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Roe Faq
FAQs on Roe v. Wade and Abortion Law
1. What was Roe v Wade and what was its impact on American abortion law?
Roe v. Wade is a 1973 opinion by the United States Supreme Court in which 7 out of 9 Justices improperly struck down the duly enacted abortion laws in every state by declaring, without constitutional support, that “an unborn child is not a person under the 14th amendment.”
Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School and an adviser to the Obama administration, has recognized that “[a]s it was written in 1973, Roe v. Wade was far from a model of legal reasoning, and conservatives have been correct to criticize it. The court failed to root the abortion right in either the text of the Constitution or its own precedents.” Sunstein acknowledged that the Roe court “ruled far too broadly,” by taking “the highly unusual step of setting out a series of rules for legislatures to follow.” “It is no wonder,” Sunstein recognizes, “that millions of Americans felt, and continue to feel, that the court refused to treat their moral convictions with respect.”
2. Should pro-life citizens impose their morality on others through the law?
When the founders proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” they articulated a truth about the natural right to life that is inherent to every human being. It is the duty of government to protect the basic civil rights of its citizens – the most basic of those rights being the human right to life which is fundamental to all other rights.
3. Don’t women have a constitutional right to privacy and choice related to abortion?
Abortion is not solely a woman’s issue – it is a human rights issue. It is an issue that impacts the lives of both males and female children – it impacts men who experience the loss of their children without their consent – and it impacts women who are often coerced by unsupportive men who are now enabled to treat women as a sex object to use, rather than as a person to love.
4. What is an effective route to ending the tragedy of legal abortion in America?
An effective route is to ending legalized abortion is to engage in and support public education via legislation, litigation and media on the devastating impact of abortion on women, children, men, families and even the economy due to declining demographics.
View the BDF “Biodebate Videos” on abortion and women.
