The US Supreme Court Decision

Abortion

The US Supreme Court Decision

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court declared most then existing American state laws banning abortion to be unconstitutional (Roe v. Wade). The court recognized every woman's right to obtain an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy while reaffirming the right of the state to safeguard health, maintain medical standards, and protect potential life. Only after the fetus has reached viability (i.e., the ability to survive outside the mother's womb) may a state continue to prohibit abortions altogether except for the purpose of preserving the life or health of the mother. This legal stance, of course, by no means implied that abortions were desirable. The highest court of the land merely recognized that it was unwise to make them crimes, and since then legislatures in many other countries have come to the same conclusion
Those who are convinced that abortion is murder are still free to reject it for themselves, no matter where they live. This is entirely as it should be because
forced abortion as well as forced motherhood are incompatible with the ideals of equality, freedom, and self-determination. In the past, these ideals had to remain largely unrealized. Indeed, when it came to abortion the most blatant inequality was a fact of everyday life. Women who could pay for a trip to another state or another country with more liberal laws were not prevented from having a safe and legal abortion any time they wished. This "abortion tourism" eventually became an embarrassment for many governments. At the same time, the poor and uneducated continued to suffer the consequences of unwanted births or dangerous criminal abortions.

[Course 2] [Description] [How to use it] [Introduction] [Conception] [Pregnancy] [Birth] [Infertility] [Contraception] [Abortion] [Unwanted Pregnancies] [A Moral Dilemma] [Differing Views] [A Medical Issue] [A Legal Issue] [World-wide Statistics] [Historical Notes] [Abortion Methods] [Additional Reading] [Examination]