It has occurred to me that many of the people I read about, that speak of abortion, may not understand its origin. I think many understand it has something to do with Roe vs Wade, but what really did Roe vs Wade have to do with abortion? And what did it have to do with the 14th amendment?
Full disclaimer- I am extremely pro-life under almost any circumstance, however this article is not pro abortion neither is it against abortion, just a brief history.
Hopefully you have asked yourself, what is Roe vs Wade? I mean we all know it was a court decision that had something to do with abortion right? Many of you probably have at least looked it up and read a little bit about it. So who is Roe and who is Wade and why the big fuss over those names?
Norma McCorvey, known as Jane Roe, was the plaintiff in the case Roe vs Wade. She was a woman described as desperate for an abortion. She had two children previously that she gave up to adoption, this time I guess, she didn’t have the money or the time to look at the choice of adoption. She was deep in poverty and addiction, and as mentioned earlier, desperate. She knew it was illegal, as it was in most states at the time in 1970’s, to get an abortion. She didn’t have the money to leave the country and travel to an area where abortion was legal at the time, nor did she want to keep the unwanted child. The only option she saw fit was to fight to make abortion legal. Perhaps she incorrectly assumed that a case of that magnitude would be decided upon before it was too late i.e. within nine months. Two things are interesting to note in this case, in my opinion. One: She had the baby, and gave it up to adoption, before the case was even heard before the supreme court, Two: Later in life she became a staunch supporter of the pro-life movement.
Henry Wade was the Dallas County district attorney who defended the Texas state law that abortion was illegal. You may know his name as the attorney that prosecuted Jack Ruby, the man that killed Lee Harvey Oswald. It should be noted that he had courage to take this case on, though I’m sure he didn’t for see it going as far as it did, he was defending life.
So how did it become what it did? There is a lot there, it took some time for this case and those that made the decisions to make abortion legal. Ultimately they used the 14th amendment to make the decision. To me this seems hilarious. If you are not familiar with the 14th amendment take a second and look it up. The phrase they chose from the 14th amendment was “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law”. Obviously, the irony here is apparent they made abortion (murder) legal based on the phrase “no state shall deprive any person of life”. Let me repeat that, they made abortion/ murder legal by saying no state shall deprive any person of life. I know the old phrase hind sight is 20/20 but even in the present any sight, no matter how poor, shouldn’t be able to use that phrase to make murder legal.
To be fair abortion had some major restrictions when first made legal in 1973. For example it was only to be preformed by a physician in the first trimester. Abortion as you and I know it today can be preformed in any clinic named “Planned Parenthood” as late as they see fit, physician or not. Again this is not a case against abortion, necessarily it is, in my opinion, ironic the argument made to make abortion legal.
For some arguments for abortion look at the book “Freakonomics” by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt. They explain that one of the major impacts to declining crime in the U.S. is abortion. Considering a rough estimate of 25 million abortions took place between 1973 and 1993. That figure alone could reduce enough people walking around to commit crimes.
For an argument against abortion; if we can say that abortion being illegal violates the 14th amendment and the phrase “no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” why wouldn’t we start with killing those that prevent us of getting ahead in life, liberty, and property instead of the most innocent and helpless. One could argue that it would be easier to get ahead, and less stressful if all people over the age of 50 were aborted, certainly the older one becomes the more they get in the way of life, liberty, and property, look at the cost of care for people over 50. I mean this is about rights, yes? It would reduce the number of people and would always leave a place for younger generations to move up in the world. It would be easier to help the babies after being born. The government could even come up with some sort of social net that paid out a small amount of money to all babies born, for care, of course. It could be called “Fetal Security”. I personally wouldn’t advocate for killing anyone of any age, whether one day old or 50 years old, no matter how inconvenient they may be.
As I titled this article “Abortion vs the 14th amendment” it is crazy that abortion became legal through the definition of one phrase from the 14th amendment. It seems, to me, that one could argue against abortion using that same phrase.
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