Did Roe v. Wade make a determination when human life began or just say it's a privacy issue?

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Did Roe v. Wade make a determination when human life began or just say it’s a privacy issue?

Any legal experts out there?
 
MarcoPolo said:
Did Roe v. Wade make a determination when human life began or just say it’s a privacy issue?

Any legal experts out there?
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it was supposedly a privacy issue

justice blackmun couldn’t’ve passed 8th grade biology much less opine on when life begins
 
The court did not come to a conclusion on when life begins. From the case:

“Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”

It is a general judicial rule not to decide things that don’t have to be decided.

The court actually spent a significant amount of time surveying the various views on that question, from modern days back to ancient times. They addressed Catholic dogma on the topic, though whether they got that right is debateable (see discussion at forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=735203)
 
whether they got that right is debateable
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it is not debateable

SCOTUS w/justice blackmun writing the prevailing opinion got “it” absolutely wrong

and 50,000,00 dead babies can testify to that
 
It doesn’t matter what Roe v. Wade “decided”. It could have also decided that pi isn’t 3.14…, or that force isn’t mass times acceleration, or that the Earth isn’t round. 🤷

That will not change a natural, physical fact, a fact by the way echoed in pretty much all biology or embryology textbooks.
 
I’m no legal expert (though I do aspire towards law school), but from my understanding Roe v. Wade essentially made abortion a privacy issue but did not attempt to define when life began. Nonetheless, while requiring access to abortion in the first trimester, it more or less allows the states to have leeway in regulating abortion during the second and third trimesters.
 
Thanks, friends. The background to the question is that I’ve heard abortion supporters appeal to the “Supreme Court” as some authority on when life begins. Of course, it’s illogical to say the US Supreme Court is the determiner of that matter. But it appears the Supreme Court didn’t even attempt to settle the question––making such an abortion argument all the more illogical.
 
brian_custer said:
it is not debateable

SCOTUS w/justice blackmun writing the prevailing opinion got “it” absolutely wrong

and 50,000,00 dead babies can testify to that
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Whoa, fella. I wasn’t saying a single thing about the final decision itself, which I abhor. I was only talking about the accuracy (or lack thereof) of their assessment of Catholic dogma in the historical survey portion of the case.

Please don’t pull one part of one sentence out of context and present it as meaning something completely different than it does.
 
If a fetus (an unborn baby) is not legally a real life…how can they charge a person with 2 counts of murder when a pregnant woman is killed?

It is either a life or it is not, cant be both, not in the legal sense anyway…right?
 
mikekle said:
If a fetus (an unborn baby) is not legally a real life…how can they charge a person with 2 counts of murder when a pregnant woman is killed?

It is either a life or it is not, cant be both, not in the legal sense anyway…right?
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Apparently the woman’s choice trumps everything we know about biology, morals and ethics. Go figure. 😦 :rolleyes:
 
mikekle said:
If a fetus (an unborn baby) is not legally a real life…how can they charge a person with 2 counts of murder when a pregnant woman is killed?

It is either a life or it is not, cant be both, not in the legal sense anyway…right?
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I believe that’s down to different laws in different jurisdictions.

Also, as others have noted, the SCOTUS in Roe did not actually take up the question of the unborn child’s status, looking at the case instead as a matter of the state’s authority to interfere in the private decisions of citizens.
 
Micosil said:
Apparently the woman’s choice trumps everything we know about biology, morals and ethics. Go figure. 😦 :rolleyes:
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Oh, I agree, but according to this logic, the woman who chooses to kill her 1 week old baby should not be charged then, its her child, still her choice…the fetus has to ‘become’ a life at some point and accepted as such, no matter how or when the baby ended up dead.

It doesnt make sense to me, Im surprised in this world we live, when a mother kills an infant or young child, there is so much outrage, everyone from the cop, the judge, reporters, etc, they all want the death penalty for her, but its ok and acceptable for that same woman to kill it at an earlier stage…how does this make sense? How do they not see the hypocrisy?
 
mikekle said:
Oh, I agree, but according to this logic, the woman who chooses to kill her 1 week old baby should not be charged then, its her child, still her choice…the fetus has to ‘become’ a life at some point and accepted as such, no matter how or when the baby ended up dead.

It doesnt make sense to me, Im surprised in this world we live, when a mother kills an infant or young child, there is so much outrage, everyone from the cop, the judge, reporters, etc, they all want the death penalty for her, but its ok and acceptable for that same woman to kill it at an earlier stage…how does this make sense? How do they not see the hypocrisy?
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Indeed, it doesn’t make sense to me. And note that in all this line of argumentation, not once is any specific Church, or even religious, doctrine or dogma needed as the reason, no Bible verses, no Papal bulls or encyclicals, nada. It’s quite simply common sense. 🤷
 
mikekle said:
Oh, I agree, but according to this logic, the woman who chooses to kill her 1 week old baby should not be charged then, its her child, still her choice…the fetus has to ‘become’ a life at some point and accepted as such, no matter how or when the baby ended up dead.

It doesnt make sense to me, Im surprised in this world we live, when a mother kills an infant or young child, there is so much outrage, everyone from the cop, the judge, reporters, etc, they all want the death penalty for her, but its ok and acceptable for that same woman to kill it at an earlier stage…how does this make sense? How do they not see the hypocrisy?
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And it is being argued by people such as Prof. Peter Singer of Princeton University that parents should have the right to terminate newborns for some months after birth, sort of a post-birth abortion. And it will be the next logical step, along with euthanasia.
 
JimG said:
And it is being argued by people such as Prof. Peter Singer of Princeton University that parents should have the right to terminate newborns for some months after birth, sort of a post-birth abortion. And it will be the next logical step, along with euthanasia.
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(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

I could not believe this when I read it. I had to Google it. :eek:
 
MarcoPolo said:
Did Roe v. Wade make a determination when human life began or just say it’s a privacy issue?

Any legal experts out there?
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Roe v Wade was effectively replaced by Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It recognized that advancements in medical technology had proven a fetus could be considered viable at 22 or 23 weeks rather than at the 28 weeks in Roe

The PP v Casey is reason States have been able to increase restrictions.
 
Theo520 said:
Roe v Wade was effectively replaced by Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It recognized that advancements in medical technology had proven a fetus could be considered viable at 22 or 23 weeks rather than at the 28 weeks in Roe

The PP v Casey is reason States have been able to increase restrictions.
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Casey also included the abandonment of the privacy justification for an abortion. In Casey, liberty was identified as the applicable justification.*Constitutional protection of the woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy derives from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It declares that no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The controlling word in the case before us is “liberty.”
*
  • It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.
    This next is to Casey what the “penumbra” was to Roe - the rationalization for the court to do what it wants.At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.
    And once again, the court punted on the question of life. Abortion is a unique act. It is an act fraught with consequences for others: for the woman who must live with the implications of her decision; for thepersons who perform and assist in the procedure; for the spouse, family, and society which must confront the knowledge that these procedures exist, procedures some deem nothing short of an act of violence against innocent human life; and, depending on one’s beliefs, for the life or potential life that is aborted.
    One can only marvel at what passes for the “wisdom” of the court.As with abortion, reasonable people will have differences of opinion about these matters. One view is based on such reverence for the wonder of creation that any pregnancy ought to be welcomed and carried to full term no matter how difficult it will be to provide for the child and ensure its well being. Another is that the inability to provide for the nurture and care of the infant is a cruelty to the child and an anguish to the parent.
    On the question of stare decisis - upholding a previous decision because it was, well, a previous decision, the court justified it this way:     The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.
    Not exactly an endorsement of the logic of the previous ruling, but the inanity of Casey is almost boundless.     If indeed the woman’s interest in deciding whether to bear and beget a child had not been recognized as in Roe, the State might as readily restrict a woman’s right to choose to carry a pregnancy to term as to terminate it, to further asserted state interests in population control, or eugenics, for example.*
    Right. The court must permit a woman to terminate her pregnancy as protection against allowing the state to mandate it. Neither Roe nor Casey dealt with (nor could they deal with) the reality of a pregnancy.Roe’s scope is confined by the fact of its concern with postconception potential life
    This is the great escape: a fetus is only a potential life, not a real life.
Ender
 
Theo520 said:
Roe v Wade was effectively replaced by Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It recognized that advancements in medical technology had proven a fetus could be considered viable at 22 or 23 weeks rather than at the 28 weeks in Roe
Click to expand...
More from Casey:*The woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy before viability is the most central principle of Roe v. Wade.
*One would think this point might distinguish between life and potential life, but since abortions are still allowed after viability, even if they may be more limited by the state, this is clearly not a distinction the court recognized. But then the court didn’t recognize its own contradictions.*We conclude, however, that the urgent claims of the woman to retain the ultimate control over her destiny and her body, claims implicit in the meaning of liberty, require us to perform that function. Liberty must not be extinguished for want of a line that is clear. And it falls to us to give some real substance to the woman’s liberty to determine whether to carry her pregnancy to full term. We conclude the line should be drawn at viability, so that before that time the woman has a right to choose to terminate her pregnancy.
*If an actual life as opposed to a potential life exists at viability, why does the court allow that life to be extinguished? How can such an action be called murder in one case and a woman’s right in another when the termination of a life is identical in both?*the concept of viability, as we noted in Roe, is the time at which there is a realistic possibility of maintaining and nourishing a life outside the womb, so that the independent existence of the second life can in reason and all fairness be the object of state protection that now overrides the rights of the woman…
But as I noted, the court could not keep track of its own contradictions. The viability line also has, as a practical matter, an element of fairness. In some broad sense it might be said that a woman who fails to act before viability has consented to the State’s intervention on behalf of the developing child.
*So, if it is actually a child, what is the argument that allows a woman to terminate it? Beyond that, by recognizing that viability is not determined by the age of the fetus, but by the available medical procedures, the court effectively says that some fetuses are in fact children while others of exactly the same, or possibly even greater, gestational development are not. This is insanity. But the court immediately backtracks:*On the other side of the equation is the interest of the State in the protection of potential life.
Two paragraphs previous to this it was a child, but now it is back to being only potential life. Throughout this decision the court couldn’t seem to help itself ,as reality occasionally popped up despite obvious attempts to suppress it. It follows that States are free to enact laws to provide a reasonable framework for a woman to make a decision that has such profound and lasting meaning. This, too, we find consistent with Roe’s central premises, and indeed the inevitable consequence of ourholding that the State has an interest in protecting the life of the unborn.
The unborn have life? Not “potential” life? Surely this was one of those oversights, although there is apparently no way to acknowledge that states also have interests without admitting what those interests pertain to. A logical reading of the central holding in Roe itself, and a necessary reconciliation of the liberty of the woman and the interest of the State in promoting prenatal life, require, in our view, that we abandon the trimester framework as a rigid prohibition on all previability regulation aimed at the protection of fetal life.
But, alas, sanity does not prevail.The trimester framework suffers from these basic flaws: in its formulation it misconceives the nature of the pregnant woman’s interest; and in practice it undervalues ** the State’s interest in potential life, as recognized in Roe.
*In the end, it cannot be admitted that the fate of a real life is involved in an abortion, only a potential life. It was ironic that one of Justice O’Connor’s fears about the consequences of overriding Roe was that it would lead to “The country’s loss of confidence in the judiciary…” She clearly had no conception of how much she contributed to such a loss by her decision in Casey.

Ender
 
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