Abortion Essay Research Paper Abortion which has — страница 3

nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The use of these amendments in the ruling of the court says that abortion is a “fundamental” right which cannot be denied by the state without due process of the law. And that is what it legally became with the decision of the Court in Roe v. Wade. But the historical traditions of the American people do not support the view that the right to terminate one’s pregnancy is “fundamental.” The common law which we inherited from England made abortion after “quickening” (the moment a woman feels her child in her womb) an offense. From Chief Justice of the Supreme Court William Rehnquist’s

essay on the Court’s ruling: “At the time of the adoption of the fourteenth Amendment, statutory prohibitions or restrictions on abortion were commonplace; in 1868, at least 28 of the then-37 States and 8 Territories had statutes banning or limiting abortion. By the turn of the century virtually every State had a law prohibiting or restricting abortion on its books. By the middle of the present century, a liberalization trend had set in. But 21 of the restrictive abortion laws in effect in 1868 were still in effect in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was decided, and an overwhelming majority of the States prohibited abortion unless necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother. On this record, it can scarcely be said that any deeply rooted tradition of relatively unrestricted

abortion in our history supported the classification of the right to abortion as “fundamental” under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth amendment.” Those are the constitutional reasons for overturning Roe v. Wade, but it is in the interests of women and children to do so. For the children, an overturning of the decision would simply save lives, but physical and psychological harm often comes to women who have abortions. After an abortion, many women experience one more of the following complications, some of which may take several years to surface.