Roe v. Wade "turns 40"? I'm confused....

Today is the annual acknowledgement of Roe v. Wade's date of decision by the US Supreme Court.

The headlines tend to read: "Roe v. Wade turns 40".

Just as you would someones birthday.

I'm confused. Are we celebrating this as a nation?

Or are we simply taking note of the passage of time?

It seems there is much more to this year's noting of the Supreme Court decision than just couching it as a birtday of sorts; the four decades since it was decided upon have never settled what it really is.

The Court said it was a "right to privacy" in their decision.

But a right to privacy about what act?

The act that brought about the pregnancy? No, that was never the issue.

The act of seeing one's doctor about a life-threatening medical issue? Sort of... they positioned it as such.

But it was more than that, wasn't it?

It was the question of whether one person (or two, if the father is involved) has the right to end life.

The termination of pregnancy has always been at the birth of the child.

However, what was desired in Roe v. Wade was the interruption of the pregnancy and the ending of the life of that individual baby, times 60 million by now.

Maybe by saying it "turns 40" we are taking note of a decision that is finally begining to implode on itself, as Slate reported many years ago:

"Justice Sandra Day O'Connor argued in a 1983 decision that Roe was on a "collision course with itself." She said that improvements in technology would continually push the point of fetal viability closer to the beginning of the pregnancy, allowing states greater opportunity to regulate the right to an abortion."

According to National Journal, the states are looking at it a completely different way. here's how they said it today:

"The burst of anti-abortion legislation followed the 2010 election, when Republicans picked up roughly 675 legislative seats, the biggest gain by either party in decades. The GOP controlled 26 state legislatures, and in most of those states, the governor’s mansions, too."

Are we therefore now looking at the clock ticking downward rather than upward? (As in the example of reviewing how long a historical movement lasted before it terminated its journey?)

There will be no interrupting the rights of women by aborting abortion rights, there will only be the "collision course" that Justice O'Connor argued will terminate this act of ending life.

Den

 

Comments

[Dennis Mansfield]

Or we can argue whether the majority of any group substantiates the validity of a single particular public policy issue. Numbers thought the world was flat. Numbers thought slavery was good. Numbers often only favor the easier public opinion, not the harder public policy. Stu, don't make the argument ad absurdum (regarding rape incest, etc). The elimination of convenient abortions must be the argument of today. Leadership on this issue means leading, not following. My points still stand for a cogent rebuttal and I know you are the one to do so. Fire away, my friend.

[Stuart]

Or, we can pull our heads out of the sand and realize that the majority of Americans support the right to choose. Or we could look at how the 2012 vocal pro life congressional candidates faired (0-6.) Or you could ask yourself how come it is always men that are so vocal about the issue. Or you could wonder about the compromise position most prolife people take, which is no abortion unless rape, incest, or danger to the mother, never mind that a life is a life.