Another abortion anniversary 2021

Forty-eight years ago the Roe v Wade decision was handed down by the Supreme Court. Another anniversary has come. Most people do not realize that the State of Texas did not forbid all abortions back then, it only forbade elective abortions. Therapeutic abortions were permitted, as life-threatening complications, such as an ectopic pregnancy could arise. However, Jane Roe (fictional name) sued on the grounds of personal privacy, that is, that the State did not have the right to intrude upon her private choices.

The Court ended up agreeing, and found a right of personal privacy that has bedeviled us to this day because of its many unexpected ramifications. However, I do not wish to digress to those ramifications. Most people do not realize that the Court actually ruled that the State does have legitimate interests in protecting the health of pregnant women and the “potentiality of human life”. In other words, the fetus could not simply be treated as a bunch of cells. It further said that the State may not regulate the decision during the first trimester, but may begin to regulate in the second trimester, and that once the fetus reaches the point of viability, a state may regulate abortions or prohibit them entirely, except to save the life or health of the mother. See, “Roe v. Wade.” Oyez. Accessed January 22, 2021. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18.

We all know how quickly even those strictures were discarded. As a result, tens of millions of fetuses have been electively aborted, most of them quite viable and, as the Court said, full of the “potentiality of human life”. The two sides of the debate have radicalized. On the pro-choice side, there is quite a sizeable contingent that has no problem aborting a viable fetus as long as it is still within the mother’s womb. On the pro-life side, a prior non-Roman-Catholic broad agreement that therapeutic abortion may be permitted has dwindled so that the Roman Catholic position that even if the mother were to die, abortion may never be considered has become a dominant opinion.

I disagree with Roe v Wade. Morally, elective abortions cannot be justified. At the same time, I recognize that often we have made it harder on the pregnant mother by treating her as guilty while the father goes off scott-free. Too many pro-lifers have become merely anti-abortion, with little concern for human beings after they are born. I feel as though there are no innocents in this debate save the fetuses that are aborted. But, those fetuses must be defended.

Another anniversary has come and now almost gone. Little change has happened in those forty-eight years. But, we cannot stop trying to outlaw elective abortion.