Why Roe v. Wade is Morally Malign and Poorly Reasoned
When making an argument against abortion, it is often best to quote from sources that are either neutral or biased towards abortion. So I will do that where possible and begin with CNN. According to the network, Roe v. Wade “gave a woman the right to an abortion during the entirety of the pregnancy”. Surely not, you might wonder. Well the answer is essentially yes, but there is some nuance to this. Pro-choicers will try to debunk this by rightly pointing out what The New York Times summarizes:
“Roe also established a framework to govern abortion regulation based on the trimesters of pregnancy. In the first trimester, it allowed almost no regulations. In the second, it allowed regulations [against abortion] to protect women’s health. In the third, it allowed states to ban abortions so long as exceptions were made to protect the life and health of the mother.”
But The New York Times article failed to point out something crucial. The Supreme Court's decision in a separate abortion case, Doe v. Bolton, was handed down on the same day as Roe v. Wade. Here, the Court defined health as "all factors – physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age – relevant to the well-being of the patient." Think about that. Many people seem to think that health exceptions in abortion laws are referring to cases when the mother might die and to no other cases. It is time that we say the quiet part out loud. Using health as an exception and then defining it as it was done above makes it easy for someone who is persistent in getting an abortion to lie about emotional distress levels. When the life of the preborn is on the line, this bar is horrifically low. Regardless, even when a mother is in emotional distress, this is still not justification to end the life of another human being. Remember we’re talking up to the third trimester here. Furthermore, I would argue that it is not rare for someone to have emotional distress when they are pregnant. Pregnancy is difficult. Pregnancy will always negatively affect a mother’s health in some way. This means that the day when Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton went into effect, every pregnancy fell under the category of the health exception.
19 years later, in 1992, the Court heard the case Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey. As Planned Parenthood’s website states:
“While upholding the basic principle of Roe v. Wade, this case overturned the trimester framework set through Roe v. Wade. Instead, this case instituted a viability framework which ruled prohibitions on abortion could be established once a fetus reaches viability.”
Fetal viability is the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb. When Roe v. Wade was decided, the point of viability was deemed to be 28 weeks. This new Casey case updated viability to 23-24 weeks in light of medical advancements that allow doctors to be able to put a preborn on life support at younger ages.
Let’s see how Planned Parenthood’s website describes the preborn in the 6th month which is from weeks 21 to 24 (some states permit abortions up to 24 weeks, others don’t). When describing the size of the preborn below, a metric called the crown-rump length (CRL) is used. This is the length from the top of the preborn’s head to the buttocks. Planned Parenthood writes:
“What happens during week 21 - 22?
The fetus has a CRL of about 7 inches (18–19 cm).
Bone marrow starts making blood cells.
Taste buds begin to form.”
“What happens during week 23 - 24?
The fetus has a CRL of about 8 inches (20 cm).
Eyebrows and eyelashes usually develop between weeks 23 and 26.”
They also provide an illustration of the 22-week-old which I haven’t included for copyright reasons but you should look at the fetal drawing here.
States now vary in how they restrict abortion. The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research organization, has outlined in a chart updated in January 2022, the different bans on abortion throughout pregnancy in the US. A salient example is Washington D.C. The only restriction on abortion listed is that you can only have your abortion publicly funded in cases of life endangerment, rape and incest. A Google search will show you that the DC Dupont Clinic has a webpage offering abortions after 26 weeks using a procedure that lasts around 3 days. It is often unclear whether abortion providers in very pro-choice locations actually have a cut off point for themselves at which they stop performing abortions. Remember that a typical pregnancy usually lasts 40 weeks. The United States is one of only seven nations that allows elective abortions after 20 weeks post-fertilization (how long after 20 weeks varies).
But what about the legality of abortion restrictions? Peter Singer, an avid abortion supporter who in 2005 was on Time’s list of the top 100 most influential people in the world, said that the “1973 [Roe v. Wade] Supreme Court decision … provides a flimsy rationale for abortion”. Side note: Singer and his colleague once wrote that “a period of 28 days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to live as others.”
One could write a full article on why Roe v. Wade (and it’s accompanying case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey) was a legal mistake and since somebody already has, well, here’s the link. Essentially, the Court said that the Fourteenth Amendment’s reference to liberty (“…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”) implied the right to privacy and that that right to privacy was somehow broad enough to allow someone to have an abortion. And in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the extent of the Court’s delusion could be plainly seen when it declared that “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.”
As CNN pointed out, most Americans oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. What they got wrong however, was thinking that I cared. If something is morally wrong, then who gives a flying saucepan what others think.
-Julian Jimenez
