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On the 34th Anniversary of Roe v Wade, 22/01/07, bloggers will be blogging for choice.
Join us, read what we write- or do both.
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On the 34th Anniversary of Roe v Wade, 22/01/07, bloggers will be blogging for choice.
Join us, read what we write- or do both.
Comments spamproofed by Akismet
Trackback disabled until further notice.
January 17th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I don’t think Norma McCorvey (aka Roe) will be joining you. She is pro-life and has converted to Catholicism. She is campaigning to overturn the decision that bears her name.
January 17th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
That’s fine Marcel. Norma once needed ‘choice’ and now no longer does.
She has the right to change her mind 34 years on and we have the right to ignore her as anything more than a ‘Jane Doe’ who provided the scenario to set a legal precedent.
Where’s Wade?
January 18th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Suki pinned it. The issue is about the rights of women as liberal citizens, entitled to a right to privacy, versus women as chattels regulated by a patriarchy. Roe v. Wade tested the law, not the litigants.
Cheap shot, Marcel. You can do better, sunshine. 😉
January 18th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Your Jane Doe hardly provided a ‘the scenario’. She never had the abortion. Her activist lawyer (Weddington) used her, and the case was resolved months after she gave birth. Weezil, you seem like a well read individual. Although you agree with the ends, surely you cannot articulate a defense of the means. The right to privacy? Equal protections clauses? Penumbras and so forth?
Why didn’t they just pass the legislation? I guess when you’re forever talking about backyard abortions, you’re going to enter the legal system by the back door also.
Anyway, judicial fiat or not, abortion is still a grievous crime. Roe will go the way of Dred Scott, and perhaps in a generation so will Menhennitt.
January 18th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Umm… she’s not ‘my’ or ‘our’ Jane Roe. First of all, you mischaracterise those who wish to control their reproduction as some sort of monolithic body, in sole ownership of a particular evil. Second, the persons behind the case in Roe v. Wade, in terms of their characters and personalities (i.e. steadfastness, self-confidence, etc.) were not on test in the case. So WHAT if McCorvey has now changed her mind? It’s completely immaterial and you know it. That’s why I called you up on the cheap shot.
Good laws don’t prohibit inherent human behaviours nor violate our very natures. One of the primary reasons humans exist is to procreate and we are preprogrammed to require a certain level of privacy. Even a rat likes a bit of shelter from the world. Regulating one’s own reproduction would have to be the most personal and private decisions a human can make… and it ain’t nobody’s bidness but our own.
Roe established a woman had a right to due process under the 14th Amendment, which states that one may not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Due process requires introduction of evidence that a crime has occurred. Private, consensual sexual activity, contraception and abortion are all deemed to not be ‘justiceable,’ indeed something of a legal fiat or fiction, but one mirroring the innate rights to act like a human being. It is thus not possible to pass laws prohibiting abortion in the US.
Mind you, this is not a legal fiction invented and held only by a few overly liberal Americans. Let me direct your attention to the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights from the United Nations:
That means the law stops at your skin. It may not be legislated that you are forced to use anti-psychotic drugs (however desperately you may need them) nor could Suki be forced not to terminate a pregnancy if that was her will.
Religion has been (mostly) booted out of the governments of liberal, secular democracies. Australia is refreshingly dogma-free in large part. I doubt many of us want to regress to the dark ages where parochial patriarchies laid down the law instead of one running one’s own life, but I suppose you’re free to carry the torch and lead the way backward, Marcel.
Just don’t be surprised when no one follows you.