Roe v. Wade decisions (was Re: OT - "lie" vs "error")

"Rick Smith" <ricksmith@mfi.net> wrote in message
news:116ftfpeadvt431@corp.supernews.com...
>
> I don't know what criteria the Supreme Court used;
> but it is clear to me that all laws, throughout the United
> States, that define and punish offenses against people
> must be based on violation of the other's rights; not
> morality, nor ethics, nor religion.

I found the text of Blackmun's reporting of the Roe v. Wade decision,  as
well as Rehnquist's dissent and Stewart's concurrence at
http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Roe/ .  All three make interesting reading.

In the decision itself, I found interesting the discussion of the history of
anti-abortion laws in both the US and in England, and the observation that
most such laws seem to have been concerned about preserving the health of
the *mother*, given that antiseptic and antibiotic treatment was in its
relative infancy.

Also interesting was Rehnquist's dissent, which hinges on three basic
issues:

1)  It wasn't demonstrated that at the time of the lawsuit the plaintiff was
pregnant; all that was clear was that she was pregnant when she filed the
complaint, and thus she could as well have been in the *last* trimester as
the *first*.  Thus the assertion in the court's decision that the state has
no compelling interest in a pregnancy in the first trimester doesn't
demonstrably relate to the case at hand.

2)  Rehnquist disagrees with the decision having anything to do with the
right of "privacy" because it involves a licensed physician.  He also feels
the decision makes the "compelling state interest" tests even more 
than before.  And he gives more status to the fact that explicit
anti-abortion laws had existed for a century and more among the various
states; he does not discuss the decision's assertion that the purpose of
such laws was to protect the mother and not the fetus.

3)  The decision strikes down the Texas law (which disallowed abortion at
any point in the pregnancy unless the pregnancy threatened the life of the
mother) in its entirety, and at the same time acknowledges that the state
might have a compelling interest in preventing abortions in the second and
third trimester; on that basis the decision was too broad and did not in
fact address the case before the court.

Stewart's concurrence seems to emphasize the concept that freedom of
personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the
liberties protected by the Due Process clause of the 14th amendment, and
claims that the choice as to whether to terminate a pregnancy or not is as
protected as the choice to bear or beget a child in the first place.  It
also asserts that the *state*'s stated interests -- protection of the health
and safety of the pregnant woman -- are legitimate, but the blanket
prohibition in the Texas statute is a constitutional violation precisely
because it is too broad and because the issues of state interest in that
broad context aren't demonstrated.

-Chuck Stevens