boastingRoe V.Wade英文及中文

2021年1月20日发(作者：role)

罗伊诉韦德案（
Roe V
.Wade,410 U.S.113,1973
）

Roe v. Wade


Roe v. Wade - Then and Now


By Janet Benshoof


On January 22
，

1973
，

the United States Supreme Court struck down the
State of Texas's criminal abortion laws
，

finding that the right to decide
whether to have a child is a fundamental right guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution. The 7-2 decision in Roe v. Wade would have an immediate and
profound effect on the lives of American women. Before Roe
，

it is estimated
that
，
000 and 1.2 million illegally induced abortions occur[red]
annually in the United States.
，
000 to 10
，
000 women died per
year following illegal abortions and many others suffered severe physical and
psychological injury.2


To prevent women from dying or injuring themselves from unsafe
，

illegal
or self- induced abortions
，

women's advocates spearheaded campaigns to
reverse century-old criminal abortion laws in the decades preceding Roe.
During the 1960s and 1970s
，

a movement of medical
，

public health
，

legal
，

religious and women's organizations successfully urged one- third of state
legislatures to liberalize their abortion statutes.


Roe v. Wade is a landmark decision that recognized that the right to make
childbearing choices is central to women's lives and their ability to participate
fully and equally in society. Yet
，

the Supreme Court's decision in Roe was far

from radical
——
it was the logical extension of High Court decisions on the
right to privacy dating back to the turn of the century. The decision is
grounded in the same reasoning that guarantees our right to refuse medical
treatment and the freedom to resist government search and seizure. In finding
that the constitutional right to privacy encompasses a woman's right to choose
whether or not to continue a pregnancy
，

the High Court continued a long line
of decisions recognizing a right of privacy that protects intimate and personal
decisions
——
including those affecting child-rearing
，

marriage
，

procreation
and the use of contraception
——
from governmental interference.


The Decision


In its 1973 decision in Roe
，

the Supreme Court recognized that a woman's
right to decide whether to continue her pregnancy was protected under the
constitutional provisions of individual autonomy and privacy. For the first
time
，

Roe placed women's reproductive choice alongside other fundamental
rights
，

such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion
，

by conferring the
highest degree of constitutional protection
——

——
to choice.


Finding a need to balance a woman's right to privacy with the state's
interest in protecting potential life
，

the Supreme Court established a trimester
framework for evaluating restrictions on abortion. The Court required the state
to justify any interference with the abortion decision by showing that it had a

fetal viability
，

that is the period before a fetus can live outside a woman's

body
，

were limited to those that narrowly and precisely promoted real
maternal health concerns. After the point of viability
，

the state was free to ban
abortion or take other steps to promote its interest in protecting fetal life. Even
after that point
，

however
，

the state's interest in the viable fetus must yield to
the woman's right to have an abortion to protect her health and life.


Immediately following the Roe decision
，

those who did not want to see
women participate equally in society were galvanized. The far right initiated a
political onslaught that has resulted in numerous state and federal abortion
restrictions and contributed to a changed Supreme Court
，

ideologically bent
on eviscerating Roe. The right to choose became the target of not only the
religious right
，

but also right-wing politicians and judges who used the Roe
decision to attack the
purported failure to adhere to the text of the Constitution and the
ginal intent
terms of Presidents Reagan and Bush. Beginning in 1983
，

the U.S. solicitor
general routinely urged the Supreme Court
，

on behalf of the federal
government
，

to overturn Roe. In addition
，

when appointing Supreme Court
justices
，

Reagan and Bush used opposition to Roe as a litmus test. During this
twelve-year period
，

five justices - O'Connor
，

Scalia
，

Kennedy
，

Souter
，

and
Thomas - were appointed. Not one of these five
，

who still constitute a
majority on the Court today
，

supports the
established by Roe.




The Dismantling of Roe


Shortly after the Roe decision
，

state legislatures began passing laws in
hopes of creating exceptions to it or opening up areas of law that Roe did not
directly address. No other right has been frontally attacked and so successfully
undermined
，

and all in the course of two decades
——
the same two decades
that sustained advances in other areas of women's rights
，

including education
and employment.


Teenagers were the first successful target. In 1979 the Court endorsed
state laws that required parental consent
，

as long as they were accompanied
by a complicated system whereby minors could assert their privacy rights by
requesting a hearing before a state judge on whether they were
abortion was in their best interests
（
Bellotti v. Baird
）。



The next assault on Roe was directed at low-income women. In 1980 the
Hyde Amendment
，

which prohibited Medicaid from covering most abortions
，

was upheld by the Supreme Court by a 5-4 margin
（
Harris v. McRae
）。

The
Court abandoned the neutrality required in Roe
，

finding that
，

for poor
women
，

government could promote childbearing over abortion
，

so long as
it did so by manipulating women through public funding schemes
，

not
criminal laws.


Dissenting in City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health
（
1983
），

Justice O'Connor called for a radical erosion of Roe and proposed
that a lesser standard of constitutional protection for choice be established
，


called the
，

in place of the
1989
，

after the arrival of Justices Kennedy and Scalia and the elevation of
William Rehnquist to chief justice
，

there were no longer five votes to preserve
reproductive choice as a fundamental constitutional right. The Court's ruling
in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
（
1989
）

demonstrated this new
reality when five justices expressed hostility toward Roe in differing degrees
and essentially called for states to pass legislation banning abortion in order to
test the law.


Three years later
，

in Casey
，

the strict judicial scrutiny established in Roe
was finally abandoned in a plurality opinion of Justices O'Connor
，

Kennedy
and Souter. Although the Court said it was not overturning Roe's central
premise that abortion is a fundamental right
，

the Casey decision replaced the
original
weak and confusing undue burden standard. This opened the door to a host of
state and federal criminal restrictions designed to steer women away from
abortion and to promote the rights of the fetus throughout pregnancy. Over
300 criminal abortion restrictions have been enacted by legislatures in the
past six years alone
，

none of which would have been constitutional under the
original Roe decision.


The Four Pillars of Roe


The Roe opinion was grounded on four constitutional pillars
：

（
1
）

the
decision to have an abortion was accorded the highest level of constitutional

protection like any other fundamental constitutional right
；

（
2
）

the
government had to stay neutral
；

legislatures could not enact laws that pushed
women to make one decision or another
；

（
3
）

in the period before the fetus
is viable
，

the government may restrict abortion only to protect a woman's
health
；

（
4
）

after viability
，

the government may prohi
bit abortion
，

but laws must make exceptions that permit abortion when
necessary to protect a woman's health or life.



Only two of the four Roe pillars remain today as a result of the Supreme
Court's 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v.
Casey. This decision is the culmination of a steady decline in constitutional
protection for the right to privacy. A woman's right to choose is still
constitutionally protected
，

however
，

the
jettisoned in favor of a lesser standard of protection for reproductive choice
called
，

state and local laws that favor fetal
rights and burden a woman's choice to have abortion are permitted
，

so long
as the burden is not
choice of abortion or childbearing. Now the government is free to pass laws
restricting abortion based on
，

anti-abortion views. States are now permitted to disfavor abortion and punish
women seeking abortions
，

even those who are young and sick
，

with
harassing laws.


Roe in the 21st Century