ROE AT 30
Today, thousands have gathered on the Mall in Washington to protest a 30-yeard old Supreme Court decision that usurped the democratic process and replaced it with judicial fiat. Far from settling the nation's view of abortion, Roe v Wade continues to aggravate it. Positions on both sides since 1973 have hardened, and reasoned discourse normally gives way to strident argument from both sides. Demonstrating just how bad a decision Roe is, three decades later it is more controversial than it was the day it was handed down. Roe should die.Abortion is one of the few issues about which I count myself a genuine radical. Abortion is murder, whether you approach it from a scientific, religious or philosophical point of view. Scientifically, the DNA that makes me unique as I sit here was the same DNA that sketched out who I'd become on the day I was conceived. Religiously, life is precious and should never be taken capriciously or handled callously. Philosophically, innocence should count for something, and what person is more innocent than one yet to exit its mother's womb?
I often compare abortion to slavery. I am an abolitionist; abortion, like slavery, allows one human to own another by giving one the ultimate power over another. But the slavery comparison is only half valid, because in truth abortion is in many ways much worse than slavery. Slavery, a monstrous evil, could be reversed--a slave can be set free. A slave can rebel, or be goaded to rebel, or can run away from his or her master. Abortion is irreversible, and an unborn child has no capacity to change his or own condition in any way. Unborn children are entirely at the mercy of their mothers, the abortionists and their industry, and the society that sanctions legal killing.
As for Roe, it was based on lies from the beginning. Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe, has admitted that she lied throughout the case. She has stated for the record that the pro-abortion forces used and manipulated her. She is now pro-life, both because of the treatment she recieved at the hands of pro-abortion advocates and because she has had a change of heart. So there is hope, but it remains illusive until Roe is struck down.
Should Roe pass to the ash heap of legal opinion as it should, states would have the right to sanction or prohibit abortion. Democratic forces would weigh in, and America's conscience would be tested, and the result will be a patchwork of abortion law and restrictions state by state. But in the end, states' rights do not trump human rights, and the conflict over abortion will only be settled finally at the Constitutional level. An amendment will be needed, either to affirm abortion as an inviolable right or to affirm the right to life. But that is as it should be. Amending the Constitution is ultimately a democratic venture, entered into by the entire nation, and not subject to the whims of a few lifetime appointed judges. Roe should die, that democracy might finally speak.
UPDATE: If you'd like to read a fairly dishonest critique of the above, go here. Like many on the other side of this debate (and many on my side to be fair), this person puts more words in my mouth than Shakespeare did for King Lear. Being pro-life isn't about repressing women's rights. Many, many women, possibly a slight majority, are pro-life. How does that square with the notion that pro-lifers harbor some desire to repress women? Many, many women who undergo abortions do so at the behest, even insistence, of irresponsible men who've gotten them pregnant. Abortion gives those men license to shake off their obligations, leaving women alone to bear the aftermath. Rather than being about repression, being pro-life is about defending the innocent. It's quite simple--in the eyes of the law of the land (not Catholic teaching, which as a Protestant I don't recognize as authoritative and which has no standing in our courts) we are all innocent until proven guilty of a crime. That's the definition of innocent I use when discussing abortion, or any other legal issue for that matter. As for my DNA argument, it's also fairly straightforward. DNA in and of itself doesn't constitute life, else every little shred of skin we lose everyday would have full personhood. But at the moment of conception, the conceptus has the entire DNA code that will determine hair color, eye color, and many aspects of personality. That's significant--left to nature's course, more often than not that little bundle of cells will be born a person will full human rights in less than a year.
That Norma McCorvey lied in the original Roe case is not in dispute. She admitted it in 1987. She said in her case testimony that her pregnancy was the result of a rape, when in fact it was the result of consensual sex. Roe is bad law based on a tissue of lies. Norma McCorvey is now pro-life, as is Sandra Bensing, Georgia's version of Jane Roe. Make of that what you will.
Finally, what did I mean by identifying myself as a "genuine radical?" Simply this--we can hem and haw around this issue for another 30 years, but nothing we do or say will change what abortion does, which is end a life. 40 million lives have been ended thusly so far. I believe killing abortionists is wrong, and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Terrorism in the name of the pro-life cause is wrong, and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. But abortion itself should be abolished. It is murder.