Women's Right Of Choice Turns 40

by Michael Handley

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.  On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision, Roe v. Wade, recognizing the constitutional right to privacy and a woman’s right to make her own reproductive health care decisions. At the time Roe was decided, most states severely restricted or banned the practice of abortion.

Seven in ten Americans support the historic Roe decision, according to just out NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll and a recent Pew Research study found that 63 percent of Americans support the Roe decision.

The decision ruled unconstitutional a Texas state law that banned abortions except to save the life of the mother. The Court ruled that the states were forbidden from outlawing or regulating any aspect of abortion performed during the first trimester of pregnancy, could only enact abortion regulations reasonably related to maternal health in the second and third trimesters, and could enact abortion laws protecting the life of the fetus only in the third trimester. Even then, an exception had to be made to protect the life of the mother.

President Obama's Progressive Inauguration Speech

President Obama's inauguration speech centered on a declaration of our country's progressive values and historic journey toward a more just society that includes women's rights, racial equality, gay rights, and immigrant rights  — progressive values that Obama campaigned on to win the 2012 Presidential election.

"Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts," Obama declared.   "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law."

"Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote."

"Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country."

As the former Republican vice presidential candidate and Ayn Rand aficionado Paul Ryan sat listening, Obama delivered a strong rebuke to the Ayn Radian theories that inspires conservative movement's ideology about society's "takers" and "makers":

"The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great."

Pres. Obama offered a strong a defense of the New Deal programs that protect the poor and elderly from disaster--through government spending:

"But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn."

Pres. Obama delivered a strong statement about the threat of climate change –  that America must lead the transition to renewable energy, because "failure to do so would betray our children and future generations."

There was the hopeful statement that "enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war." 

Pres. Obama offered a poignant vision of a progressive possibility: "We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else."

President Obama’s reelection was the electoral equivalent of a progressive exclamation point. Obama not only won 8 of the original 10 battleground states (winning: CO, FL, IA, NH, NM, NV, OH, VA; losing: IN and NC), but also earned a whopping 332 electoral votes. Beyond the headlines, consider for a moment the underlying dynamics of this win: Democrats have now won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. Democrats topped Republicans by 1.2 million votes cast for House candidates in 2012 — meaning that the American people preferred progressive Democrats over Republicans by nearly a full percentage point of the total vote.  In the popular presidential vote Pres. Obama received 65,899,660 (51.1%) votes to Romney's 60,929,152 (47.2%) votes.

Clearly, America is a center left nation! 


Prepared text for Pres. Obama's second inaugural speech:

Pregnant Women Stripped Of Rights

A new study shows hundreds of women in the United States have been arrested, forced to undergo unwanted medical procedures, and locked up in jails or psychiatric institutions because they were pregnant.

National Advocates for Pregnant Women found 413 cases when pregnant women were deprived of their physical liberty between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and 2005.

At least 250 more interventions have taken place since then. In one case, a court ordered a critically ill woman in Washington, D.C., to undergo a C-section against her will. Neither she nor the baby survived. In another case, a judge in Ohio kept a woman imprisoned to prevent her from having an abortion.

Lynn Paltrow, founder and executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, is interviewed on Democracy Now. 

Democracy Now

In her video interview Paltrow said, "We've had cases where lawyers have been appointed for a fetus before the woman herself, who's been locked up, ever gets a lawyer. We've had cases where they've ordered a procedure over women's religious objections, and one court said, pregnant women of course have a right to religious freedom -- unless it interferes with what we believe is best for the fetus or embryo."


RH Reality Check: Conservatives like to complain about judicial activism, which generally means, a judge issued a decision which they don’t like. I have grown to hate the term because it is used so frequently that it doesn’t mean anything anymore. Still, there are few alternative phrases that accurately describe the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision in the consolidated cases of Amanda Kimbrough and Hope Ankrom. Amanda and Hope are two women who were swept up in the Alabama judiciary’s zeal to promote an anti-choice personhood agenda at the expense of pregnant women, by redefining the word “child” in Alabama’s chemical endangerment statute, so that it now applies to pregnant women who use any amount of controlled substances, whether prescribed by a doctor or not.  Read the full article @ RH Reality Check.

This news comes on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision on the right to abortion -- a right that has been under siege ever since.

Related:

•  Personhood At Conception And Criminalizing use of Birth Control
• 15-Year-Old Girl Faces Life in Prison for a Miscarrage
• The Republican War on Women: A Democratic Network Fourum - Part 1.
• The GOP War on Women: A Democratic Network Forum - Part 2

Roe v. Wade at 40: Most Oppose Overturning SCOTUS Decision

As the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision approaches, the public remains opposed to overturning the historic ruling on abortion, according to a new Pew Research study. The court's Roe v. Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional right to abortion at least in the first three months of pregnancy.

During the 112th Congress, Republicans introduced several bills to outlaw abortion.  One of those bills proposed a Personhood Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision. As Mother Jones reported, the Personhood amendment would outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, domestic violence and life-threatening ectopic pregnancies. In addition, this change to the Constitution would criminalize in-vitro fertilization and common birth control methods, including birth control pills and IUD's.  (More: The Republican War on Women and Justice Scalia: Women Have No Constitutional Right to Abortion and Contraception.

The Pew study shows that Republicans are out of step with the American public on this "pro choice" issue.  Decades after the Supreme Court rendered its decision, on Jan. 22, 1973,  more than six-in-ten (63%) say they would not like to see the Roe v. Wade decision overturned. Only about three-in-ten (29%) would like to see the ruling overturned. These opinions are little changed from surveys conducted 10 and 20 years ago.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Jan. 9-13 among 1,502 adults, finds that abortion is viewed as a less important issue than in the past. Currently, 53% say abortion “is not that important compared to other issues,” up from 48% in 2009 and 32% in 2006. The percentage viewing abortion as a “critical issue facing the country” fell from 28% in 2006 to 15% in 2009 and now stands at 18 percent.