ick's Guide to THE SUPREME COURT and Abortion

After  Roe v. Wade                    Supreme Court Book Mall

Summary: This is just one of Dick's Guide to the Supreme Court.  This one addresses the issues of abortion in the Supreme Court after the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 to the Casey decision of 1992.. You will also find detailed information here about the Rehnquist court, Pixie McCorvey, the Jane Roe who later renounced her role in Roe, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, (1992), United States v. Vuitch, (1971), preservation of the mother's life and health, shadowy constitutional right to abortion, Chief Justice Warren Burger, Rehnquist, Powell, Harry Blackmun, Hugo Black,  William Douglas, self-abortion, women's right to privacy perhaps found in radiations of the Ninth Amendment or penumbras of the Fourteenth Amendment, the lack of Constitutional emanations that might recognize the fetus as a person, women's right to privacy as opposed to Griswold's privacy rights.  In both Roe and Griswold activist judges did justify their decision on the basis of penumbras, radiations and shadows. Here you will also find other topics about the Supreme Court as well as its cases and other topics in American history.

If there is still more information you need to know more about The Supreme Court or American history, or some class paper you may be doing (or anything else important, like where can I get a free horoscope reading telling me whether or not to take the next America history test) send me email at ramann2997@aol.com.  If you need help with a paper be sure to tell me about yourself, the class you need the paper for, and when you need the paper.  I try to help everyone, even when I can only direct you to good research sources.

If you want to make extra money while you are studying about the Supreme Court or anything else on the Internet, or while you are in school or sleeping,  look at Dick's free Internet business opportunities at Truly No Cost Money Making Opportunities or  free business opportunities

Roe v. Wade Book Mall    Supreme Court Book Mall  American History Book Mall

Synopsis: After Roe v. Wade's radiations, penumbras and shadows.  Sanity?   

The true story of the Roe v. Wade case is a story about a lying woman, false cries of rape, women seeking vengeance and male judges who -- despite their inclinations to satisfy politically correct thinking of the day by becoming activist justices -- made, on the whole, a reasoned solution to a nearly impossible problem.  However, to make their judgment and still give women the politically correct but unconstitutional "right to abortion," they needed to look at the Constitution and develop legal reasoning that would show a fetus is not a person and a woman's right to privacy is sufficient to allow a women to get abortions at whim during the first three months of her pregnancy.  The justices behaved as strict constructionists when they decided the Constitution made no specific mention, or even implied, that a fetus might have the same rights as a person.  Then, taking off their constructionist robes, the justices donned their activists robes and agreed that somewhere in the Constitution, a woman's "right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

The details of the Roe v. Wade case can be found here.  This webpage addresses what happened after Roe v. Wade. 

Roe's Justices were clearly worried about publishing their opinion.  While it was politically correct one for 1973, they had needed to take the entire concept of legal reasoning to bizarre lengths, using the Griswold case's concept of reasoning by séance.  The Griswold Justices actually (this is NOT a joke) saw rights in radiations from the Constitution that produced shadows, in which certain unseen emanations were sensed by the Justices (probably as they held hands in a circle).  In  Roe, these unseen emanations convinced the judges that the Constitution assured a woman's right to privacy.  This privacy right allowed a woman the right to an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy.  After leaving their séance the Justices in Roe abandoned the sensing of shadows and used logic.  They reasoned that by the time a fetus was viable (defined as 6 months) the fetus was more like a person and should not be killed, if a state had a reason to want to protect the fetus's life. 

Still, the judges worried.  Would there decision be politically correct enough?  How would the public feel about their curious mixture of using mentally defined shadowy imagery with intelligent  logical reasoning.  Luckily, on the day they released the decision, President Lyndon Johnson died, so public attention was less focused on the Roe v. Wade decision.

While seven of the Justices literally used smoke (shadows) and mirrors to make their "right of privacy" decision, two were immune to the activist 7's radiations found in the 9th or maybe the 14th amendment.  White and Rehnquist both voted against the decision.  Rehnquist's dissent especially irritated the politically correct group -- never great believers in the Constitution as written.  He noted that the worst fears of the founding fathers had now come true.  The Supreme Court had now become a "super legislature," and was writing laws.  In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton had assured the colonists that this would never happen. 

But, judicial activism run amok was not just a feature of Roe and Griswold.  As far back as 1857, in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) (Click here to learn more about Dred Scott) politically correct Justices of the day had scanned the Constitution and define black people as not being persons, just as -- over a hundred years later -- Roe's justices defined fetuses as not being people.

It was clear the question of abortion in the United States would not end with Roe.  Folks who were sure human life began at conception could not accept the killing of life, even if it was only 3 months through gestation.  Those who saw the fetus as nothing more than a mole on a woman's nose, would never stop until they achieved abortion on demand -- for every month of gestation, including partial birth abortions. 

And the battle did go on.  The Burger Court stood firmly behind their shadowy emanations and struck down state challenges to their shadowy emanations.  But, in the decade after Roe, Congress passed several laws that slowed down the abortion-on-demand people.  In Harris v. McRae (1980), and Bowen v. Kendrick (1988) the court narrowly upheld two of the congressional laws, preventing taxpayers from being required to pay for non therapeutic abortions and preventing the use of taxpayer funds to support abortion counseling.  But, even after  séance justices Douglas and Stewart retired and were replaced by John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor, the court reaffirmed its basic Roe decision in City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health (1983).  The City of Akron wanted women to wait 24 hours and sign a consent form before getting an abortion.  The Supreme Court said "no" to this and another Akron City requirement that fetal remains be disposed of in a humane and sanitary way.

In 1986 President Reagan's solicitor general, Charles Fried, in support of Pennsylvania Governor Richard Thornburg greatly aroused the "fetus as a mole" side by arguing that "the textual, doctrinal and historical  basis for Roe is so far flawed and ... such a source of instability in the law that this court should reconsider that decision and on reconsideration abandon it.  This position also did not endear him to the remaining members of the court who were part of the original séance 7.  In Thornburg v. American College of Obstetricians (1986), a narrow majority decided, with some huffiness, that "We reaffirm once again the general principles of Roe ..." Huff and puff was not enough for people to see the handwriting on the wall.  If honest constructionists were to replace the older activists from the séance 7, Roe would not long stand.  And, when Justice Powell retired, President Nixon did nominate a strict constructionist to the court, Robert H. Bork.  This lit a fire under the butts of all the "fetus as a mole" crowd, as well as liberals -- who had often favored activist judges.  Activist judges often legislated from the bench to give liberals what they wanted, but could not attain through honest legislative efforts.  Bork's character was assassinated by everyone from welfare mothers to drunken old senators like Ted Kennedy.  Lesbians and feminists attacked Bork with whatever came into their misogynist minds. Bork had a constructionist viewpoint.  He had always been open and honest in public about his constructionist views, speaking out on political and judicial matters--in articles, in speeches and television appearances, in seminars at think tanks. Liberals feared his logical mind.  But even drunken liberals and feminist lesbians could question his qualifications or his intellect.  Indeed, it was his logic and intellect that frightened those who wanted the Supreme Court to peer into the shadows to find radiant penumbras.  Thus, faced with Bork's clear capability to be a Supreme Court justice, the liberals of America decide to use McCarthy tactics to destroy Bork's image, claiming that he was an extremist who interpreted the constitutional rights of individuals much too narrowly. His public honesty made it easy for the Senate to question him on these ideological views, paint him as an extremist (Bork did not mince words) and destroy his public reputation.  The liberals were so successful with their attack on Bork they have regularly dusted off their Bork approach and used it against other constructionist nominees, like Clarence Thomas.

 ________________________________________________________________

More Supreme Court Resources

Storm Center, David M. O'Brien.  Norton. Fifth Edition  Click here for Storm Center, price $23.45

Reason in Law.  Lief F. Carter and Thomas Burke. 2002 Longman.  Sixth edition. Click here for textbook binding, 1999 (fifth edition) at $37.40 - used books less

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/

http://ls.wustl.edu

http://findlaw.com/

http://www.c-span.org/

The Federalist Papers.  Hamilton, Madison and Jay.  Click here to get the federalist papers downloaded for just $2.65  Click here for a paperback copy of the Federalist Papers for $5.35

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People  (so you can effectively learn about the Supreme Court, or anything else) should be used in conjunction with First Things First.  Click here to buy Seven Habits for $4.96 and Click here to buy First Things First for $11.20

Page a Minute Memory Book (so you an remember things about the Supreme Court, your wife's birthday, your boy friends phone number or anything else). hClick here to learn more about, or to buy, the Page a Minute Memory Book for $9.20

More American History Resources

Dick's Guide to a Free College Level Course in American History since 1865

1215 Magna Carter

Patriarcha

Leviathan

English Constitution

1688 Glorious Revolution

1786 Federalist Papers 45 and 46 by James Madison explaining why the proposed federal government would not exceed the powers of the State governments

1788  The USA was founded as a Christian government

1863 Reconstruction

President Lincoln and President Johnson's views of Reconstruction

1865 Republican Radicals

1866 The Fourteenth Amendment

1867 Congress Took Charge of Reconstruction

1870 The Fifteenth Amendment

1870 After The Civil War and Reconstructior

1869-76 Grant as President and the Hayes/Tilden debacle

1876 The Dirty Politics of The Industrial Age, Local, State and National

1877 Compromise; Dick's Guide to the Compromise of 1877

1880-1913 The USA Becomes an Industrial Giant by 1900

1880-1913 American Society in the Industrial Age

1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement leads to World War II, Dick's Guide to American History

1917 Post World War I, Society and Culture: Change and Adjustment

1917 Urban and Rural Conflicts After World War I (The Great War)

1921-1933  The New Era: 1921-1933

1933 The New Deal: 1933-1941

1936 The Election of 1936, FDR beats Landon, 60% of popular vote, 98% of electoral

 1937 FDR takes on Supreme Court; loses fights with nine old judges and loses to stack court

 1944-45 Yalta and Potsdam

 1945  Post World War II society - The Baby Boomers

 1946 America's Post World War Containment Policy directed at Soviet Expansionism

 1947 The Marshall Plan was created during the Truman Years

 1948 The Election of 1948, Truman beats Thomas Dewey and Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrats

 1950 The Korean War

 1950 McCarthyism

 1951 Truman sets up a Loyalty Review Board in 1951 to fight Communism at home

 1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower  

1992 Bill Clinton

1998 President Clinton Acts as a Role Model for American Men

2001 Lying, adulterous womanizing Congressman Condit apologizes (sort of)

GENERAL TOPICS

America's Lost Limited Government, King Kong Federalism:

Dick's Guide to American History Biographies

American History, Free College Level Course  (Old Version, but it does have many links missing in the version above)

American Nation (The) by John A. Garraty  

American History Educational Resources on the WWW

Clinton, Bill  Acts as a Role Model

Lincoln, Abraham - Online                                      

Politician Scandals before the 1990's

Presidents in the 19th Century

Presidents in the 20th Century

Bill Clinton's Presidency