Thursday, April 17, 2008
Abortion Laws
I am doing my research paper over abortion laws prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. In skimming over some of my resources, I have had a couple of questions come to mind. First, the Roe v. Wade decision was based on the constitutional right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. There were several laws prior to the Roe decision that were in place making abortion illegal and I wonder what legal backing these laws had. Meaning if abortion was made legal based on the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment, what did previous lawmakers use to justify that abortion was in fact illegal? Furthermore, I think the topic of separation of church and state must be brought into the equation. By 1973 was there more of a shift in attitudes for more separation of church and state? If so, what caused it? These are just a few of the things I am questioning before I get into the in-depth analysis of the materials I have.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
That is a good question to ask. The short answer is that the states depended on their "police powers" to pass such laws (look back, perhaps, to the book you hated on the Slaughterhouse cases to get a description of what "police" is), in the vein of protecting the "health welfare and morals" of its population. There is no greater police power than the protection of life. What would be interesting to do is if you looked up some of the laws prior to Roe and looked for the language of justification. How is life defined? What is a person? Who is protected?
Post a Comment