Talk:Roe v. Wade

no mention of roe's own objection

Why does this article totaly ignore the fact roe has recanted and is now one of the people trying to over turn it?--Shimonnyman (talk) 01:53, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Ignore it? See Roe v. Wade#Activities of_Norma McCorvey. MastCell ^Talk 05:28, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

wow my bad i dont know how i missed that lol i guess i was distracted --Shimonnyman (talk) 20:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Inherent Flaw

Roe v. Wade is not about the right to abortion, as many seem to think, but is more about the implied right to privacy. This is usually overshadowed by abortion, as controversial as it is, but it is not correct in the official sense; therefore, a large part of this article is misinformation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.239.145.126 (talk) 00:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

A two-fold flaw relates to this statement in the "Controversy" section: "Some pro-life supporters suggest – contrary to the holding in this case – that life begins at fertilization (also referred to as conception), and should therefore be protected by the Constitution" It is a biological fact, not a political statement, that a fertilized cell is alive. However, the implication, just because a fertilized cell is alive, that the Constitution automatically protects that life is also flawed. It is the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, that has this statement in it: "... all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The only place in the Constitution that includes the word "life" is this one (from Article 3): "The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted." Obviously that has nothing to do with abortion.

The earliest Amendment that uses the word (twice) is Amendment 5: " No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." An anti-abortionist might argue that every single abortion must therefore be preceded by "due process of law", based on that --except for one little detail, which is indicated by Section 1 of Amendment 14 (the only other Amendment that includes the word "life"): "Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The explicit reference to "all persons born" therefore fails to grant any right-to-life to the unborn. Can it be argued that Amendment 5 still applies? Possibly--except that the word "person" is nowhere defined in the Constitution! Some might now reference the Declaration of Independence, in that the word "men" can be equated with "mankind" and therefore "human beings" and "persons", regardless of age-after-conception. On the other hand....

Note that the U.S. Constitution and its Amendments do not use the phrase "human being" anywhere, but do use the word "person" a great deal. And there is a very significant piece of evidence that the two things, "human being" and "person", are not always the same thing, legally speaking: The U.S. Constitution requires that a Census of all "persons" be conducted every 10 years --the Founding Fathers were directly responsible both for that part of the Constitution and for the specification of what data should be collected in the very first Census of 1790. Unborn human beings have never been counted as persons in any Census!, including the current Census of 2010. It should be very clear, then, that just as one should not count one's chickens before they hatched, the attitudes of the writers of the U.S. Constitution did not include the notion that unborn human beings qualified as persons. Reference: http://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/index_of_questions/

Personally, I like the Constitution specifying "persons" and not "human beings". Remember the movie-and-TV series Alien Nation? Why do you suppose the aliens picked the United States as a place to immigrate to? Best Answer: The Law of the Land, the Constitution, did not discriminate about the definition of "person"! Likely all intelligent-enough beings, human or otherwise qualify as persons, while unborn humans (and probably most unborn/unhatched aliens, too, not to mention brain-dead adult humans on life-suppport), are not intelligent enough; they are merely animal minds in animal bodies, undeserving of the degree of automatic-right-to-life that the Constitution grants persons. V (talk) 19:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I've tweaked the article to try to address your concern. Please keep in mind WP:Not a forum. Your argument is against a position that neither the majority nor the dissent in this case took, so even if you cite a reliable source that argument is of only marginal relevance here in this article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Public Opinion

The statistics/polls in the public opinion section appear to be somewhat dated. The chart does not appear to reflect current sentiment on the issue. Unless anyone thinks having a chart with dated information is useful... I will remove it. Alternatively if anyone has a chart that reflects the current opinion of the country that would be an even better solution. Lordvolton (talk) 15:15, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I think a dated chart is useful. This is an historical issue and so the historic public opinions are relevant. If a more up-to-date chart can be found it could replace it, but the information in the current chart should not be summarily discarded. --Dwane E Anderson (talk) 19:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

trimesters

the trimesters described in the intro are wrong, i think. the first trimester is from conception to when the mother is more likely to be harmed by abortion than by birth: "until the end of the first trimester mortality in abortion may be less than mortality in normal childbirth". the 2nd trimester ends at viability. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade/Opinion_of_the_Court#X --dan (talk) 20:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

You're correct. The intro was wrong. I fixed it. The trimester scheme was not the central holding of this case. The main holding relates to viability.68.166.238.5 (talk) 01:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

There is an aspect of the "viability" definition that needs to be mentioned here, at least. Modern medical technology has enabled unborn humnan bodies to be viable considerably earlier than in any the many millennia during which that technology did not exist. THis implies that as soon as someone successfully develops an artificial womb, even a just-fertilized egg could be considered viable. It therefore may be unwise to define the third trimester in terms of viability. Not to mention that I'm certain I had encountered a different definition that I don't-recall-precisely just now, and will have to look up --but I think it noted that at the start of the third trimester is when the brain connects to the spinal cord, and thereby becomes able to communicate with the rest of the body. This definition would be true regardless of available technology, so long as that tech didn't interfere with the natural and typical growth process. V (talk) 15:20, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Meanwhile, there is an aspect of viability to describe that has nothing to do with trimesters, but also involves technology. We just about have the ability to cut someone's head off and keep both it and the body alive, separately. There are actual situations I've read about where such a procedure might be the only way to save someone's life ( http://forum.ebaumsworld.com/showthread.php?t=268089&page=2 ). Barring such an emergency, depending on where the cut is made, it is possible that the body might be viable without significant life support. Reference: http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/ --the head, of course, would never be viable without a great deal of life support. Now, the reason I mention this has to do with a completely different topic of medical research: "regeneration". There is a large desire to be able to regrow lost limbs and so forth. Should such a medical breakthrough ever be achieved, then it should be possible for a detached head to grow a new body, and of course for a headless body to grow a new head. If we were asked which way to go, to save the life of a "person", which would we recommend? Is the body the person, or the mind inside the head? I think the answer is obvious, that the mind is the person and not the body. A new head grown onto an old body will become a different person altogether, just like twins are different persons (and clones will be different persons). But do you see any contradiction in this paragraph, regarding the person and viability? It seems to me that one can only conclude that the two things don't have to have anything to do with each other! Indeed, the fact that we use a lot of life-support technology to save people who have extensively damaged bodies (even when we know the bodies cannot naturally grow mostly-healthy again), but eventually disconnect the brain-dead, only reiterates the idea that persons are associated with a significant amount of working brainpower, regardless of how viable are the attached bodies. Which consequently means, for unborn human bodies, that viability should have nothing to do with any abortion debate, ever. V (talk) 15:20, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Generally speaking, courts only address proven, existing facts. So, it might be best to bring up those concerns at the article on viability (fetal). There's also another kind of viability: the point in prenatal development when a human becomes likely to survive until birth (instead of being miscarried), but the Court did not address this other kind of viability so it probably wouldn't fit into this particular article (commenters about the case haven't mentioned it much either).Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:41, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Subsequent cases

What does everyone think of adding the case of Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth? That seems like an important case to me given that it relates directly to Paternal rights and abortion and requiring spousal consent for an abortion. But then again I am not sure of what criteria were used to select the cases presented here. So I will just wait for other opinions. —Othniel Kenaz 01:18, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

There are 4 cases covered now in that section: Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Stenberg v. Carhart, and Gonzales v. Carhart. I'm kind of inclined to erase Webster and Stenberg, because they don't seem as notable and pertinent as the other two. But if we keep all four, then perhaps Danforth would be okay too. What do you think?Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)