Opinion of Roe vs Wade

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

In the years leading up to Roe, approximately 1 million women each year had an illegal abortion. The vast majority of those women had to resort either to dangerous self-induced abortions or to the dark & often forbidding underworld of untrained & unreliable back-alley abortionists. As a result, many thousands suffered serious illness or permanent injury, not to mention those who died in the course of illegal abortions.

The realities of that world alone makes Roe a freedom decision.

One million women getting abortions each year didn't occur until after Roe v. Wade.  When abortion is illegal, less women get abortions.

Seriously, Democrats avoiding the central moral issue of this is obvious bullsh**t.

As I said in another thread:

Incidentally, the Constitution is a legal document, not a moral one. While ideally, we want all moral laws to be Constitutional and vice versa, it is quite possible for a law to be Constitutional and immoral or for a law to be moral and unconstitutional. Courts should leave morality to the legislative branch to decide. Courts intruding into moral issues inherently makes courts political which is undesirable.

[brucejoel99]

In the years leading up to Roe, approximately 1 million women each year had an illegal abortion. The vast majority of those women had to resort either to dangerous self-induced abortions or to the dark & often forbidding underworld of untrained & unreliable back-alley abortionists. As a result, many thousands suffered serious illness or permanent injury, not to mention those who died in the course of illegal abortions.

The realities of that world alone makes Roe a freedom decision.

One million women getting abortions each year didn't occur until after Roe v. Wade.  When abortion is illegal, less women get abortions.

Seriously, Democrats avoiding the central moral issue of this is obvious bullsh**t.

So tell me, guys, how does it feel to so confidently lie?

Just admit that you don't give a sh*t about women & this'll be easier for everybody.

[DC Al Fine]

Brucejoel, the article you cited noted:

In 1967 (DC note: i.e. just before the states began liberalizing their abortion laws), researchers confirmed this estimate by extrapolating data from a randomized-response survey conducted in North Carolina: They concluded that a total of 800,000 induced (mostly illegal) abortions were performed nationally each year

Snip

In deciding Roe v. Wade in January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that restrictive state abortion laws were unconstitutional, thereby legalizing induced abortion throughout the country. As a result, the number of legal abortions increased to almost 1.6 million in 1980.

It doesn't seem all that unreasonable to surmise that legalizing abortion materially increases the number of abortions based on those figures.

[Senator Incitatus]

Brucejoel, the article you cited noted:

In 1967 (DC note: i.e. just before the states began liberalizing their abortion laws), researchers confirmed this estimate by extrapolating data from a randomized-response survey conducted in North Carolina: They concluded that a total of 800,000 induced (mostly illegal) abortions were performed nationally each year

Snip

In deciding Roe v. Wade in January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that restrictive state abortion laws were unconstitutional, thereby legalizing induced abortion throughout the country. As a result, the number of legal abortions increased to almost 1.6 million in 1980.

It doesn't seem all that unreasonable to surmise that legalizing abortion materially increases the number of abortions based on those figures.

Not only is this a reasonable assumption; it is part and parcel of most pro-abortion arguments, particularly those advanced in the years before Roe.

[lfromnj]

Also earlier data would be a bit circumspect due to Griswold v Connecticut not happening till 1965.

[brucejoel99]

Brucejoel, the article you cited noted:

In 1967 (DC note: i.e. just before the states began liberalizing their abortion laws), researchers confirmed this estimate by extrapolating data from a randomized-response survey conducted in North Carolina: They concluded that a total of 800,000 induced (mostly illegal) abortions were performed nationally each year

Snip

In deciding Roe v. Wade in January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that restrictive state abortion laws were unconstitutional, thereby legalizing induced abortion throughout the country. As a result, the number of legal abortions increased to almost 1.6 million in 1980.

It doesn't seem all that unreasonable to surmise that legalizing abortion materially increases the number of abortions based on those figures.

CELTICEMPIRE stated that "one million women getting abortions each year didn't occur until after Roe v. Wade," & the data cited by the article that I brought up showed that it was known in 1955 (i.e. 17 years before Roe) that up to 1.2 million illegal abortions were occurring annually. I wasn't arguing that legalizing abortion didn't increase the number of abortions, because of course that simply wouldn't be true. I was, however, refuting CELTICEMPIRE's outright lie.

[DC Al Fine]

Brucejoel, the article you cited noted:

In 1967 (DC note: i.e. just before the states began liberalizing their abortion laws), researchers confirmed this estimate by extrapolating data from a randomized-response survey conducted in North Carolina: They concluded that a total of 800,000 induced (mostly illegal) abortions were performed nationally each year

Snip

In deciding Roe v. Wade in January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that restrictive state abortion laws were unconstitutional, thereby legalizing induced abortion throughout the country. As a result, the number of legal abortions increased to almost 1.6 million in 1980.

It doesn't seem all that unreasonable to surmise that legalizing abortion materially increases the number of abortions based on those figures.

CELTICEMPIRE stated that "one million women getting abortions each year didn't occur until after Roe v. Wade," & the data cited by the article that I brought up showed that it was known in 1955 (i.e. 17 years before Roe) that up to 1.2 million illegal abortions were occurring annually. I wasn't arguing that legalizing abortion didn't increase the number of abortions, because of course that simply wouldn't be true. I was, however, refuting CELTICEMPIRE's outright lie.

Taking the source you cite in context.

In 1955, experts had estimated, on the basis of qualitative assumptions, that 200,000-1,200,000 illegal abortions were performed each year.1 Despite its wide range, this estimate remained the most reliable indicator of the magnitude of induced abortion for many years. In 1967, researchers confirmed this estimate by extrapolating data from a randomized-response survey conducted in North Carolina: They concluded that a total of 800,000 induced (mostly illegal) abortions were performed nationally each year

The estimate you cite had a ludicrously high range of possible outcomes, which later research clarified at a less than one million figure.

Calling Celtic a liar based on that is quite the stretch.

[Kingpoleon]

The law, such as it was, is clearly from English common law.

“ Life... begins in contemplation of law as soon as an infant is able to stir in the mother's womb. For if a woman is quick with child, and by a potion, or otherwise, killeth it in her womb; or if any one beat her, whereby the child dieth in her body, and she is delivered of a dead child; this, though not murder, was by the ancient law homicide or manslaughter. But at present it is not looked upon in quite so atrocious a light, though it remains a very heinous misdemeanor.” - William Blackstone
“If one strikes a pregnant woman or gives her poison in order to procure an abortion, if the fetus is already formed or quickened, especially if it is quickened, he commits homicide.” - Henry de Brecton
“ If a woman be quick with childe, and by a potion or otherwise killeth it in her wombe, or if a man beat her, whereby the child dyeth in her body, and she is delivered of a dead childe, this is great misprision, and no murder; but if he childe be born alive and dyeth of the potion, battery, or other cause, this is murder; for in law it is accounted a reasonable creature, in rerum natura, when it is born alive.” - Edward Coke
“Life and what is not life is determined by sensation and movement.” - Thomas Aquinas

The Leges Henrici Primi agrees on this point as well. The Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, overturned a thousand years of legal precedent - an unprecedented event. There’s not a super precedent for abortion - there’s a uniquely overwhelming legal precedent on the issue. Rejecting it would mean fundamentally rejecting common law, the very basis of our law.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Seems worth noting that Aquinas also believed all human law should be statutory rather than created by judges, noting that "those who sit in judgment of things present, towards which they are affected by love, hatred, or some kind of cupidity; wherefore their judgment is perverted." So Aquinas, too, fundamentally rejected common law...

Late medieval and early modern law in Europe was informed by Aristotelian and Thomistic understandings of personhood even in places that didn't have a primarily-statutory legal tradition.

But, yes, common law prior to the early nineteenth century or so was that abortion was legal prior to "quickening" and either manslaughter or a serious misdemeanor afterwards.