As there is no other place to post this, I'd like to remind everyone that this is the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision to allow abortion, a horrible legal decision, regardless of opinion. I am asking that everyone take a moment of silence and think about the 50 million lives that have been DENIED the most basic right that we all enjoy, the Right to Life.
Great piece on the matter below.
"Few Supreme Court decisions have had as much of an impact on American life as has Roe v. Wade, which subsequent courts have interpreted as having discovered a constitutional right to abortion for virtually any reason and at any time during pregnancy. Since Roe, abortion has taken the lives of at least 50 million Americans (equal to the combined populations of 25 states). The demographic repercussions of Roe continue to shape voting patterns and are a driving force behind America’s fast-approaching entitlements crisis.
Despite its prominence, several profound misconceptions exist about Roe. These misconceptions help to explain why it remains so controversial 36 years after it was handed down.
The first misconception is that the right to abortion has constitutional roots. But Roe’s justification actually derives from an abstract interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s premise of liberty and the malleable concept of a right to privacy found not in the actual text of the Constitution but rather in its “penumbras” and emanations. These foundations are so dubious that even leading lights on the left have criticized Roe’s legal reasoning. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for example, has called Roe “heavy-handed judicial intervention.”
A second misconception is that Americans overwhelming support Roe v. Wade. But the public remains remarkably uninformed about what the court ruling means. The left has done a great job convincing many Americans that Roe is simply a synonym for abortion rights and that, if one supports even a limited right to abortion, one must also support Roe.
In a 2007 study of registered voters, respondents were asked whether they wanted Roe overturned. A majority (55 percent) said no, while 34 percent said yes. But when respondents were told what Roe means — that it prohibits states from limiting abortion during the first six months of pregnancy and that, if Roe were overturned, states could pass laws that would permit abortion — the share who opposed reversing Roe dropped 7 points, to 48 percent. Meanwhile, the number of people who supported overturning Roe jumped 9 points, to 43 percent. That’s a 16-point swing.
The survey actually understated how extreme Roe is. For instance, surveyors didn’t explain that the “health” exception to late-term prohibitions is so expansive that abortion is effectively available for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy, something most Americans oppose.
Another misconception concerns what would happen if Roe were overturned. The day after Roe’s reversal, abortion policy would revert back to the states. Some states would severely restrict abortion, while a bigger group of more populous states would likely pass laws guaranteeing the same access to abortion they have now. So, far from ending the abortion battle, Roe’s reversal would mark the beginning of a battle to which the past 35 years have been a prelude.
difference would be an anti-abortion movement toiling to tackle 50 separate abortion policies simultaneously. Another important difference is
A post-Roe America would look like the America of today in terms of the sheer volume of abortions. The major that we would no longer teach young Americans the lie that — among their cherished constitutional rights of free speech, religion and assembly — there is also a right to take the life of an unborn baby.
A final misconception about Roe is one too often held by its opponents: that Roe’s reversal is the ultimate anti-abortion goal and that support for constitutional protections for the unborn betrays the federalist principles of conservatism. But by asserting states’ rights, Roe’s anti-abortion opposition effectively (if unwittingly) accepts Roe’s reasoning that prenatal life is not a due process right within the constitutional framework and, therefore, that the unborn child is not a constitutional “person.”
Moreover, in our system of government, certain issues are left to the states while others are deemed so essential to our understanding of democracy that they must be taken up nationally. We fought a civil war over the conviction that some issues are too fundamental to be decided state by state. Just as slavery was an assault on human dignity, the slaughter of millions of unborn children is an assault on a natural human right that exists prior to, and regardless of, the whims of a majority.
The misconceptions surrounding Roe help explain why it is at least as controversial today as it was when it was handed down. The passion Roe continues to evoke will be evident in the scores of thousands of people who descended on Washington this week not to celebrate the swearing-in of a new president but to march peacefully against the scourge of abortion initiated, in large part, by Roe."
What a sad day.