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Issues Advocacy: Federal Abortion Law
Roe v. Wade
In the early 1970’s there was no federal law covering abortion. It was illegal in most states, but some had taken steps to legalize early abortion procedures. The Supreme Court, in 1973's landmark decision, Roe v. Wade, acknowledged that a woman had a constitutional right to abortion based on a right to privacy but did not define this right in certain terms, leaving it open to future interpretation:
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
Roe at 154.
In addition to leaving its constitutional definition vague, the Roe Court decided that a woman’s right to an abortion was not an absolute right and so qualified it. This qualification has remained the pinnacle of heated debate over the subsequent thirty-three years. Since Roe, courts have been trying to strike the right balance between a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy and the State’s interest in protecting life. Throughout the 1970’s, and 1980’s, issues like public financing of abortion, waiting periods, spousal consent, parental consent, and informed consent were battled in and out of the courtroom. Now, in the twenty-first century, where parental consent and waiting periods are considered settled law, the issues of fetal viability, health exceptions, and "partial birth" abortion have taken center stage in courtrooms across the nation.
For More Information on Abortion Rights Please Visit:
Center For Reproductive Rights
UMaine Women's Resource Center: Future Rights of Abortion in America Panel Presentation
Federal Abortion Ban
In 2003 the Bush administration first introduced the Federal Abortion Ban prohibiting a type of second trimester abortion procedure known to the medical community as intact D&E. Prior to this Federal Ban several states passed their own laws, later found unconstitutional, banning what the opposition strategically coined ‘partial birth abortion.' On April 18th 2007, despite having nearly identical language found in the unconstituional state bans, the Supreme Court reversed lower court decisions and upheld the Federal Abortion Ban outlawing intact D&E procedures.
For More Information on the Federal Abortion Ban Please Visit:
Center For Reproductive Rights
Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health