Ethical Issues In Roe V. Wade

In 1973, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision on the notorious Roe v. Wade case. The Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that a right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but that this right must be balanced against the state's interests in regulating abortions: protecting women's health and protecting the potentiality of human life (Roe v. Wade). Norma McCorvey, better known by her legal pseudonym “Jane Roe”, was the focal point of this landmark controversy. Since her involvement in Roe v. Wade, increased debate within the United States has stirred up amongst communities nationally. Almost 40 years later, neighbors, co-workers, and even family members often times

Wade should be reconsidered and potentially overturned due to the potential moral backlash. As a society, humans condone various forms of violence, sexual misconduct, and other unbecoming behavior. Certain laws within the United States criminalize animal abuse on the basis of animals holding a moral significance within the grand scheme of reality, but yet our moral qualms are divisive when considering the potential of a new human life. As it currently stands, infants in the womb are not considered viable and are not considered morally significant. This may in fact be an overstatement in the sense that humanity and the law does in fact care about the protection and safety of a potential human life, but regardless of this notion, the law reflects support for the belief that the moral significance of a mother’s life is more important than that of the fetus. This type of thought and rationale is dangerous when you consider the nature of the term viability. As history has demonstrated thus far, technology and scientific methods have found new ways over the course of time to secure the potentiality of life for a fetus. If this trend continues into the future, we may conceivably be able to consider a fetus viable at the age of 18 weeks, 12 weeks, 8 weeks, or even at the time of conception. As the ability for a fetus to procure a

Wade suggests that not all individuals agree that viability is ambiguous. In many instances, laws offered by the United States judiciary system are left unclear and open to interpretation on purpose. Proponents of this belief may assert that laws specific and precise in nature may aggrandize the subjective whim of a higher power rather than defend the “will of the people”. Opponents of the argument I have discussed thus far may even disregard the relationship between viability and ambiguity entirely and instead propose that the right to privacy of a woman is the focal point mandated by the Roe v. Wade verdict. In an analysis of the Roe v. Wade decision published by the Princeton University Press, Chase et. al states that “the [Supreme Court] determined that the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision of whether or not to terminate her pregnancy” (Chase). Perhaps the importance of the Roe v. Wade verdict does not lie entirely on the basis of the ambiguity of the term viability. It is possible that both of these suppositions may in fact be valid, but these responses ultimately fall short in recognizing the moral consequences represented by the law currently in