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[David Lockmiller]

Roe v. Wade - Wikipedia

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), is a landmark decision issued in 1973 by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of the constitutionality of laws that criminalized or restricted access to abortions. The 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. Arguing that these state interests became stronger over the course of a pregnancy, the Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the third trimester of pregnancy.

Later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court rejected Roe's trimester framework while affirming its central holding that a woman has a right to abortion until fetal viability. The Roe decision defined "viable" as "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid." Justices in Casey acknowledged that viability may occur at 23 or 24 weeks, or sometimes even earlier, in light of medical advances.

In disallowing many state and federal restrictions on abortion in the United States, Roe v. Wade prompted a national debate that continues today about issues including whether, and to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, what methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication, and what the role should be of religious and moral views in the political sphere. Roe v. Wade reshaped national politics, dividing much of the United States into pro-life and pro-choice camps, while activating grassroots movements on both sides.




The original framers of the U.S. Constitution were neither infallible or omniscient. Accordingly, "the Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added . . . ." On September 25, 1789, Congress transmitted to the state legislatures twelve proposed amendment, two of which, having to do with Congressional representation and Congressional pay, were not adopted. The remaining ten amendments became the Bill of Rights, and were ratified effective December 15, 1791.

But even this means of "permanently" deciding an important moral issue affecting the entire nation has not proven to be a permanent answer in at least once instance. The Eighteenth Amendment (Amendment XVIII) of the United States Constitution effectively established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol (though not the consumption or private possession) illegal. However, Amendment XXI, Section 1 states: "The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed."

It is the current members of the U.S. Supreme Court who are charged with the duty of construing the meaning of provisions of the U.S Constitution in cases and issues therein coming before the Court.

The majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, including Justice Kennedy, recently overturned the majority ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1944 in the case of Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214 (1944) with these words: "The forcible relocation of U. S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority."