Post by annabelleleigh on Oct 24, 2009 23:12:13 GMT -5
I have just re-read Justice Harry Blackmun's majority opinion in Roe v. Wade
www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html
and Mr. Balcer, I do indeed take issue with the way the episode "Dignity" framed abortion.
Principally Roe v. Wade was decided on the basis of due process -- that is, it affirmed the right of women to govern their own bodies without interference from a paternalistic state. It was not a license for "abortion on demand" without regard for another's life. While it did define a fetus's viability outside the womb as 24 weeks such definition was not the primary focus of Blackmun's opinion nor the Supreme Court's majority decision.
No doubt Roe v. Wade, in isolated instances, has been abused. No doubt the medical profession, in some circumstances, can now provide care that will sometimes support life born earlier than 24 weeks' gestation. But there are also people put to death by the state for crimes they did not commit, and society -- so far and in general -- has not agreed that these tragic exceptions should force a ban on capital punishment universally and permanently. Perhaps it should -- but it hasn't.
Roe v. Wade was, and always will be, a landmark women's rights case. It does not prohibit the proscribing of third trimester abortions of viable babies when the mother's life is not endangered by the birth. It does at its heart expunge an injustice about as old as the existence of humankind. Roe v. Wade recognizes women as equal under the law -- entitled to due process, privacy, and control of their own bodies just as men are.
If L&O's producers and writers think that Roe v. Wade should be revisited -- as this episode suggests -- they are in fact not challenging the viability benchmark for life but rather a fundamental human right of the female person.
AL
www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html
and Mr. Balcer, I do indeed take issue with the way the episode "Dignity" framed abortion.
Principally Roe v. Wade was decided on the basis of due process -- that is, it affirmed the right of women to govern their own bodies without interference from a paternalistic state. It was not a license for "abortion on demand" without regard for another's life. While it did define a fetus's viability outside the womb as 24 weeks such definition was not the primary focus of Blackmun's opinion nor the Supreme Court's majority decision.
No doubt Roe v. Wade, in isolated instances, has been abused. No doubt the medical profession, in some circumstances, can now provide care that will sometimes support life born earlier than 24 weeks' gestation. But there are also people put to death by the state for crimes they did not commit, and society -- so far and in general -- has not agreed that these tragic exceptions should force a ban on capital punishment universally and permanently. Perhaps it should -- but it hasn't.
Roe v. Wade was, and always will be, a landmark women's rights case. It does not prohibit the proscribing of third trimester abortions of viable babies when the mother's life is not endangered by the birth. It does at its heart expunge an injustice about as old as the existence of humankind. Roe v. Wade recognizes women as equal under the law -- entitled to due process, privacy, and control of their own bodies just as men are.
If L&O's producers and writers think that Roe v. Wade should be revisited -- as this episode suggests -- they are in fact not challenging the viability benchmark for life but rather a fundamental human right of the female person.
AL
