2012

Happy New Year, Everyone! God Bless You All In 2012!!!

Armed, Readied and Resourced for....The Abortions That Are Forced!

Not a week goes by that a chilling post (or two) is placed on my Facebook newsfeed. "Please pray for a 14 (or 15, 16, etc.) girl who is being forced to abort her baby." There might be an additional fact about who is coercing the abortion such as the mother or father of the girl. Sometimes an older victim is being coerced by a boyfriend or husband.

Choice? Where IS the choice here? First of all, the choice isn't given to the baby who cannot talk, cannot scream, cannot run away from an abortionists' curette.

Now we see that a pregnant woman is given no choice. There are no members of N.O.W. (for my youth readers, that stands for National Organization of Women), nor no prominent feminists speaking out for these girls/women who are being dragged by their arms or hair into the abortion mills. Sidewalk counselors see (and will post videos) of such actions like these taking place.

It is my experience in talking with girls and women who have had abortions that many of them were pressured to abort. Either they were emotionally manipulated by the boyfriend ("if you don't have this abortion I'll leave you" and the result after the abortion was they left anyway) OR it's a removal of all support by the parents ("if you don't have this abortion, you have to leave our house").

There are news stories of women who have refused to have an abortion and become victims of violence often resulting in death. One set of parents actually duct-taped the mouth of their daughter, tied her up and put her in the trunk of their car to take her over state line for an abortion. They were caught and convicted.

Just recently I read a story of a male (believe me, he is no "man") who pressured his girlfriend to have an abortion. She refused and on the day of her delivery (she was to be induced that day) he came to her house and stabbed her and the unborn son multiple times, killing them both.

Some states do hold the murderer accountable to the baby's death where fetal homicide laws exist. Even in some of those states that do have those laws, they don't always carry through with the charge. One woman told me that her state has a fetal homicide law but rarely did they see the babies' deaths counted in the murder charges.

Still, it's ILLEGAL to coerce an abortion. Many are unaware of this little fact. We heard how the landmark decisions that pushed forth abortions made way to not "coerce" a woman to be pregnant but very few realize you cannot coerce an abortion either.

Yet, forced abortions happen every day nd of course, because of the sordidness of the practice, this flies under the radar all the time. If there are any caring individuals who happen to learn about the abortion, there might be a possible way for hearts and minds to be changed through intervention but the majority of the time,the abortion is done and the girl is changed--detrimentally.

From the Unchoice website www.theunchoice.org shows
that many girls/women are coerced into abortions they didn't want.

64% of American women felt pressured by others

More than half felt rushed or uncertain, yet received no counseling

79% were not told about available alternatives

84% said they were not fully informed

65% suffer symptoms of trauma1

Coercion can escalate to violence, putting women & children at risk

Coerced abortion is an internationally recognized and illegal human rights abuse

Homicide is the leading killer of pregnant women

After abortion, maternal death rates are 4 times higher

Post-abortion suicide rates are 6 times higher within the first year

Please visit this website for more information on this subject.

Now what can you do?

First of all, pray! Sometimes, you may only hear about a situation and you can't be in touch with those who are being coerced or doing the coercing directly. Pray for intervention for the situation to change through softened hearts or for the right people to be placed in their paths. Pray for those lawyers and pro-life counselors....pray for God's will for all involved. Prayers are answered! Pray for wisdom if you are directly involved. Prayer is a first and foremost...never a last resort practice.

Second, educate yourself about abortion and about coercion. You may find yourself in a situation with a friend, a neighbor, a family member or even a total stranger in this (often) volatile predicament where you can share literature on abortion risks or prenatal development. Heritage House 76 is a website that offers pro-life resources--everything from literature on all pro-life subjects and to models of unborn babies to show. They have little pins representing the real size of babies' feet at the 10 weeks gestational age. You should see the looks of shock and amazement I receive when I show my pin. It really does open up the eyes/brains and hearts when they realize that there are little tiny toes formed so early.
Here is the link for Heritage House 76. www.hh76.com

Third, have letters printed up from The Texas Justice Foundation and keep them on file. This organization is connected with Alliance Defense Foundation. They connect lawyers in the local areas with those who are in coercive situations. There are letters to the girl, the parents and also the abortionist. Sometimes the abortionist realizes that performing that abortion on a girl against her will could be big trouble. If the letter is intercepted by the abortionist, oftentimes they will refuse to do the abortion. Of course, we do know there are many abortionists who get away with forced abortions and are protected by the authorities. Several documented cases involving Planned Parenthood revealed that they covered up forced abortions on young girls. Planned Parenthood is mandated by law to contact the authorities, yet we see time and time again they do not. Yes, these Planned Parenthoods are STILL in operation, so you see that this is a huge problem with very little accountability.

Here is the link for The Center Against Forced Abortion: http://thejusticefoundation.org/cafa/

In all my reading of abortionists, they don't seem to be charged with lawsuits very often and it's rare they would ever actually see a prison cell. If they do...it's only for a few months. Often they will continue their businesses without a license or any regulation. That's a post for another day (it could fill posts every day for the entire year honestly).


The letters can be downloaded and printed and kept on file. I encourage you to talk to your pastor (especially youth pastor) in having a set of these letters on file. If it is one thing I have learned after seven years of talking to pregnant moms seeking abortion, they call themselves Christians a LOT. SIDENOTE: In speaking to a sidewalk counselor one time, he shared that he would see Christian bumper stickers and fish symbols on cars of the people dropping off girls for abortions. And he also shared that a local minister prided himself on counseling abortion for members of his church. Yes, sick, evil and twisted.

Familiarize yourself with the local crisis pregnancy centers (or sometimes they are called pregnancy resource centers). If you have an opportunity, you can possibly get the pregnant mom to get a free ultrasound and other forms of help. Often the girl or the members of her family are unaware of the development of the baby or of the risks and procedures. Often the pregnant girl is unable to stand firm against the onslaught of pressure because she doesn't know her options. The family or boyfriend does not know of the programs available for pregnancy and babies. Again, knowing what your local crisis pregnancy center (cpc) offers will help YOU help someone else.

Finally, realize that sometimes you try to do everything and the situation ends with the abortion. It's heartbreaking because you know that not only has a life been taken in such a violent way but also that the lives of the family will never be the same. That girl will now need a different form of support and there are post-abortion resources available as well.

Keep praying for that girl and her family and know that God will use this for His purpose. We don't know His ways or timing but we know it's perfect and He is just and good.

Yes, it HAS been awhile since I last posted and I wanted to actually post something of a different subject but the multiple posts I saw recently of forced abortions led me to address this today. Just recently, many stories have come to light (not all dealing with abortion) about families in great desperation and handling the problems rashly. It's panic that causes people to think irrationally. It often is ratcheted many notches with selfishness and lies from the Enemy.

LOVE! While it's hard sometimes to stay calm if you find yourself working to prevent a forced abortion, (the adrenaline DOES pump), it's so important to love all those involved. They may have hard hearts and many are acting out in great fear. It's in His strength and wisdom that we can love and help those who are being difficult.

Please share this with others too. Many people have no idea this is actually going on at all. I can attest that even though that in the early years I was pro-life, I had no idea that forced abortions (and forced sterilizations too)had taken place and were taking place in my own city, state and country. Share these letters with others. Share the websites.

Today, on www.jillstanek.com a story was reported (and video added of it) about how Christian Bale traveled 9 hours from Beijing to a tiny village to visit Chen Guangcheng. Who is that, you ask? Chen is an outspoken opponent of abortion--especially forced abortion and foreced sterilizations done by his government. He has been imprisoned, beaten and tortured for his stance. Chen is now back in his village and miraculously alive still but his whole village is on lockdown. Christian Bale only wanted to meet him and shake his hand for his actions but he was denied all access and not at all treated as a film star (I guess these officials
didn't like Empire of the Sun?).

It's rare that a Hollywood celebrity actually cares for the unborn so it surprised me greatly that Christian even knew who Chen Guangcheng was or that he would take such action. As he said, "I can't look the other way".

It would be wonderful if someone who has access to
Bale to share that forced abortions take place here and that many in the present administration hold similar views for one-child policy, forced sterilizations and a lot of population control bilgewater. Bale needs to be told about the documentaries "Maafa 21" and "Blood Money" and "The Truth Behind Abortion" and "22 Weeks". I applaud Bale's concern for Chen's work and welfare but now it's time to be aware of what is going on in his own country additionally. We would all do well to share and act on Bale's realization,
"I can't look the other way".

I am Number 11-Housewife; age 44 Would you choose ME for the shelter?

“In the fall of 1972, a small group of students in an introduction to educational psychology class at a midwestern university saved every single soul in the lifeboat. The professor became agitated. 'No! Go back and do the exercise again. Follow the instructions.' The students … expected this to be a small group assignment in creativity and ingenuity. They had worked out an intricate plan whereby everyone in the lifeboat could survive. When the professor persisted, the students resisted--and ultimately refused to do the exercise. Chalk up a victory to the human spirit."-- from Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's book The Deliberate Dumbing Down America.

The book goes on to say that this marked a point in education where this exercise soon became a mainstay of public school education. From this point on, students would be inculcated with the lesson that humans were expendable and that death was the only answer. No creative solutions would be allowed and instructions would be unquestioningly followed.

I remember these exercises in my own 8th grade social studies class. There were variations in the settings...lifeboats, world wars, underground shelters and deserted islands. I even remember cannibalism hypothetically discussed! It really didn't matter the setting, because the formula was that each of us students had to decide who would die and who would survive. What was my reaction to this exercise? What I remember is that I didn't like it but really felt that I had no recourse to question the authorities about such a ghoulish exercise. My own mindset then was already programmed mostly as secular humanist. I believed God existed but I didn't KNOW Him or His Word. My overriding concern back then was getting the grade. It had to be an "A" and it was made very clear to us in these exercises that class participation was the only way to get that "A".

Later on, when I became a parent, I paid little attention to exercises that my own children might have been exposed to in the classroom. It has only been since I picked up Iserbyt's book (and John Taylor Gatto's book The Underground History of American Education) in the past decade, that I have checked to see what is being taught in classrooms. One day while on the internet, I discovered that the bomb shelter exercise was still in the curriculum in many schools'. Human expendability is still being driven into impressionable young minds. An example of this assignment is at the end of today's blog entry.

Of course, add to the fact that our youths have been told that they come from monkeys and/or a soup of ooze struck by lightning and we all are just supposed to bow down to a bunch of stones for winter and spring solstice. Students can't possibly have any purpose in their lives (except to “occupy” a big city street to sport their Che shirts, drink their Starbucks and to use their iPhones and iPads to rail against evil companies) and of course, we have to ignore that there's an "Intelligent Designer" (which thoroughly freaks out the lofty, anointed "ejucaaaatoooors"). By the way, for the record, I DO respect and care for public school teachers. Many of them are dedicated to real education and not to indoctrination. Many are very much powerless to change the system, yet in their own way, can still teach kids to critically think for themselves. I thank God for all the Christian teachers who have shared over the years how they survive the secular system.

I'll get on my soapbox another day about the "other kind".....the ones who do not fit into the category above.

My point about this of course, goes back to the sanctity of life. As we saw in Mississippi election, Personhood was shot down. The money and power that goes into the death agenda is gargantuan and they are NOT going to relinquish that power and money without a fight. It all comes down to recognizing the baby in the womb as a "person" and a "human". Once that is finally back into public awareness and focus...the millions of dollars and the human expendability industry collapses. They KNOW the baby is human and a person. They fear the loss of their vice-like grip on abortion.

It's simplistic to call it the Hitler mentality but it's the easiest to use because most people still recognize his name as synonymous with genocide. There are still survivors of the concentration camps to share their personal testimonies. We could use Stalin and Lenin’s names too as they were responsible for the murders of millions. They don’t seem to get the same attention by Hollywood and history textbooks as Hitler does). We can look at history and find many bloodthirsty despots. We can point to them and recoil with disgust at how blatantly evil and sadistic they were (and still are in many countries overseas). The origin isn't with them but in the Garden of Eden. Choices made then by Satan, Adam and Eve brought us to this point. It's in our wicked hearts every day when we hate anyone....we have committed murder too as Jesus told us in Matthew 5:21-22. We pick and choose who we hate just like the past despots did. We all have our deep-seated prejudices which we struggle to overcome and we try to purge it from our thoughts. We look to the historical sadists and feel better about ourselves that we would never act upon our hatred to that degree. We are to love our enemies and live peaceably as much as possible with all men. Many of us say we love God but hate our brother which makes us liars. We need to repent!

This “Hitler” mentality is still alive and well. I have faced it with people of ALL levels of education, ALL levels of economic backgrounds, ALL religious backgrounds, and ALL different melanin levels, many different ages and different regions of the world. It is sad to hear people say that some people are deserving of death based on a prejudice or preconceived notion. I have had conversations with people who say that some people are deserving of dismemberment only because their mothers and fathers don’t use pencils or have running water. And these are the same kind of people who have accused me of being “heartless” because I am on a certain side of the “aisle”. We aren’t facing an overpopulation problem (on the contrary) yet, the majority of this country thinks there is. We are told by politicians and some churches that the solution to “population control” is death. Hmmmm……the bomb shelter/lifeboat, human expendability exercise….no creativity, no ingenuity allowed….we are told that the instructions MUST be followed strictly.

Why do I bring up ourselves in this? We have to admit our own weaknesses and our carnal ways. It's easy to point to blatant evil and sadism and be glad we aren't a part of that. We can easily be the Pharisee in the parable who said to God, “ I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.” We need to be the tax collector raising our eyes to heaven…….saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ Jesus continued, “ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

I bring this up, as painful as it is, to self-examine for the sake of abortion. Are we thinking better of ourselves about the despots but allowing our littlest citizens to be hated to death? How easy is it to soak in the mindset of bomb shelter exercises. I am not saying blame our circumstances and not take responsibility. Bomb shelter exercises or not, we know what is right and wrong. We have to take a good hard look at our everyday attitudes towards others. Think about that college group back in 1972. When I read that for the first time I was astounded that a class resisted the lesson. What’s that saying about me? I followed along with the exercise with the mindset that getting an “A” was more important than standing up for life. When it sunk in that someone resisted the lesson, I realized I had been sleepwalking in my moral beliefs. Seriously, “someone” had to die? Really?

We aren’t talking medical triage either. We aren’t asking questions of earthquake victims or soldiers on the battleground, “What is your socio-economic status and your occupation in order for us to decide whether to treat you.” We don’t have to play the bomb shelter exercise anymore. This mindset is in our movies and television shows. Just think how many movies show numerous ways for the human body to be destroyed in the most horrific ways. I have seen teenagers laugh at these movies and laugh at other people’s pain and destruction. In my “B.C. (before Christ)” days, I saw the movies “Halloween” and “Diehard”, etc. I read Silence of the Lambs. I was horrified yet I watched and read these terrible accounts. Even today, I see movie trailers on TV of the new movies that glorify body parts flying. What other areas do we see the bomb shelter/Hitler mentality in practice? Wherever you see it or are forced to participate……RESIST. I’ll admit that that my downfall issues are resignation, fatalism, fear and discouragement in the tsunami waves of evil and apathy to evil. That’s why I need Jesus every day. God reminds me to just talk to that ONE girl today. He says “Don’t worry about the words…I’LL give you the words.” Just love on that ONE person I will give you today.”

My regular readers will recognize I placed a new picture on the blog. “The answer to a crisis pregnancy is to eliminate the crisis, not the child”. We have heard the term “thinking outside the box”….it’s the “trendy phrase” that has come into vogue for many, including businesses. One business, Taco Bell even goes as far as calling it “thinking outside the bun” (and am aware of the silly pregnancy term “bun in the oven”)! Somehow, “thinking outside the box” isn’t applied to preventing abortion, even in many churches. By the way, many businesses and churches give aid, support and money to the abortion industry. There is a list of businesses that give to Planned Parenthood and of course, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice shows the denominations that are pro-abortion supporters. These are people who won’t think outside the box. These are people who are the modern-day agitated professors ordering “NO! Go back and do the exercise again! Follow the instructions!” Our response is, “We are not doing the assignment”.

We are all ignorant of many things. Just take a moment to think about what we can do to recognize and help our fellow citizens, no matter what size, age or health issue they may possess. In the pro-life circles, we ascribe to the belief “Love them BOTH!” (meaning the pregnant woman and her baby). Let us include the father of the baby. Let us love them ALL! We need not choose one over the other. Just like the college group who had the ingenuity and the creativity to figure out how ALL on the lifeboat could be saved, let us love the pregnant woman, the baby and his or her father! This is not a zero-sum game. We CAN think outside the box and we can, with ingenuity and creativity, save everyone on this “lifeboat” called Earth. This includes doctors, lawyers, nurses, family court judges, congressmen, commissioners, aldermen, county assessors, ministers, Sunday school teachers, school superintendants and yes, our teachers. Most importantly we must recognize that parents and children have the most influence in changing our nations to be life-thinkers instead of death-thinkers. Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton’s reversal won’t permanently ban abortions. We have to have to get an education (“brain transplant”) and a heart “transplant”. Personhood Mississippi revealed that there are still so many people who have no idea when life even begins and that hearts are hard and cold!

Sadly, we will always have the mindset of Hitler/Stalin/Lenin/Satan as long as we live on this earth in our fleshly bodies. We will still have ignorance, people who just want the good grades, Pharisaical attitudes and basic laziness in searching for solutions. Love DOES cover a multitude of sins! Love isn’t a feeling, it’s an action!

Luke 10: 27-28
So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”

Here's the example of the Fallout/Bomb Shelter Exercise
FALLOUT SHELTER SCENARIO
You are members of a department in Washington, DC, in charge of experimental stations in the far outposts of civilization. Suddenly the Third World War breaks out and bombs begin dropping. Places all across the globe are being destroyed. People are heading for all available fallout shelters. You receive a desperate call from one of your experimental stations, asking for help.
It seems there are ten people but there is only enough space, air, food, and water in their shelter for six people for a period of three months—the amount of time they estimate they can safely stay down there. They realize that they have to decide which six should go into the shelter, but they are likely to become irrational and begin fighting. So they have decided to call your department and leave the decision to you. They will abide by your decision.
Each of you has yet to prepare to go your own fall-out shelter: you are running short on time. Because time is short, you only received superficial descriptions of the ten people. You have 30 minutes to make your decision. Then, you will have to go to your own shelter.
As a group, decide who will be eliminated from the shelter. Before you begin, I want to impress upon you two important considerations. It is entirely possible that the six people you choose to stay in the shelter might be the only six people left to start the human race over again. This choice is therefore, very important. Do not allow yourself to be swayed by pressure from the others in your group. Try to make the best choices possible. On the other hand, if you do not make a choice, then you are choosing to let the ten people fight it out among themselves, likely resulting in the death of all ten individuals. You have exactly 30 minutes.
1. Black, militant, second year medical student ______
2. Bookkeeper; 31 years old ______
3. Bookkeeper’s wife; six months pregnant ______
4. Famous historian author; 42 years old ______
5. Hollywood starlette; singer; dancer ______
6. Bio-chemist ______
7. Rabbi; 54 years old ______
8. Olympic athlete; track and field ______
9. College co-ed ______
10. Policeman with gun (they cannot be separated) ______

What We Never Knew About Doe

Doe vs. Bolton unleashed the floodgates of abortion restrictions. Below are some of the facts of what transpired. What many don't realize is that Doe allowed for abortion all the way to the day of deliver for any reason which makes our country the most lax in abortion restrictions. Yes, many restrictions have been put in place piecemeal since 1973, but technically, a woman can seek an abortion clear up to the day of delivery. And yes, even though people say "HOW can anyone do that?"....it actually does happen. Case after case exists and it's not rare. Pregnancy is approximately 40 weeks. Babies have been aborted as late as 32. The earliest any baby has survived so far, is at 21 weeks, 6 days.

Here's the thing about viability. Pro-aborts look at an unborn baby and say that a baby doesn't have the right to live based on its inability to survive on his or her own. What about the baby when he or she is born? Can you honestly LEAVE a baby alone after he or she has left the womb? Why not dispose of the child then too (oh wait, they do as we learned with Gosnell's gang in Philadelphia). Newborns and toddlers can't care for themselves but let me challenge those who think viability is the gauge for killing.

So those who look down on an unborn baby who depends on mom for food, temperature control from shelter and protection....(you'll need help with this)....make sure that you are dropped off in the middle of the Arctic with absolutely no food or drink, no shelter (no tent, no tarp) and not one stitch of clothing. Make sure there are no people for hundreds of miles around. Give me a good guess of how viable you will stay. Aaaaah c'mawwwwwn.....your best gander. Yeah, that's what I thought. :)

This is from Sandra Cano's own website of Wonderfully Made ministries. Please check out her website. Also below is the link to the interview. I can't place that interview here but the interview is fascinating.
************************************************

On June 23, 2005, for the first time, members of the United States Congress heard the truth about the Doe v. Bolton case. Sandra Cano, who was ''Mary Doe'' in Doe v. Bolton, testified before the United States Judiciary Sub-committee on the Constitution.

THE FACTS

•Sandra Cano never had or wanted an abortion, and she never testified in court in the Doe v. Bolton case, In fact, she has never supported abortion. Sandra was pregnant when she went to legal aid for help with a family matter.


•The Supreme Court decided the Doe case on the same day is Roe v. Wade which is known as its companion case. Because Doe allowed a health exception, an abortion can be performed until the day of birth. Doe ultimately resulted in the horrific procedure known as partial-birth abortion.


•Sandra worked for years to get the court records of her case unsealed.


• Sandra asked The Justice Foundation to represent her in an effort to reverse Doe v. Bolton. In 2003, The Justice Foundation filed a motion to reverse Doe v. Bolton.

Doe's own testimony:
http://wonderfullymadeministry.com/testimony.htm

*****************************************
Sandra Cano could have hidden her true identity in perpetuity behind the Doe pseudonym. There was no need for her to spend years unsealing the records but she learned that Doe vs. Bolton was a lie and she couldn't live with that. She was appalled that she had been used to push forth an agenda she never even believed in at the very outstart. Just like Norma McCorvey, she has been fighting for the unborn and wants to see Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton overturned. When you read this interview, keep in mind the facts of the case. This is a great interview.

http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/494

Many of you who were watching the Personhood Mississippi amendment election saw that it failed. Planned Parenthood was very successful in scaring the citizens into thinking that they would be criminally investigated for miscarriages (untrue) and that women wouldn't get help for ectopic pregnancies (not true) and a host of other lies (mentioned in the link on the previous blog about Personhood MS). Lessons were learned and no one is giving up...the pro-lifers are still resolute to give a voice to those who don't have one. Mississippi only has one abortion mill for the whole state.....but that's one abortion mill too many.

God has a plan and He's still in control. Yes, Satan dances for joy that abortion is still taking place but his days are numbered and abortion will end. It's just a matter of time but it will end. God still has his warriors in place to continue the battle.

There's the initial sadness that things didn't go in the victory direction but no one is going to give up. One pro-lifer who worked tirelessly for the campaign reminded everyone of the eloquent and impassioned William Wilberforce who assessed, "So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition."

Wilberforce never gave up and He trusted in God and kept his eyes on Jesus. We need to do the same!!! We serve a great and mighty God!

Big Day for Personnhood in Mississippi-Proposition 26

http://www.mspolicy.com/downloads/Initiative26Analysis.pdf

Overcoming misinformation and distortion of facts for Mississippi Personhood:
http://bound4life.com/blog/2011/11/08/answering-personhood-opposition-as-mississippi-votes-today


Answering to the scare tactics (this is important since Planned Parenthood started the front group Mississippians for Healthy Families to lie about Personhood).
http://yeson26.net/latest-news/scare-tactics/

Doe vs. Bolton

Argued December 13, 1971 Reargued October 11, 1972 Decided January 22, 1973
Full case name	‘Mary Doe’ v. Arthur K. Bolton, Attorney General of Georgia, et al.
Holding
The three procedural conditions in 26-1202 (b) of Ga. Criminal Code violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan, Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell, Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority	Blackmun, joined by Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Powell
Concurrence	Burger
Concurrence	Douglas
Dissent	White, joined by Rehnquist
Dissent	Rehnquist

Judge Harry Blackmun wrote the opinion:
Excerpts:
Mary Doe alleged:

(1) She was a 22-year-old Georgia citizen, married, and nine weeks pregnant. She had three living children. The two older ones had been placed in a foster home because of Doe's poverty and inability to care for them. The youngest, born July 19, 1969, had been placed for adoption. Her husband had recently abandoned her and she was forced to live with her indigent parents and their eight children. She and her husband, however, had become reconciled. He was a construction worker employed only sporadically. She had been a mental patient at the State Hospital. She had been advised that an abortion could be performed on her with less danger to her health than if she gave birth to the child she was carrying. She would be unable to care for or support the new child.

(2) On March 25, 1970, she applied to the Abortion Committee of Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta, for a therapeutic abortion under § 26—1202. Her application was denied 16 days later, on April 10, when she was eight weeks pregnant, on the ground that her situation was not one described in § 26—1202(a). 7

(3) Because her application was denied, she was forced either to relinquish 'her right to decide when and how many children she will bear' or to seek an abortion that was illegal under the Georgia statutes. This invaded her rights of privacy and liberty in matters related to family, marriage, and sex, and deprived her of the right to choose whether to bear children. This was a violation of rights guaranteed her by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The statutes also denied her equal protection and procedural due process and, because they were unconstitutionally vague, deterred hospitals and doctors from performing abortions. She sued 'on her own behalf and on behalf of all others similarly situated.'

The other plaintiffs alleged that the Georgia statutes 'chilled and deterred' them from practicing their respective professions and deprived them of rights guaranteed by the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments. These plaintiffs also purported to sue on their own behalf and on behalf of others similarly situated.

A three-judge district court was convened. An offer of proof as to Doe's identity was made, but the court deemed it unnecessary to receive that proof. The case was then tried on the pleadings and interrogatories.

The net result of the District Court's decision is that the abortion determination, so far as the physician is concerned, is made in the exercise of his professional, that is, his 'best clinical,' judgment in the light of all the attendant circumstances. He is not now restricted to the three situations originally specified. Instead, he may range farther afield wherever his medical judgment, properly and professionally exercised, so dictates and directs him.

The vagueness argument is set at rest by the decision in United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62, 71—72, 91 S.Ct. 1294, 1298 1299, 28 L.Ed.2d 601 (1971), where the issue was raised with respect to a District of Columbia statute making abortions criminal 'unless the same were done as necessary for the preservation of the mother's life or health and under the direction of a competent licensed practitioner of medicine.' That statute has been construed to bear upon psychological as well as physical wellbeing. This being so, the Court concluded that the term 'health' presented no problem of vagueness. 'Indeed, where a particular operation is necessary for a patient's physical or mental health is a judgment that physicians are obviously called upon to make routinely whenever surgery is considered.' Id., at 72, 91 S.Ct., at 1299. This conclusion is equally applicable here. Whether, in the words of the Georgia statute, 'an abortion is necessary' is a professional judgment that the Georgia physician will be called upon to make routinely.

We agree with the District Court, 319 F.Supp., at 1058, that the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment. And it is room that operates for the benefit, not the disadvantage, of the pregnant woman.

.Mary DOE et al., Appellants, v. Arthur K. BOLTON, as Attorney General of the State of Georgia, et al.
Supreme Court
aboutsearchliibulletinsubscribepreviews.410 U.S. 179 (93 S.Ct. 739, 35 L.Ed.2d 201)

Mary DOE et al., Appellants, v. Arthur K. BOLTON, as Attorney General of the State of Georgia, et al.

No. 70—40.

Argued: Dec. 13, 1971.

Reargued: Oct. 11, 1972.

Decided: Jan. 22, 1973.

■opinion, BLACKMUN [HTML]
■concurrence, BURGER [HTML]
■concurrence, DOUGLAS [HTML]
■dissent, WHITE, REHNQUIST [HTML]
■dissent, REHNQUIST [HTML]
See 410 U.S. 959, 93 S.Ct. 1410.

Syllabus

Georgia law proscribes an abortion except as performed by a duly licensed Georgia physician when necessary in 'his best clinical judgment' because continued pregnancy would endanger a pregnant woman's life or injure her health; the fetus would likely be born with a serious defect; or the pregnancy resulted from rape. § 26—1202(a) of Ga. Criminal Code. In addition to a requirement that the patient be a Georgia resident and certain other requirements, the statutory scheme poses three procedural conditions in § 26—1202(b): (1) that the abortion be performed in a hospital accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAH); (2) that the procedure be approved by the hospital staff abortion committee; and (3) that the performing physician's judgment be confirmed by independent examinations of the patient by two other licensed physicians. Appellant Doe, an indigent married Georgia citizen, who was denied an abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy for failure to meet any of the § 26 1202(a) conditions, sought declaratory and injunctive relief, contending that the Georgia laws were unconstitutional. Others joining in the complaint included Georgia-licensed physicians (who claimed that the Georgia statutes 'chilled and deterred' their practices), registered nurses, clergymen, and social workers. Though holding that all the plaintiffs had standing, the District Court ruled that only Doe presented a justiciable controversy. In Doe's case the court gave declaratory, but not injunctive, relief, invalidating as an infringement of privacy and personal liberty the limitation to the three situations specified in § 26—1202(a) and certain other provisions but holding that the State's interest in health protection and the existence of a 'potential of independent human existence' justified regulation through § 26 1202(b) of the 'manner of performance as well as the quality of the final decision to abort.' The appellants, claiming entitlement to broader relief, directly appealed to this Court. Held:

1. Doe's case presents a live, justiciable controversy and she has standing to sue, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147, as do the physician-appellants (who, unlike the physician in Wade, were not charged with abortion violations), and it is therefore unnecessary to resolve the issue of the other appellants' standing. Pp. 187—189.

2. A woman's constitutional right to an abortion is not absolute. Roe v. Wade, supra. P. 189.

3. The requirement that a physician's decision to perform an abortion must rest upon 'his best clinical judgment' of its necessity is not unconstitutionally vague, since that judgment may be made in the light of all the attendant circumstances. United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62, 71—72, 91 S.Ct. 1294, 1298—1299, 28 L.Ed.2d 601. Pp. 191—192.

4. The three procedural conditions in § 26—1202(b) violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 192—200.

(a) The JCAH-accreditation requirement is invalid, since the State has not shown that only hospitals (let alone those with JCAH accreditation) meet its interest in fully protecting the patient; and a hospital requirement failing to exclude the first trimester of pregnancy would be invalid on that ground alone, see Roe v. Wade, supra. Pp. 193—195.

(b) The interposition of a hospital committee on abortion, a procedure not applicable as a matter of state criminal law to other surgical situations, is unduly restrictive of the patient's rights, which are already safeguarded by her personal physician. Pp. 195—198.

(c) Required acquiescence by two copractitioners also has no rational connection with a patient's needs and unduly infringes on her physician's right to practice. Pp. 198—200.

5. The Georgia residence requirement violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause by denying protection to persons who enter Georgia for medical services there. Pp. 200.

6. Appellants' equal protection argument centering on the three procedural conditions in § 26—1202(b), invalidated on other grounds, is without merit. Pp. 200—201.

7. No ruling is made on the question of injunctive relief. Cf. Roe v. Wade, supra. P. 201.

D.C., 319 F.Supp. 1048, modified and affirmed.

Margie Pitts Hames, Atlanta, Ga., for appellants.

Dorothy T. Beasley, Atlanta, Ga., for appellees.

TOP


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Mr. Justice BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this appeal, the criminal abortion statutes recently enacted in Georgia are challenged on constitutional grounds. The statutes are §§ 26—1201 through 26—1203 of the State's Criminal Code, formulated by Georgia Laws, 1968 Session, pp. 1249, 1277 1280. In Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147, we today have struck down, as constitutionally defective, the Texas criminal abortion statutes that are representative of provisions long in effect in a majority of our States. The Georgia legislation, however, is different and merits separate consideration.

* The statutes in question are reproduced as Appendix A, post, p. 202. 1 As the appellants acknowledge, 2 the 1968 statutes are patterned upon the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code, § 230.3 (Proposed Official Draft, 1962), reproduced as Appendix B, post, p. 205. The ALI proposal has served as the model for recent legislation in approximately one-fourth of our States. 3 The new Georgia provisions replaced statutory law that had been in effect for more than 90 years. Georgia Laws 1876, No. 130, § 2, at 113. 4 The predecessor statute paralleled the Texas legislation considered in Roe v. Wade, supra, and made all abortions criminal except those necessary 'to preserve the life' of the pregnant woman. The new statutes have not been tested on constitutional grounds in the Georgia state courts.

Section 26—1201, with a referenced exception, makes abortion a crime, and § 26—1203 provides that a person convicted of that crime shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than 10 years. Section 26—1202(a) states the exception and removes from § 1201's definition of criminal abortion, and thus makes noncriminal, an abortion 'performed by a physician duly licensed' in Georgia when, 'based upon his best clinical judgment . . . an abortion is necessary because:

'(1) A continuation of the pregnancy would endanger the life of the pregnant woman or would seriously and permanently injure her health; or

'(2) The fetus would very likely be born with a grave, permanent, and irremediable mental or physical defect; or

'(3) The pregnancy resulted from forcible or statutory rape.' 5

Section 26—1202 also requires, by numbered subdivisions of its subsection (b), that, for an abortion to be authorized or performed as a noncriminal procedure, additional conditions must be fulfilled. These are (1) and (2) residence of the woman in Georgia; (3) reduction to writing of the performing physician's medical judgment that an abortion is justified for one or more of the reasons specified by § 26—1202(a), with written concurrence in that judgment by at least two other Georgia-licensed physicians, based upon their separate personal medical examinations of the woman; (4) performance of the abortion in a hospital licensed by the State Board of Health and also accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals; (5) advance approval by an abortion committee of not less than three members of the hospital's staff; (6) certifications in a rape situation; and (7), (8), and (9) maintenance and confidentiality of records. There is a provision (subsection (c)) for judicial determination of the legality of a proposed abortion on petition of the judicial circuit law officer or of a close relative, as therein defined, of the unborn child, and for expeditious hearing of that petition. There is also a provision (subsection (e)) giving a hospital the right not to admit an abortion patient and giving any physician and any hospital employee or staff member the right, on moral or religious grounds, not to participate in the procedure.

II

On April 16, 1970, Mary Doe, 6 23 other individuals (nine described as Georgia-licensed physicians, seven as nurses registered in the State, five as clergymen, and two as social workers), and two nonprofit Georgia corporations that advocate abortion reform instituted this federal action in the Northern District of Georgia against the State's attorney general, the district attorney of Fulton County, and the chief of police of the city of Atlanta. The plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that the Georgia abortion statutes were unconstitutional in their entirety. They also sought injunctive relief restraining the defendants and their successors from enforcing the statutes.

Mary Doe alleged:

(1) She was a 22-year-old Georgia citizen, married, and nine weeks pregnant. She had three living children. The two older ones had been placed in a foster home because of Doe's poverty and inability to care for them. The youngest, born July 19, 1969, had been placed for adoption. Her husband had recently abandoned her and she was forced to live with her indigent parents and their eight children. She and her husband, however, had become reconciled. He was a construction worker employed only sporadically. She had been a mental patient at the State Hospital. She had been advised that an abortion could be performed on her with less danger to her health than if she gave birth to the child she was carrying. She would be unable to care for or support the new child.

(2) On March 25, 1970, she applied to the Abortion Committee of Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta, for a therapeutic abortion under § 26—1202. Her application was denied 16 days later, on April 10, when she was eight weeks pregnant, on the ground that her situation was not one described in § 26—1202(a). 7

(3) Because her application was denied, she was forced either to relinquish 'her right to decide when and how many children she will bear' or to seek an abortion that was illegal under the Georgia statutes. This invaded her rights of privacy and liberty in matters related to family, marriage, and sex, and deprived her of the right to choose whether to bear children. This was a violation of rights guaranteed her by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The statutes also denied her equal protection and procedural due process and, because they were unconstitutionally vague, deterred hospitals and doctors from performing abortions. She sued 'on her own behalf and on behalf of all others similarly situated.'

The other plaintiffs alleged that the Georgia statutes 'chilled and deterred' them from practicing their respective professions and deprived them of rights guaranteed by the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments. These plaintiffs also purported to sue on their own behalf and on behalf of others similarly situated.

A three-judge district court was convened. An offer of proof as to Doe's identity was made, but the court deemed it unnecessary to receive that proof. The case was then tried on the pleadings and interrogatories.

The District Court, per curiam, 319 F.Supp. 1048 (N.D.Ga.1970), held that all the plaintiffs had standing but that only Doe presented a justiciable controversy. On the merits, the court concluded that the limitation in the Georgia statute of the 'number of reasons for which an abortion may be sought,' id., at 1056, improperly restricted Doe's rights of privacy articulated in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965), and of 'personal liberty,' both of which it thought 'broad enough to include the decision to abort a pregnancy,' 319 F.Supp., at 1055. As a consequence, the court held invalid those portions of §§ 26—1202(a) and (b)(3) limiting legal abortions to the three situations specified; § 26—1202(b)(6) relating to certifications in a rape situation; and § 26—1202(c) authorizing a court test. Declaratory relief was granted accordingly. The court, however, held that Georgia's interest in protection of health, and the existence of a potential of independent human existence' (emphasis in original), id., at 1055, justified state regulation of 'the manner of performance as well as the quality of the final decision to abort,' id., at 1056, and it refused to strike down the other provisions of the statutes. It denied the request for an injunction, id., at 1057.

Claiming that they were entitled to an injunction and to broader relief, the plaintiffs took a direct appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1253. We postponed decision on jurisdiction to the hearing on the merits. 402 U.S. 941, 91 S.Ct. 1614, 29 L.Ed.2d 109 (1971). The defendants also purported to appeal, pursuant to § 1253, but their appeal was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. 402 U.S. 936, 91 S.Ct. 1614, 1633, 29 L.Ed.2d 104 (1971). We are advised by the appellees, Brief 42, that an alternative appeal on their part is pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The extent, therefore, to which the District Court decision was adverse to the defendants, that is, the extent to which portions of the Georgia statutes were held to be unconstitutional, technically is not now before us. 8 Swarb v. Lennox, 405 U.S. 191, 201, 92 S.Ct. 767, 772, 31 L.Ed.2d 138 (1972).

III

Our decision in Roe v. Wade, ante, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147, establishes (1) that, despite her pseudonym, we may accept as true, for this case, Mary Doe's existence and her pregnant state on April 16, 1970; (2) that the constitutional issue is substantial; (3) that the interim termination of Doe's and all other Georgia pregnancies in existence in 1970 has not rendered the case moot; and (4) that Doe presents a justiciable controversy and has standing to maintain the action.

Inasmuch as Doe and her class are recognized, the question whether the other appellants—physicians, nurses, clergymen, social workers, and corporations—present a justiciable controversy and have standing is perhaps a matter of no great consequence. We conclude, however, that the physician-appellants, who are Georgia-licensed doctors consulted by pregnant women, also present a justiciable controversy and do have standing despite the fact that the record does not disclose that any one of them has been prosecuted, or threatened with prosecution, for violation of the State's abortion statutes. The physician is the one against whom these criminal statutes directly operate in the event he procures an abortion that does not meet the statutory exceptions and conditions. The physician-appellants, therefore, assert a sufficiently direct threat of personal detriment. They should not be required to await and undergo a criminal prosecution as the sole means of seeking relief. Crossen v. Breckenridge, 446 F.2d 833, 839—840 (CA6 1971); Poe v. Menghini, 339 F.Supp. 986, 990—991 (Kan.1972).

In holding that the physicians, while theoretically possessed of standing, did not present a justiciable controversy, the District Court seems to have relied primarily on Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 81 S.Ct. 1752, 6 L.Ed.2d 989 (1961). There, a sharply divided Court dismissed an appeal from a state court on the ground that it presented no real controversy justifying the adjudication of a constitutional issue. But the challenged Connecticut statute, deemed to prohibit the giving of medical advice on the use of contraceptives, had been enacted in 1879, and, apparently with a single exception, no one had ever been prosecuted under it. Georgia's statute, in contrast, is recent and not moribund. Furthermore, it is the successor to another Georgia abortion statute under which, we are told, 9 physicians were prosecuted. The present case, therefore, is closer to Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 89 S.Ct. 266, 21 L.Ed.2d 228 (1968), where the Court recognized the right of a school teacher, though not yet charged criminally, to challenge her State's anti-evolution statute. See also Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S., at 481, 85 S.Ct. 1678.

The parallel claims of the nurse, clergy, social worker, and corporation-appellants are another step removed and as to them, the Georgia statutes operate less directly. Not being licensed physicians, the nurses and the others are in no position to render medical advice. They would be reached by the abortion statutes only in their capacity as accessories or as counselor-conspirators. We conclude that we need not pass upon the status of these additional appellants in this suit, for the issues are sufficiently and adequately presented by Doe and the physician-appellants, and nothing is gained or lost by the presence or absence of the nurses, the clergymen, the social workers, and the corporations. See Roe v. Wade, supra, 410 U.S., at 127, 93 S.Ct., at 714.

IV

The appellants attack on several grounds those portions of the Georgia abortion statutes that remain after the District Court decision: undue restriction of a right to personal and marital privacy; vagueness; deprivation of substantive and procedural due process; improper restriction to Georgia residents; and denial of equal protection.

A. Roe v. Wade, supra, sets forth our conclusion that a pregnant woman does not have an absolute constitutional right to an abortion on her demand. What is said there is applicable here and need not be repeated.

B. The appellants go on to argue, however, that the present Georgia statutes must be viewed historically, that is, from the fact that prior to the 1968 Act an abortion in Georgia was not criminal if performed to 'preserve the life' of the mother. It is suggested that the present statute, as well, has this emphasis on the mother's rights, not on those of the fetus. Appellants contend that it is thus clear that Georgia has given little, and certainly not first, consideration to the unborn child. Yet, it is the unborn child's rights that Georgia asserts in justification of the statute. Appellants assert that this justification cannot be advanced at this late date.

Appellants then argue that the statutes do not adequately protect the woman's right. This is so because it would be physically and emotionally damaging to Doe to bring a child into her poor, 'fatherless' 10 family, and because advances in medicine and medical techniques have made it safer for a woman to have a medically induced abortion than for her to bear a child. Thus, 'a statute that requires a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term infringes not only on a fundamental right of privacy but on the right to life itself.' Brief 27.

The appellants recognize that a century ago medical knowledge was not so advanced as it is today, that the techniques of antisepsis were not known, and that any abortion procedure was dangerous for the woman. To restrict the legality of the abortion to the situation where it was deemed necessary, in medical judgment, for the preservation of the woman's life was only a natural conclusion in the exercise of the legislative judgment of that time. A State is not to be reproached, however, for a past judgmental determination made in the light of then-existing medical knowledge. It is perhaps unfair to argue, as the appellants do, that because the early focus was on the preservation of the woman's life the State's present professed interest in the protection of embryonic and fetal life is to be downgraded. That argument denies the State the right to readjust its views and emphases in the light of the advanced knowledge and techniques of the day.

C. Appellants argue that § 26—1202(a) of the Georgia statutes, as it has been left by the District Court's decision, is unconstitutionally vague. This argument centers on the proposition that, with the District Court's having struck down the statutorily specified reasons, it still remains a crime for a physician to perform an abortion except when, as § 26—1202(a) reads, it is vbased upon his best clinical judgment that an abortion is necessary.' The appellants contend that the word 'necessary' does not warn the physician of what conduct is proscribed; that the statute is wholly without objective standards and is subject to diverse interpretation; and that doctors will choose to err on the side of caution and will be arbitrary.

The net result of the District Court's decision is that the abortion determination, so far as the physician is concerned, is made in the exercise of his professional, that is, his 'best clinical,' judgment in the light of all the attendant circumstances. He is not now restricted to the three situations originally specified. Instead, he may range farther afield wherever his medical judgment, properly and professionally exercised, so dictates and directs him.

The vagueness argument is set at rest by the decision in United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62, 71—72, 91 S.Ct. 1294, 1298 1299, 28 L.Ed.2d 601 (1971), where the issue was raised with respect to a District of Columbia statute making abortions criminal 'unless the same were done as necessary for the preservation of the mother's life or health and under the direction of a competent licensed practitioner of medicine.' That statute has been construed to bear upon psychological as well as physical wellbeing. This being so, the Court concluded that the term 'health' presented no problem of vagueness. 'Indeed, where a particular operation is necessary for a patient's physical or mental health is a judgment that physicians are obviously called upon to make routinely whenever surgery is considered.' Id., at 72, 91 S.Ct., at 1299. This conclusion is equally applicable here. Whether, in the words of the Georgia statute, 'an abortion is necessary' is a professional judgment that the Georgia physician will be called upon to make routinely.

We agree with the District Court, 319 F.Supp., at 1058, that the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment. And it is room that operates for the benefit, not the disadvantage, of the pregnant woman.

D. The appellants next argue that the District Court should have declared unconstitutional three procedural demands of the Georgia statute: (1) that the abortion be performed in a hospital accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals: 11 (2) that the procedure be approved by the hospital staff abortion committee; and (3) that the performing physician's judgment be confirmed by the independent examinations of the patient by two other licensed physicians. The appellants attack these provisions not only on the ground that they unduly restrict the woman's right of privacy, but also on procedural due process and equal protection grounds. The physician-appellants also argue that, by subjecting a doctor's individual medical judgment to committee approval and to confirming consultations, the statute impermissibly restricts the physician's right to practice his profession and deprives him of due process.

1. JCAH accreditation. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals is an organization without governmental sponsorship or overtones. No question whatever is raised concerning the integrity of the organization or the high purpose of the accreditation process. 12 That process, however, has to do with hospital standards generally and has no present particularized concern with abortion as a medical or surgical procedure. 13 In Georgia, there is no restriction on the performance of nonabortion surgery in a hospital not yet accredited by the JCAH so long as other requirements imposed by the State, such as licensing of the hospital and of the operating surgeon, are met. See Georgia Code §§ 88—1901(a) and 88—1905 (1971) and 84—907 (Supp.1971). Furthermore, accreditation by the Commission is not granted until a hospital has been in operation at least one year. The Model Penal Code, § 230.3, Appendix B hereto, contains no requirement for JCAH accreditation. And the Uniform Abortion Act (Final Draft, Aug. 1971), 14 approved by the American Bar Association in February 1972, contains no JCAH-accredited hospital specification. 15 Some courts have held that a JCAH-accreditation requirement is an overbroad infringement of fundamental righs because it does not relate to the particular medical problems and dangers of the abortion operation. E.g., Poe v. Menghini, 339 F.Supp., at 993 994.

We hold that the JCAH-accreditation requirement does not withstand constitutional scrutiny in the present context. It is a requirement that simply is not 'based on differences that are reasonably related to the purposes of the Act in which it is found.' Morey v. Doud, 354 U.S. 457, 465, 77 S.Ct. 1344, 1350, 1 L.Ed.2d 1485 (1957).

This is not say that Georgia many not or should not, from and after the end of the first trimester, adopt standards for licensing all facilities where abortions may be performed so long as those standards are legitimately related to the objective the State seeks to accomplish. The appellants contend that such a relationship would be lacking even in a lesser requirement that an abortion be performed in a licensed hospital, as opposed to a facility, such as a clinic, that may be required by the State to possess all the staffing and services necessary to perform an abortion safely (including those adequate to handle serious complications or other emergency, or arrangements with a nearby hospital to provide such services). Appellants and various amici have presented us with a mass of data purporting to demonstrate that some facilities other than hospitals are entirely adequate to perform abortions if they possess these qualifications. The State, on the other hand, has not presented persuasive data to show that only hospitals meet its acknowledged interest in insuring the quality of the operation and the full protection of the patient. We feel compelled to agree with appellants that the State must show more than it has in order to prove that only the full resources of a licensed hospital, rather than those of some other appropriately licensed institution, satisfy these health interests. We hold that the hospital requirement of the Georgia law, because it fails to exclude the first trimester of pregnancy, see Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S., at 163, 93 S.Ct., at 732, is also invalid. In so holding we naturally express no opinion on the medical judgment involved in any particular case, that is, whether the patient's situation is such that an abortion should be performed in a hospital, rather than in some other facility.

2. Committee approval. The second aspect of the appellants' procedural attack relates to the hospital abortion committee and to the pregnant woman's asserted lack of access to that committee. Relying primarily on Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970), concerning the termination of welfare benefits, and Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 91 S.Ct. 507, 27 L.Ed.2d 515 (1971), concerning the posting of an alcoholic's name, Doe first argues that she was denied due process because she could not make a presentation to the committee. It is not clear from the record, however, whether Doe's own consulting physician was or was not a member of the committee or did or did not present her case, or, indeed, whether she herself was or was not there. We see nothing in the Georgia statute that explicitly denies access to the committee by or on behalf of the woman. If the access point alone were involved, we would not be persuaded to strike down the committee provision on the unsupported assumption that access is not provided.

Appellants attack the discretion the statute leaves to the committee. The most concrete argument they advance is their suggestion that it is still a badge of infamy 'in many minds' to bear an illegitimate child, and that the Georgia system enables the committee members' personal views as to extramarital sex relations, and punishment therefor, to govern their decisions. This approach obviously is one founded on suspicion and one that discloses a lack of confidence in the integrity of physicians. To say that physicians will be guided in their hospital committee decisions by their predilections on extramarital sex unduly narrows the issue to pregnancy outside marriage. (Doe's own situation did not involve extramarital sex and its product.) The appellants' suggestion is necessarily somewhat degrading to the conscientious physician, particularly the obstetrician, whose professional activity is concerned with the physical and mental welfare, the woes, the emotions, and the concern of his female patients. He, perhaps more than anyone else, is knowledgeable in this area of patient care, and he is aware of human fraitly, so-called 'error,' and needs. The good physician—despite the presence of rascals in the medical profession, as in all others, we trust that most physicians are 'good'—will have sympathy and understanding for the pregnant patient that probably are not exceeded by those who participate in other areas of professional counseling.

It is perhaps worth noting that the abortion committee has a function of its own. It is a committee of the hospital and it is composed of members of the institution's medical staff. The membership usually is a changing one. In this way, its work burden is shared and is more readily accepted. The committee's function is protective. It enables the hospital appropriately to be advised that its posture and activities are in accord with legal requirements. It is to be remembered that the hospital is an entity and that it, too, has legal rights and legal obligations.

Saying all this, however, does not settle the issue of the constitutional propriety of the committee requirement. Viewing the Georgia statute as a whole, we see no constitutionally justifiable pertinence in the structure for the advance approval by the abortion committee. With regard to the protection of potential life, the medical judgment is already completed prior to the committee stage, and review by a committee once removed from diagnosis is basically redundant. We are not cited to any other surgical procedure made subject to committee approval as a matter of state criminal law. The woman's right to receive medical care in accordance with her licensed physician's best judgment and the physician's right to administer it are substantially limited by this statutorily imposed overview. And the hospital itself is otherwise fully protected. Under § 26—1202(e), the hospital is free not to admit a patient for an abortion. It is even free not to have an abortion committee. Further a physician or any other employee has the right to refrain, for moral or religious reasons, from participating in the abortion procedure. These provisions obviously are in the statute in order to afford appropriate protection to the individual and to the denominational hospital. Section 26—1202(e) affords adequate protection to the hospital, and little more is provided by the committee prescribed by § 26—1202(b)(5).

We conclude that the interposition of the hospital abortion committee is unduly restrictive of the patient's rights and needs that, at this point, have already been medically delineated and substantiated by her personal physician. To ask more serves neither the hospital nor the State.

3. Two-doctor concurrence. The third aspect of the appellants' attack centers on the 'time and availability of adequate medical facilities and personnel.' It is said that the system imposes substantial and irrational roadblocks and 'is patently unsuited' to prompt determination of the abortion decision. Time, of course, is critical in abortion. Risks during the first trimester of pregnancy are admittedly lower than during later months.

The appellants purport to show by a local study 16 of Grady Memorial Hospital (serving indigent residents in Fulton and DeKalb Counties) that the 'mechanics of the system itself forced . . . discontinuance of the abortion process' because the median time for the workup was 15 days. The same study shows, however, that 27% of the candidates for abortion were already 13 or more weeks pregnant at the time of application, that is, they were at the end of or beyond the first trimester when they made their applications. It is too much to say, as appellants do, that these particular persons 'were victims of a system over which they (had) no control.' If higher risk was incurred because of abortions in the second rather than the first trimester, much of that risk was due to delay in application, and not to the alleged cumbersomeness of the system. We note, in passing, that appellant Doe had no delay problem herself; the decision in her case was made well within the first trimester.

It should be manifest that our rejection of the accredited-hospital requirement and, more important, of the abortion committee's advance approval eliminates the major grounds of the attack based on the system's delay and the lack of facilities. There remains, however, the required confirmation by two Georgia-licensed physicians in addition to the recommendation of the pregnant woman's own consultant (making under the statute, a total of six physicians involved, including the three on the hospital's abortion committee). We conclude that this provision, too, must fall.

The statute's emphasis, as has been repetitively noted, is on the attending physician's 'best clinical judgment that an abortion is necessary.' That should be sufficient. The reasons for the presence of the confirmation step in the statute are perhaps apparent, but they are insufficient to withstand constitutional challenge. Again, no other voluntary medical or surgical procedure for which Georgia requires confirmation by two other physicians has been cited to us. If a physician is licensed by the State, he is recognized by the State as capable of exercising acceptable clinical judgment. If he fails in this, professional censure and deprivation of his license are available remedies. Required acquiescence by co-practitioners has no rational connection with a patient's needs and unduly infringes on the physician's right to practice. The attending physician will know when a consultation is advisable—the doubtful situation, the need for assurance when the medical decision is a delicate one, and the like. Physicians have followed this routine historically and know its usefulness and benefit for all concerned. It is still true today that '(r)eliance must be placed upon the assurance given by his license, issued by an authority competent to judge in that respect, that he (the physician) possesses the requisite qualifications.' Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U.S. 114, 122—123, 9 S.Ct. 231, 233, 32 L.Ed. 623 (1889). See United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S., at 71, 91 S.Ct. at 1298.

E. The appellants attack the residency requirement of the Georgia law, §§ 26—1202(b)(1) and (b)(2), as violative of the right to travel stressed in Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 629 631, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 1328—1330, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969), and other cases. A requirement of this kind, of course, could be deemed to have some relationship to the availability of post-procedure medical care for the aborted patient.

Nevertheless, we do not uphold the constitutionality of the residence requirement. It is not based on any policy of preserving state-supported facilities for Georgia residents, for the bar also applies to private hospitals and to privately retained physicians. There is no intimation, either, that Georgia facilities are utilized to capacity in caring for Georgia residents. Just as the Privileges and Immunities Clause, Const. Art. IV, § 2, protects persons who enter other States to ply their trade, Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418, 430, 20 L.Ed. 449 (1871); Blake v. McClung, 172 U.S. 239, 248—256, 19 S.Ct. 165, 168—172, 43 L.Ed. 432 (1898), so must it protect persons who enter Georgia seeking the medical services that are available there. See Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385, 396—397, 68 S.Ct. 1156, 1162—1163, 92 L.Ed. 1460 (1948). A contrary holding would mean that a State could limit to its own residents the general medical care available within its borders. This we could not approve.

F. The last argument on this phase of the case is one that often is made, namely, that the Georgia system is violative of equal protection because it discriminates against the poor. The appellants do not urge that abortions should be performed by persons other than licensed physicians, so we have no argument that because the wealthy can better afford physicians, the poor should have non-physicians made available to them. The appellants acknowledged that the procedures are 'nondiscriminatory in . . . express terms' but they suggest that they have produced invidious discriminations. The District Court rejected this approach out of hand. 319 F.Supp., at 1056. It rests primarily on the accreditation and approval and confirmation requirements, discussed above, and on the assertion that most of Georgia's counties have no accredited hospital. We have set aside the accreditation, approval, and confirmation requirements, however, and with that, the discrimination argument collapses in all significant aspects.

V

The appellants complain, finally, of the District Court's denial of injunctive relief. A like claim was made in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147. We declined decision there insofar as injunctive relief was concerned, and we decline it here. We assume that Georgia's prosecutorial authorities will give full recognition to the judgment of this Court.

In summary, we hold that the JCAH-accredited hospital provision and the requirements as to approval by the hospital abortion committee, as to confirmation by two independent physicians, and as to residence in Georgia are all violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the following portions of § 26—1202(b), remaining after the District Court's judgment, are invalid:

(1) Subsections (1) and (2).

(2) That portion of Subsection (3) following the words '(s)uch physician's judgment is reduced to writing.'

(3) Subsections (4) and (5).

The judgment of the District Court is modified accordingly and, as so modified, is affirmed. Costs are allowed to the appellants.

Criminal Code of Georgia


CHAPTER 26—12. ABORTION.

26—1201. Criminal Abortion. Except as otherwise provided in section 26—1202, a person commits criminal abortion when he administers any medicine, drug or other substance whatever to any woman or when he uses any instrument or other means whatever upon any woman with intent to produce a miscarriage or abortion.

26—1202. Exception. (a) Section 26—1201 shall not apply to an abortion performed by a physician duly licensed to practice medicine and surgery pursuant to Chapter 84—9 or 84—12 of the Code of Georgia of 1933, as amended, based upon his best clinical judgment that an abortion is necessary because:

(1) A continuation of the pregnancy would endanger the life of the pregnant woman or would seriously and permanently injure her health; or

(2) The fetus would very likely be born with a grave, permanent, and irremediable mental or physical defect; or

(3) The pregnancy resulted from forcible or statutory rape.

Mr. Chief Justice BURGER, concurring.

I agree that, under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the abortion statutes of Georgia and Texas impermissibly limit the performance of abortions necessary to protect the health of pregnant women, using the term health in its broadest medical context. See United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62, 71—72, 91 S.Ct. 1294, 1298—1299, 28 L.Ed.2d 601 (1971). I am somewhat troubled that the Court has taken notice of various scientific and medical data in reaching its conclusion; however, I do not believe that the Court has exceeded the scope of judicial notice accepted in other contexts.

In oral argument, counsel for the State of Texas informed the Court that early abortion procedures were routinely permitted in certain exceptional cases, such as nonconsensual pregnancies resulting from rape and incest. In the face of a rigid and narrow statute, such as that of Texas, no one in these circumstances should be placed in a posture of dependence on a prosecutorial policy or prosecutorial discretion. Of course, States must have broad power, within the limits indicated in the opinions, to regulate the subject of abortions, but where the consequences of state intervention are so severe, uncertainty must be avoided as much as possible. For my part, I would be inclined to allow a State to require the certification of two physicians to support an abortion, but the Court holds otherwise. I do not believe that such a procedure is unduly burdensome, as are the complex steps of the Georgia statute, which require as many as six doctors and the use of a hospital certified by the JCAH.

I do not read the Court's holdings today as having the sweeping consequences attributed to them by the dissenting Justices; the dissenting views discount the reality that the vast majority of physicians observe the standards of their profession, and act only on the basis of carefully deliberated medical judgments relating to life and health. Plainly, the Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortions on demand.





An excerpt from Justice Douglas concurring:
'To say that life is present at conception is to give recognition to the potential, rather than the actual. The unfertilized egg has life, and if fertilized, it takes on human proportions. But the law deals in reality, not obscurity—the known rather than the unknown. When sperm meets egg life may eventually form, but quite often it does not. The law does not deal in speculation. The phenomenon of life takes time to develop, and until it is actually present, it cannot be destroyed. Its interruption prior to formation would hardly be homicide, and as we have seen, society does not regard it as such. The rites of Baptism are not performed and death certificates are not required when a miscarriage occurs. No prosecutor has ever returned a murder indictment charging the taking of the life of a fetus. 7

This would not be the case if the fetus constituted human life.'

In summary, the enactment is overbroad. It is not closely correlated to the aim of preserving prenatal life. In fact, it permits its destruction in several cases, including pregnancies resulting from sex acts in which unmarried females are below the statutory age of consent. At the same time, however, the measure broadly proscribes aborting other pregnancies which may cause severe mental disorders. Additionally, the statute is overbroad because it equates the value of embryonic life immediately after conception with the worth of life immediately before birth.

Excerpt from Justice White's dissenting opinion:
The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant woman more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries. Whether or not I might agree with that marshaling of values, I can in no event join the Court's judgment because I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States. In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court's exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing women and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it. This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs.

It is my view, therefore, that the Texas statute is not constitutionally infirm because it denies abortions to those who seek to serve only their convenience rather than to protect their life or health. Nor is this plaintiff, who claims no threat to her mental or physical health, entitled to assert the possible rights of those women whose pregnancy assertedly implicates their health. This, together with United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62, 91 S.Ct. 1294, 28 L.Ed.2d 601 (1971), dictates reversal of the judgment of the District Court.

Excerpt from Justice Rehnquist's dissenting opinion:
The holding in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147, that state abortion laws can withstand constitutional scrutiny only if the State can demonstrate a compelling state interest, apparently compels the Court's close scrutiny of the various provisions in Georgia's abortion statute. Since, as indicated by my dissent in Wade, I view the compelling-state-interest standard as an inappropriate measure of the constitutionality of state abortion laws, I respectfully dissent from the majority's holding.


....In answers to interrogatories, Doe stated that her application for an abortion was approved at Georgia Baptist Hospital on May 5, 1970, but that she was not approved as a charity patient there and had no money to pay for an abortion. App. 64.

Emanations from Supreme Court Justice Robes (aka Penumbra Brains)

For my readers who understand legalese, the information I posted was very basic and that was just a miniscule slice of what is available to read.  Last night as I was wading through info about Roe (yeah, my brain really does work this way...bear with me),  I was just weighed down with the amount of legal explanations.  Some of it can be taken in context and as mentioned before.....the content is horrific.  

I could feel the tension and the temperature rising as I read and heard the oral arguments of Sarah Weddington.   There's so much to Roe that the public doesn't know.   As the poll (October 29th, "Just the Facts") suggests, there's a disconnect between what the public knows about Roe (and even Doe) and what the public feels about abortion restrictions.

Many people do not know that Norma McCorvey never had an abortion.  Many people still do not know that she later became pro-life and at one time had worked in an abortion facility.  I highly recommend reading her autobiography, Won By Love.  She tells about her life leading up to that landmark decision and she shares her conversion to Christ.   Yes, Norma McCorvey is a Christian and she has been a warrior for babies' lives ever since.  Several years ago, she gave her testimony to Congress to put on record that she wanted Roe to be reversed.  http://www.endroe.org/mccorveytestimony2.aspx 

When I say many people don't know.....let me say upfront that I certainly didn't know these things.  My thirst for knowledge on this subject came about 12-13 years ago.  All of this information was new at that time and yet, I am STILL learning!!!

Then there was Dr. Bernard Nathanson.  Of his own admission, he was responsible for  (and oversaw) 75,000 abortions including his own child.  He helped found the National Association for the Repeal of the Abortion Laws in 1968.   He and Lawrence Lader's goal was to "settle for nothing less than striking down all existing abortion statutes and substituting abortion on demand." 

Dr. Nathanson and Mr. Lader implemented a strategy:
1)  Capture the media
2)  To Play the Catholic Card
3)  The Denigration and Suppression of All Scientific Evidence That Life Begins at Conception  (will post the link to this interview when my computer isn't moving like sludge).

 "I remember laughing when we made those slogans up," recalls Bernard Nathanson, M.D., reminiscing about the early days of the pro-abortion movement in the late '60s and early '70s.  Slogans like "Women must have control over their own bodies", "Safe and legal abortion is every woman's right",  "Who decides? You decide!", and "Freedom of choice--a basic American right" (no doubt there were others).

We face a lot of lies daily.  Some are bald-faced lies to our faces and then there are the subtler (yet just as deadly) lies of omission.  Facts about abortion and the history of its forced advancement are left out of the press, the textbooks and yes, even sermons and pulpits of many churches. Sadly, there are very high numbers of people who spout these lies and slogans to this very day.  It's all over the internet....go to any discussion on abortion in any newstory, social network or political board and you can just start counting how many people are regurgitating the very catchy and cynical slogans and lies created back in the 1960's.  Lies have been with us of course, since the serpent asked "Has God indeed said...?"

What are we NOT told?  Nathanson admits that they inflated numbers of illegal abortions performed.  There were around 100,000 illegal abortions done yearly but they repeatedly reported there were 1,000,000.   Abortion deaths (always a difficult number to determine exactly) were somewhere around 200-250 annually but Nathanson and Lader's number that was fed to the media was 10,000.  The public believed it......after all, the nightly news and newspapers reported it so it must have been true.  I started listening to Weddington's argument last night.  She started spouting statistics of deaths/maternal deaths, abortion "facts" and there was not one shred of credibility to it.  She was just another NARAL player and nothing more.

This was not a law based on truth or care for individuals.  On the contrary, Justice Ruth Ginsberg revealed, "Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of".  
Oh really?

Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun's second-born daughter, Sally reminisced about her father's involvement in Roe.  Her father's papers (of which she was executor) were released to the public in 2004.   "Roe was a case that Dad struggled with," Blackmun told the feminist news service, WomensEnews. "It was a case that he asked his daughters' and wife's opinion about."  

I may not be a legal scholar but I did learn in school that our Supreme Court was created to interpret our nation's laws.  Our founding document is the Constitution and it's that document that our Supreme Court justices are supposed to employ in those legal interpretations. 

This interview revealed that in 1972, Justice Blackmun sought his daughter's opinion on the Roe v. Wade decision. At the time of the decision, Sally Blackmun lived and worked in Washington. Her father gave her advance notice that he was to disclose his ruling, in order for her to be present when it was revealed.

 "I was very pleased with the decision and the fact that it gave women that right of choice," she told WomensEnews. "Dad always felt that it was the right thing to do and the necessary thing to do toward the full emancipation of women in this country. So we certainly were in favour of what he did."  

(I FEEL a Barry Manilow song coming on.......)
"FEEEEEELINGS!!! Whoooooowhooooooowhoooooo FEELINGS!!!!"

Does anyone know what a judge is supposed to do or be?   Do the words fair and impartial mean anything anymore in the judicial field?  Isn't justice supposed to be blind? 

In Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong's book The Brethren, (a book about the inner workings of the Supreme Court from 1969 to 1975).  "Judge Harry Blackmun, author of Roe, was heavily influenced by his wife, who actually told her husband's proabortion clerk that while he was lobbying Blackmun at the office, she was working on him at home."  Let's see......his wife, three daughters (middle daughter Sally got pregnant at age 19 out-of-wedlock in 1966), AND his law clerk were lobbying and "working on him".  In Mark Levin's book, Men in Black, it was revealed that Mrs. Blackmun told one of his pro-abortion clerks, "that she was doing everything she could to encourage her husband in that direction.  "You and I are working on the same thing,' she said. 'Me at home and you at work.'  Blackmun later claimed that she (and his three daughters) never tried to influence his decion" (Lyle Denniston, Baltimore Sun, March 5, 1999).  So which is it?  Who is right?  Blackmun or his wife and three daughters? 

 Don't forget about his statement, "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer" (sounds like NARAL's strategy of  "Denigration and Suppression of All Scientific Evidence That Life Begins at Conception "worked" on Blackmun too).   

I am wrapping up here for now.  I'll go into more detail in the future about Doe vs. Bolton very soon.  Like the Roe decision, it was all based on deceit.  Nathanson wasn't kidding when he said that their goal was abortion-on-demand.....with Doe vs. Bolton, they achieved that very desire.   To sum up for now, Roe vs. Wade dictated that no state could put any legal restrictions on abortion in the first three months of pregnancy.  Abortion was allowed until birth provided only that one physician considered it necessary for the mother's health.  Doe vs. Bolton (decided on the same day as Roe), went on to define "health" as just about any factor.  Health could be "physical, psychological, familial, and the women's age, relevant to the well-being of the patient."


Lies.....Satan is the father of ALL lies.....and abortion is all based on lies.

Romans 1:25: "Who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen."   
Genesis 3:1- 7  "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden;  but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.  For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

Just the Facts

Busy day today...it has flown by quickly.  I have been perusing different websites for the past 2 hours with my heart growing heavier and heavier.  Even just gleaning for facts, it's such a large amount of sad and depressing information and it wearies the soul very quickly. 

Roe vs. Wade was argued December 11, 1971.  It was reargued October 13, 1972 and decided on January 22, 1973.  The decision was 7-2.  There was an accompanying case of Doe vs. Bolton decided on the same day (of which I will address in detail another time). 
The case:
Jane Roe, et al. v. Henry Wade, District Attorney of Dallas County

Holding
Texas law making it a crime to assist a woman to get an abortion violated her due process rights. U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas affirmed in part, reversed in part.

Supreme Court Membership:
Chief Justice:  Warren E. Burger
Associate Judges:  William O. Douglas, 

Majority
Blackmun, Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Powell

Concurrence:  Douglas, Stewart and Burger

Dissenting:  Byron White and William Rehnquist

In 1969, Norma McCorvey "Jane Roe" got pregnant with her third child. She sought an abortion using the claim that she had been raped as that would have been  one way to obtain one legally.  Lacking a police report and documentation, she dropped the claim and later admitted she had lied about the rape.  She also tried to obtain an illegal abortion but found the facility shut down.  She was referred to lawyers Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee who filed a suit on her behalf to obtain an abortion legally even though no rape had taken place and her life was not in danger.  The process took so long though, Norma ended up giving birth and the baby was adopted.  

The Roe vs. Wade decision, in short, was decided based on two premises:  a claim to the right of privacy and the belief that the beginning of life could not be determined.  Justice Harry Blackmun wrote, "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."

Also stated:
"3. State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a "compelling" point at various stages of the woman's approach to term. Pp. 147-164.
(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician. Pp. 163, 164.
(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. Pp. 163, 164.
(c) For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. Pp. 163-164; 164-165.
4. The State may define the term "physician" to mean only a physician currently licensed by the State, and may proscribe any abortion by a person who is not a physician as so defined. P. 165.

Blackmun also stated, "A. The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. 51 On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument 52 that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." Dissenting opinion of Justice William Rehnquist, "The decision here to break pregnancy into three distinct terms and to outline the permissible restrictions the State may impose in each one, for example, partakes more of judicial legislation than it does of a determination of the intent of the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The fact that a majority of the States reflecting, after all, the majority sentiment in those States, have had restrictions on abortions for at least a century is a strong indication, it seems to me, that the asserted right to an abortion is not "so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental," Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105 (1934). Even today, when society's views on abortion are changing, the very existence of the debate is evidence that the "right" to an abortion is not so universally accepted as the appellant would have us believe.

Dissenting opinion of Justice Byron White: "The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries. Whether or not I might agree with that marshaling of values, I can in no event join the Court's judgment because I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States. In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court's exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it."

In conclusion, I will enclose this link if anyone wants to hear the actual audio of the case being argued.  It has a transcript that is very easy to read along with the audio.  It's about an hour long.  http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1971/1971_70_18#argument



<><><><><><><>I also found this article that revealed a poll about what Americans feel about the different restrictions on abortion.   As you can see, there is a disparity between what Americans think should be restricted and their understanding of the effects of Roe vs. Wade. 

The poll found 87 percent of respondents favored laws requiring doctors to tell women about the possible risks of abortion, 71 percent favored parental consent laws, 69 percent favored a 24‑hour waiting period before an abortion, 64 percent favored a ban on partial birth abortion and 50 percent favored a law requiring women seeking abortions to be shown an image of their ultrasound. …the vast majority of Americans oppose abortion after the first trimester, more than 2/3 of poll takers (71 percent) thought abortion should be illegal in the second three months of pregnancy and nearly 90 percent favored making abortion illegal in the third trimester. If Gallup had asked these same poll takers whether they thought Roe v. Wade was a good decision, the majority of them would have probably said “yes.” … 58 percent of Americans [think] Roe v. Wade was a good decision. So how can 71 percent of Americans favor a policy which can’t happen because of ruling 58 percent of Americans think was good? The answer is Americans don’t know Roe."

Well, these are just the facts for now.  Discussion will come later.  I am technically late for my promised blog for Friday (besides I WAS at my computer for about 2+hours!! I was here!).  It's about 35 minutes late but fortunately, I know a great many forgiving individuals read this blog so there probably won't be a huge scolding.   Good night for all of my American friends and good morning for all of my friends across the pond!  God Bless ya'll! :)