Yitao Jeffery Ding
Abortion and the Process of Law
Abortion is an induced ending of pregnancy by removing a fetus or embryo through surgery or pills. The legality of abortion is one of the most polarizing issues in the United States. Those who support it call themselves “pro-choice,” as they believe that women have the right to choose what they want to do with their bodies so that abortion should always be legal. On the other hand, those who oppose abortions call themselves “pro-life,” as they reason that abortion is a type of murder and hence it violates moral and religious principles.
Abortion had been legal in the United States until mid-1800s. Ever since the earliest settlers arrived, abortions was performed and even widely publicized.
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Wade recognizes abortion as a right protected by the Constitution, the Supreme Court had shifted its opinion toward more regulation on abortion. The Planned Parenthood v. Casey case in 1992 allowed state regulation of abortion if it would not impose a “undue burden” on women, thereby enabling different kinds of state laws that significantly increase the difficulty of getting an abortion. This vague definition of “undue burden” affected the many decisions in later court cases. For example, in Gonzales v. Calhart, the Supreme Court recognizes the legality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and bans partial-birth abortion on a federal basis as the court reasoned that it does not impose an “undue burden” on …show more content…
Wade, many states kept their restrictions on abortion for all stages of pregnancy. For example, the Pennsylvania legislature enacted the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act in 1982. This legislation required married women seeking an abortion to notify their husbands (§ 3209), underage women seeking an abortion to notify their parents (§ 3206) and mandated that women wait for 24 hours to consult with a biased advisor before getting an abortion (§ 3205). Planned Parenthood, one of the pro-choice advocates, was infuriated by such a legislation and it deemed this legislation a violation of the Constitutional right of privacy guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. Nonetheless, the Pennsylvania legislature believed that this legislation stayed within the bounds of Roe v. Wade and it protected the mental and physical wellness of the women in the state. Therefore, Planned Parenthood took the case to the Supreme Court in 1992. Planned Parenthood primarily applied the principle of stare decisis in its arguments. It claimed that in Roe v. Wade, the court had recognized that the right to have an abortion is included within the Constitutional right of privacy in that there is a privacy interest in having an abortion. Thus, the government should not be able to interfere with abortions that are within the first trimester limit. In other words, Planned Parenthood argued that the present court should respect the precedent of Roe v. Wade, which ruled that regarding abortion, the privacy expectation