such as organizations representing the religious right. Further, if the Supreme Court turned the decision over to the states to set abortion law within their jurisdictions, this perhaps would have opened the door to a conversation about women’s equality and rights over their own bodies versus opening the door to legislators and organizations that are using every legal loophole they can find to lead down a path of ending access to abortion in our country.
This entry was posted in Abortion, History and tagged 14th Amendment, abortion, autonomy, Cass Sunstein, checks and balances, Christian right, due process, Equal Rights Amendment, Griswold v. Connecticut, Harry Blackmun, Jerry Falwell, John Hart Ely, judicial power, legislative power, Moral Majority, privacy, religious right, Roe v. Wade, Ronald Rotunda, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, states' rights, Supreme Court, women's rights by Marcy. Bookmark the permalink.

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