Roe v Wade Reaction

Roe v Wade Reaction

Of all the works we have studied over the past semester, I had the strongest reaction to Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade deals with issues that continue to polarize modern politics. During the 1970s, it was still illegal in many states for many women to get an abortion. Norma McCorvey was a woman from Texas who sought to change the status quo. She strongly believed that the Texas law that criminalized abortion clashed with women’s rights as afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment. Norma McCorvey wanted to protect her identity, so she adopted the pseudonym “Jane Roe.” To this day, Roe v. Wade remains one of the most debated decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. The Roe v. Wade decision invalidated all laws limiting a woman’s access to abortions during the first trimester. The courts only upheld laws limiting access to abortion during the second trimester when these existed to protect the health of the pregnant woman. Roe v. Wade essentially legalized abortion in much of the United States. I had this strong reaction for several reasons.

      One of the first things the court took into consideration when deliberating on this case was the issue of when human life begins. Many pro-life advocates argued that it began at conception; conversely, pro-choice advocates advance a varying number of arguments that each specify a different timeframe. I believe that human life begins at conception. As soon as conception occurs, a full set of chromosomes begins the process of growing into a mature organism. The embryo obviously does not have all the features of a newborn and that may be why some people do not consider it “human life.” As far as I am concerned, because a fertilized egg will almost certainly mature into a fully-grown human unless an outside force such as abortion acts upon it, it should be classified as a life.  

      An additional issue I reacted to concerned the Court’s finding that state abortion laws violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The...