On Tuesday afternoon, more than 50,000 Americans are expected to march from the Ellipse down Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill, reversing the route of Monday`s inaugural parade. Their purpose will not be to celebrate a victory but to commemorate a tragedy–the deaths of more than 15 million unborn Americans since the issuance, on Jan. 22, 1973, of the Supreme Court`s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
In the 12 years since Roe v. Wade, Americans have slowly come to realize how extreme the court`s ruling was–and how devastating its effects.
The court ruled that the state can only outlaw abortion when the unborn child is ”viable,” that is, already capable of sustained life outside the womb. Before that point, the unborn cannot be protected by any law. And even after that point, the court said that abortion must be allowed in the interests of health, which was defined as anything pertaining to the ”well-being” of the woman seeking the abortion.
Yet, despite the extent of this liberty, the social ills for which legal abortion was proposed as a solution–child abuse, the cycle of poverty, the trauma of adolescent pregnancy–have only intensified. Perhaps this is the price we pay for offering violence as the only solution to crisis pregnancies. However, as the prolifers end their march of protest with a rally at the Supreme Court, they will do so with a sense of hope and irony. The same court they criticize for Roe v. Wade, they now look to for a reversal of that decision. After years of mixed success in Congress and state legislatures, the movement for civil rights for the unborn has come full circle, back to the Supreme Court, the great vindicator of civil rights during the 20th Century.
Why this turnaround? Although the court majority has not budged from its pro-abortion stance, a future court may agree with the 1983 dissenting opinion of Justice Sandra Day O`Connor.
”I believe that the state`s interest in protecting potential human life exists throughout pregnancy,” O`Connor wrote. She also pointed out that advancing medical technology may force Roe v. Wade to collapse under its own weight. ”Recent studies have demonstrated increasingly earlier fetal viability. It is certainly reasonable to believe that fetal viability in the first trimester of pregnancy may be possible in the not-too-distant future. The Roe framework is clearly on a collision course with itself.”
A majority of Americans apparently agree with O`Connor. A recent Gallup Poll exploded the myth that most support the Roe decision. By a 58 percent to 36 percent margin, the respondents favored a ban on all abortions except those necessary to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape and incest.
(These situations account for a minute fraction of the 4,000 abortions performed daily.)
When the judicial ”collision” over Roe will take place is not clear. But a current lawsuit over the Illinois abortion law may force a
confrontation. The Illinois law, among other restrictions, prohibits abortions done solely because the sex of the unborn child is ”wrong.” Chicago obstetrician Dr. Louis Keith, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, has asked a federal court to strike the law, including the ”sex-selective” prohibition. The right to abortion, the ACLU argues, must remain absolute.
Whether or not Dr. Keith`s lawsuit brings about a judicial reconsideration of Roe, it demonstrates how far removed the supporters of Roe are from the mainstream of American opinion.
Eventually, the public will have to decide who are the ”extremists” in the abortion debate: those who stand up for the lives of the defenseless unborn, or those who say that those lives can be snuffed out, for any reason whatsoever.
