Abortion law

Roe turns 40

In 1973 one fight over abortion ended—and another began

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Readers' comments



The decrease concern over abortion by liberals and moderates comes due to the dramatic advances in contraception and family planning

If the Democrats can paint themselves as being against abortion and advocates of easier access to contraception it will essentially become a non issue.

Democrats should use the abortion issue as a bargaining chip. Offering to trade limitations on abortions for increased access to birth control by minors, universal health insurance for those under 18, and more state help for single mothers.

Abortion is increasingly becoming an outmoded and dated argument.


these issues are all raised by religious societies and they don't fit in the real life. You need the let the involved people make the decision on this and the law should stay out up to a 3 months of pregnancy.


If this was really about abortion the right would be doing somethiing about the billions of spontaneous abortions that happen every year. But those fetuses are forgotten by the right, cast aside like so many children raped by priests. This isn't about abortion, it is about keeping women in line.


Shall we allow some facts to intrude? Roughly 90% of abortions occur in the first trimester. There are only four doctors in the entire United States who are willing to carry out a third trimester abortion. That's FOUR. In the WHOLE COUNTRY.
Let's put the rhetoric of murdering babies in it's appropriate context. Can anyone seriously imagine that a woman would carry a fetus into the third trimester without the settled intention of giving birth to a child?

bampbs in reply to bampbs

I am not a woman, but I would guess that a third trimester abortion is emotionally identical to a third trimester miscarriage or a stillborn child or a very difficult birth where the child can be saved only by killing its mother.

bampbs in reply to bampbs

What upsets me most about abortion is that essentially all of those in the first trimester, and a large part of those in the early second trimester are avoidable. If couples used birth control correctly and universally, abortion would almost vanish.
So why don't opponents of abortion drive forward the obvious way to eliminate almost all of what they say they hate? Is there another, more fundamental agenda?
Of course, abortion was always available to those well-off enough to travel. And what do you think the typical D&C really was before abortion became legal?

jouris - old account in reply to bampbs

Of course there's another agenda: punish sex.
Otherwise, as you say, the anti-abortion folks would be leading the charge for maximum availability (and use) of contraception. Including both free (or at least dirt cheap) contraception services, and the sex education (starting about junior high) to make sure everybody knew both that it was available and how to use it. But somehow, that doesn't seem to happen....


The anti-abortion arguments like using images of killing, mass-killing, to describe abortion. But having grown up before RvN I was/am aware of one of the arguments for a legal abortion framework was the number of interventions collectively referred to as 'back alley abortions' that took place during in 'prohibition' jurisdictions prior to the Supreme Court decision. The involved harm to both the fetus/baby and often, to the mother. That is, in addition to the aborted fetus, women often lost there lives or suffered permanent injury from these then illegal procedures.

This fact speaks to the nature of prohibition in human society -- ban booze and people will find a way; ban some drugs, and people will find a way. Similarly, ban all abortions as advocated by the one side, and we can know as certainty that people will try to get around it.

Sure the fertilized egg has a complete genetic make-up to bacome a human being. But the long view must accept that human relations and actions can be a very messy business. Accepting these two facts are necessary for those interested in finding a way in law to cause the least harm to the most people. This, in my mind argues for allowing early abortions and against later abotions. Which is also pretty much what the US Supreme Court has found consistently in Roe and all subsequent rulings on the issue. Maybe these folks, in their ideological differences, have come to a reasonable position for all to understand...

A. Andros in reply to DAG001

The anti-abortion argument uses images like "mass killing" because it IS "mass killing." I asked you before: IS 55,000,000 a "massive" number? And, does abortion involve killing? If the answers to these questions are "yes," then the phrase "mass killing" is not an image . . . it is a reality.
There is nothing "messy" about the genetic make-up "to become a human being." The baby is 1) alive or 2) dead. If you can identify a state in which the infant is "sort of dead," biologists would like to know.
The unique identify of the baby (GCAT -- remember?) is as absolutely mapped out during the first trimester as it is the final trimester. So . . . other than the squeamishness of seeing what you have actually done ("MYGOD, it WAS a baby!") it is hard to see any difference.
As for the pre-R v. Wade Era, yeah . . . I remember it too. And, I have never seen any convincing statistics regarding the number of "back alley" abortions compared to the 1,000,000 or so "approved" abortions that occur every year.


The "Pro-life" movement should definitely be given a prize for their word twisting rhetoric and the efficiency of their marketing. Laws permit abortion, they do not force one to abort. They provide individuals with a choice consistent with the view that individuals in society are the sole decision makers regarding their lives and hence their bodies. How it can be "pro-life" to intervene and prevent a living woman to act in accord to what she believes is the best solution for her for the sake of a potential new life is completely illogical. What enables an outsider to make him/herself the judge of what the best solution is in a given situation? No one would agree to this in any other matter. Being pro-life involves the violation of the conscience of millions and millions of women, this is hardly a small cost. If you do not want an abortion, do not get one, if "pro-life" proponents really believe in a society where individual freedom prevails, this is the furthest they can go.

Gary C in reply to SA2602

"Pro-Life" people believe saving the life of a child living in her mother's womb is more imprortant than allowing a mother to take the life of her child.
In the early-mid 1800s slaveowners argued "if you don't like slavery, don't own a slave". I think we can all agree that was a bad arguement.

A. Andros in reply to SA2602


It is "pro-life" because it involves not killing. Does this help?

Mister Heche

If you are interested in reading an inspiring and captivating book about the pro-life movement, I highly recommend the memoir "Abandoned" by pro-life leader Monica Migliorino Miller.


More details about the book can be found here:



Abortion in the first trimester will never be illegal again; a substantial majority of the people would not stand for it. That is all I consider of ultimate importance in this debate.

jouris - old account in reply to bampbs

It will never be illegal again. But effectively unavailable? Not so sure that will not occur. See, for example, the recent legislation in Mississippi, which requires that anyone providing abortions have hospital privledges. Partly as a result of which, the one and only place in the whole state that you could get one an abortion is about to be closed down. It's still legal to get an abortion in Mississippi . . . except that there is nobody who can legally perform one.

Chris T. Smith

The conversation about abortion has evolved into something like George Orwell's book "1984" and the "doublespeak" thing... where the meaning of words or phrases are completely turned upside-down... the real "war on women" in this country is being waged by the abortion industry: http://www.know7things.com/sin.html

Iggle Blip Norfmarb

If a woman wants an abortion, a father cannot prevent the murder of his child. Yet, if woman has a child and parents are not together, the woman gets custody regardless of what the man wants. And the father cannot choose not to pay child support, he will go to jail. Am I the only person who sees something wrong here?? It is time for all fathers to revolt against this system that discriminates against men. Fathers aren't just wallets.

Yes, condoms are 100% effective.

The point is accidents happen. And males are on the line for 100% of the cost with absolutely no input. We no longer live in a society where males are the primary wage earners of a family. Why should the man be on the line for 100% of the cost but 0% of the decision.

Abortion, relationships, parenting roles, involvement, are just a few of the litany of issues related to unmarried couples. But to act like the situation is completely fair to men is disingenuous.


Abortion is an issue of health and economics, period. It really has nothing to do with the "life" of a fetus. It's not a moral issue, and there are only two kinds of people who position it as such-- those who believe that women should be punished for the sins of Eve and those who exploit that belief for political gain.

Iggle Blip Norfmarb in reply to Bugs10

How about the father of the unborn child in cases where there is no health issue? Shouldn't he get a say before a woman decides to murder his unborn child? He is legally responsible for the majority of the economic support if the child is born? Sounds like sexual discrimination and a war against men.

dwg21 in reply to Bugs10

It is an issue of life, when sperm and egg meet, life begins, it is murder. How is it anything but. And could a new born survive outside of the womb if nobody took care of it. NO! Life is precious and no one can determine when to end it.

dwg21 in reply to Bugs10


A. Andros in reply to Bugs10

That was very helpful. Am I right that you rely on a spirit of inner enlightenment, sadly unavailable to the rest of us, to make these pronuncimientos? Whence came this blinding vision from Heaven that gives you the confidence to proclaim "Abortion is not a moral issue?" And,your circle of acquaintances -- is it so vast and worldwide that you know those who wish punish women for the sins of Eve and that your heart is so pure and undefiled that you mysteriously can differentiate between the sincerely troubled and those who "exploit that belief for political gain?" Your confidence in your own moral judgment truly awes me. My own experience, spread out over seven decades, is that most people wrestle with questions of moral ambiguity and do the best they can. But, you now instruct us that there are only "two kinds of people" -- a revelation to me, who believed that humans are unique as individuals and that each one them tries, in good faith, to do what is good and not do what is evil. They make mistakes, of course, but most hearts are good. Well . . . I guess we all had a lot to learn.


Since this decision was made by the courts there have been over 50,000,000 people murdered. The holocaust pales in comparison. We can try to change the terms all we want by calling it pro choice, women's rights but at the end of the day it is murder. As a society we are regress not progress. "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly, I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. " Hippocrates, 400 B.C., Greece. Jeremiah 1:5a “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; "


Dear Economist, when citing issues of pro choice vs pro life, please make mention of the numbers involved in abortion, last check in the USA is over 50,000,000 fetus'/future people who would be part of our society.


The fundamental 'real-world' issue is not so much about the point at which life starts as about the conflict between an understandable human desire to have a clear 'point' and the messy reality in which life develops gradually with no clear transition. To our forefathers (notwithstanding Caesar) the point was birth. When that began to look absurd some, as in the UK, moved to the earliest-independent-survival point; which is of course a moving target as medicine improves. Some went for conception, which looks (probably wrongly) like a single point, with the problem that this has one arguing that sperm and egg are alive together but aren't separately, which also looks pretty silly (with some anomalies over condoms). But the core problem is that there is no point - life and humanity grow gradually. Can we not get used to this? Perhaps one can be 'a little bit pregnant'?


If the anti-abortion lot were to support birth control with the same zeal they use against the 14th Amendment, abortion would all but die out, save for instances of deformity or non-viability. But they battle against birth control as hard as they battle against the Amendment, which is why the rest of us treat them with disdain.

There's a lesson to be learned from Mississippi. Bureaucracy, religion and pettifogging have reduced the number of abortion-performing clinics to one. Partly as a result Mississippi leads the nation in teen pregnancy, out-of-wedlock births, adult and child poverty, and is tied with Arizona for lowest level of education and highest rate of illiteracy.

Mississippi also has the honor of being the most Conservative state and the most religious. No comment.

A. Andros in reply to erniejpdx

If we deal with guilt by association ("out of wedlock births, adult and child poverty . . . conservative and most religious") why stop there? Mississippi also has the largest (37%) black population as a proportion of state population. So much for statistics. No comment.

Gary C in reply to erniejpdx

Birth control doesn't always work and people that use birth control and have intercourse thinking they can't get pregnant may be more likely to choose an abortion.
Some birth control such as IUDs and even some pills can cause the death of a fetus or embryo. Pro-life people aren't going to accept abortion by another name.
The key however will be when people realize that a fetus is a human life. At that point Roe v. Wade will look as bad as the SCOTUS Dred Scot ruling that descendants of African slaves didn't have rights.


There might be less demand for abortion if the USA wasn't so utterly hopeless about providing adequate sex education and access to contraception. Last time the figures were out, the USA was still at the head of the OECD league table for unwanted pregnancies - basically on a par with sub-Sahara Africa. So long as right-wing zealots continue to prevent open discussion about sexuality (in many schools, SexEd is basically "sex gives you diseases so don't do it until you're married") and enables people to get reliable access to reliable contraception this sorry state of affairs will continue. Perhaps it's not coincidental that a high degree of religiosity is combined with a high degree of unwanted pregnancy, whereas in Western European countries a low degree of religiosity is combined with a very low rate of unwanted pregnancy? In other words, when people live in the real world they can make more adequate decisions, but when they occupy a mental fantasy-land their judgments and actions are necessarily going to be very dodgy indeed.

A. Andros in reply to CA-Oxonian

*One frequently reads comments such as yours that ths US is "hopeless" about providing adequate sex education and access to contraception." I'm in my second decade teaching in the inner city and that is not my experience. Contraceptives are cheap and readily available. Do you really believe that today there exists,say, a sixteen year old girl who does not understand the connection between intercourse and pregnancy?

* As an alternative hypothesis, I suggest that the high out-of-wedlock birth rate in America is due to single-parent families. These families are usually headed by women and their daughters replicate the mother's mistake. Also, the boys lack a responsible male model of sexual responsibility.

* The highest rate of out-of-wedlock births, now approaching 80% of all live births, is in the African-American community. This community also has the highest rate of single-parent families.

Those who argue as you argue have an historical problem to explicate. In the late 1940s and 1950s there was no chemical birth control and non-chemical contraceptives were harder to obtain. There was also no sex education in the public schools -- anywhere. Yet, the out-of-wedlock birth rate was FAR lower in, say, 1950 than in today's world. That is the opposite of what we should have seen if what you say is true. Why?

erniejpdx in reply to A. Andros

You say that contraceptives are cheap and readily available in the inner city. You follow that with the statement that African-Americans have the highest rates of out-of-wedlock births and the highest number of single-parent families. African-American women also have the highest abortion rate per thousand women in the US, as I'm sure you know.

Now, would you point out the reason for the discontinuity between the ready availability of contraceptives and the other statistics? Where does the process break down?

To answer the question you pose, I'm old enough to have lived through the 1940s and 1950s. The role models for girls at the time were actresses and celebrities, just as they are today. But back then any celebrity who became pregnant outside marriage was enveloped in a scandal that usually ended her career.

Compare that with today, when out-of-wedlock pregnancy in a celebrity is a feature story in magazines like People and its tabloid cousins. It's a prime-time TV announcement, and, at the rate it's occurring, seems to be a way for celebrities to garner publicity and boost their careers.

I'm not saying that that's the only cause of the difference between then and now, but to me the change in attitude is striking.


So abortion to kill an unborn baby, must be legal because of the right to privacy, but it's ok to outlaw marijuana?

I'm surprised the logical inconsistencies didn't cause some heads to explode.

Kroneborge in reply to A. Andros

Well over 800,000 marijuana arrests last year, not to mention the billions wasted on incarceration etc. And of course all the lives ruined, for something that is none of the government's business anyway

Gary C

"At the heart of the battle is a basic disagreement over when life begins...". It should be when does human life begins - a absolute and not just an opinion. But from a political point of view it's when enough people believe the unborn are human and the right of these humans to live are more important than the privacy/perceived benefits to mothers, fathers and voters just as slavery didn't end until we decided it was wrong.
I believe one day we will look back on Roe v. Wade like we do to the Dred Scott case. In Dred Scott the SCOTUS ruled that a slave couldn't bring a case to the SCOTUS even when he was in a state that outlawed slavery because he wasn't a person. Today we say killing the unborn isn't a crime if the mother wants them killed but when we recognize the unborn as human...


This is one heck of a propaganda piece. To be murdering preborn babies is wrong, and the truth.

Using the word “Fetus” dehumanizes a real human baby who gets murdered regardless of how you decide rationalize the reason to committing the murder.

The supporters of murdering preborn babies have to muddy the water by declaring what is obvious to modern science and rational thinking people by declaring that the baby is not a human unless the mother declares it so prior to the baby being born. Rationalizing a wrong does not make it right.

A. Andros

*Roe is, for the GOP, "the gift that keeps on giving." No politician could want a more ideal issue: one that mobilizes nearly half the electorate, stirs strong feelings and elicits financial support. Best of all, it can never be banished from the political scene because the SCOTUS will not allow this to happen!
*Quite apart from the moral gravity of this issue (which is immense), Roe is an annuity for conservatives. It polarizes politics -- it has done this since 1973 -- and so makes the politics of compromise impossible. Every Democratic president since Carter has found this out to his sorrow. Every GOP president since Reagan has found in Roe a tower of strength.
* Forty years on and this issue has not "faded." It still generates deep and sustained anger among the pro-life constituency.
* The modern conservative movement, oriented heavily toward social issues, owes its existence not to Goldwater (by the standards of our day a model of moderation) but to Roe.
* This is what happens when nine unelected old white guys, meeting in secret, think they should decide a divisive moral issue for a quarter-billion people.
* The controversy has not gone away, is not going away and will not go away until it is returned to the political, and not the judicial, process.


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