Roe v. Wade, "New" Science & the Old Geography of Pregnancy

Roe v. Wade, New Science, & the Old Geography of Pregnancy

Lynn M. Paltrow
Executive Director, National Advocates for Pregnant Women

According to PersonhoodUSA, one of the reasons Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided is that the Court did not have available to it the well-known facts of fetal development. To explain, PersonhoodUSA is an organization that seeks to establish new laws declaring full constitutional rights for the unborn from the moment of fertilization. Roe v. Wade is the name of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that recognized a womans fundamental right to choose abortion.

According to PersonhoodUSA, The science of fetology in 1973 was not able to prove, as it can now, that a fully human and unique individual exists at the moment of fertilization. . . . Today, on the thirty-seventh anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we thought it would be valuable to fact check that claim.

What we found is that extremely similar claims about new science were, in fact, made to the Supreme Court when the case was being argued in 1971, 1972, and 1973.

For example, in the written arguments to the court (called briefs) defending Texas anti-abortion law, lawyers for the State of Texas described in extraordinary detail how clearly and conclusively modern science embryology, fetology, genetics, perinatology, all of biology establishes the humanity of the unborn child.

More than twenty-four pages of the States brief defending the Texas statute outlawing abortion were devoted to the argument that medical science established the need for such a law. An amicus (friend of the court) brief, filed in support of the Texas law by certain physicians, professors and fellows of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, made the same argument.

Just to be absolutely sure the U.S. Supreme Court Justices didnt miss this point, the main brief and the amicus brief both included ten pages of photographs of actual fetal development.

And, when it came time for the 1972 oral argument in the case, Texas Assistant Attorney General Robert C. Flowers didnt forget to mention that medical research supported the law banning abortion.

So the claim that Roe v. Wade was decided without the benefit of medical research and scientific knowledge concerning fetal development is simply not true.

Of course there have been important scientific developments in the last thirty-seven years. But the fact is, that new science cant provide the basis for overturning Roe v. Wade. This is because no science changes what attorney Janet Gallagher calls the geography of pregnancy.

Because pregnancy takes place within a womans body, there is no way to assign to fetuses separate legal rights without depriving pregnant women of their rights.

That is why the Supreme Court refused to accept the argument that fetuses are separate legal persons. To have done otherwise would have created unprecedented law depriving women, upon becoming pregnant, of their fundamental rights to bodily integrity, informed medical decision-making, due process, liberty, and life itself.

Thus, while Roe left states free to value and advance potential life in a variety of ways, the decision prohibited states from using fetal personhood as a basis for banning all abortions. This decision also prevented states from, for example, forcing a pregnant woman to undergo cesarean surgery, arresting her to stop her from having a home birth, or detaining her to make sure she follows her doctors advice to get bed rest.

Roe v. Wade stands for much more than the right to terminate a pregnancy. As the Supreme Court explained in later cases, Roe has been sensibly relied upon to counter attempts to interfere with a woman's decision to become pregnant or to carry her pregnancy to term.

Nearly one million women each year terminate their pregnancies, close to another million experience miscarriages and stillbirths, and more than four million women continue their pregnancies to term. Whatever PersonhoodUSA may claim about advances in the science of fetology, it cant change the fact that each and every one of these women benefits from the Supreme Courts decision in Roe v. Wade.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• roe v. wade
• personhood
• pregnancy
• science
• abortion
• personhoodusa

[4624tone]

Choice, choose.. All the ones we DONT have we ALL complain about, Taxes and death the biggest two, so why not let a women choose? What about rape, incest or a 15yr old who cant take care of herself and/or the parents cant? (crack heads,heroin addicts,etc.) Folks will complain about abortion, but not wanna pay high taxes so the stupid ass young mother can get welfare, on US!!!!!!We all need and Must have choices!! I dont mean one who dont wanna tell mom or the one who dont wanna lose their body!

[irshmun]

what a bunch of ridiculous crap. It's not a turtle, frog or fish - .. it's a human !! DUH !!! Abortion is the death of an unborn child pure and simple. I mean a basic biology class tells you that. Big business (PP) and abortionists take advantage of women at their most vulnerable point, making money playing to their fears. It's P.C. forced down everyone's throat by the hippie leftovers who believe that up's down, bad is good, and good is bad.

Save the Whales and kill the babies ..

[xSingSingDeathHousex]

I'm sick of hearing that abortion is a womens choice, it's not. 83% of women that have had abortions were coerced or forced by men. It's not a women's right issue anymore. Also it takes 4 weeks for any women to know that she's pregnant, even then 65% of women don't find out till they are 6 weeks, and most abortions are done after the 10th week, by that time the heart is fully formed and the brain is developed halfway. People need to take a biology class obviously.

[slyjokerg]

@TheTwill12 that was a very compelling and meaningful addressing of substance. good job.

[TheTwill12]

@slyjokerg god, ure everywhere you fucking asshole !!!

[slyjokerg]

the question is not about how you define a person. if it is a person, would that mean a woman could be forced to give up her bodily autonomy? of course not. her rights do not evaporate upon becoming pregnant. being able to exist inside a woman's body is purely at her discretion. it is a privelege, and not a right.

[AnneMarie37]

In Switzerland, the "New scientific evidence" argument was already used by fundamentalists in the 1920ies !!!

The question is: how do you define a "person"? This is not a scientific question. Most (non-fundamentalist) philosophers and thinking people would not consider a fertilized egg a "person". And this fertilized egg is within the woman and cannot develop without her. The video is excellent: You cannot give the embryo rights over the woman without making her an incubator and slave.

[spammaster46]

@2000yrCatholic and woman don't??

that's a fine argument in a religion but as law it's not

[2000yrCatholic]

Zygote, embryo, fetus, baby =same person.

The same person from the moment of

conception. They have the right to live!

REPENT!

[jfkjrlover]

I would not be surprised, disgusted, but not surprised if the conservative majority in the Supreme Court granted personhood to one day old zygotes, lol. They just officially confirmed that corporations are people and have rights, so this wouldn't be much of a stretch.