Roe v. Wade, the next generation
Yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case from New Hampshire regarding a state law about parental consent for abortion. This is sure to be a devisive issue for the pro-choice and pro-life camps, who have been at odds since Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
The case
The case is called Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood (04-1144). Ayotte is the Attorney General of the state of New Hampshire and Planned Parenthood in this case is the northern New England branch of the national reproductive rights organization Planned Parenthood. New Hampshire law requires parents of minors (those under the age of 18) to be notified in person or by mail at least 48 hours before an abortion can be performed. Lower courts declared the law unconstitutional because it did not make an exception for medical emergencies.
Some problems
The Christian Post reports that it is interesting for the Supreme Court to take on this case, given its recent history of abortion cases:
In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled against Nebraska's ban on partial-birth abortions, saying that the ban hindered women's abortion rights. The court also ruled that abortion laws must include an exception for instances when a mother’s health is at risk.Since 2000, the Supreme Court has declined to review several cases regarding abortion, including an appeal to re-establish a parental notification law in Idaho and a challenge to the ruling of Roe v. Wade by the woman who was "Jane Roe."
Perhaps the uniqueness of this case stems from its singular attribute of having to do not with the legality of abortions themselves, but the necessity for exceptions in the event an abortion must be performed to save the life of the mother (even though former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has said before that he can't think of an instance when it would be necessary to perform an abortion to save the mother's life. "In my thirty-six years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother's life," he has said).
At the time I wrote this article, it was difficult to find any primary sources for this case online. Therefore, here's a list of things I did find (analyses of the briefs coming later):
Comments
It's already legal to perform emergency treatment necessary to save a minor's life without parental involvement. I think the whole thing is a red herring. Since the abortion lobby has no poster child for this argument, I'm betting that they're just pulling a hypothetical out of their hats to try to scare parents. But even the CDC has noted that teens are more likely to be seriously injured or die from a secret abortion than from one in which the parents are involved, for two reasons:
1. In a secret abortion, the teen usually is just shopping for cheap and clandestine, which steers her toward fly-by-night abortion mills and away from safer providers.
2. In a secret abortion, the teen typically delays treatment for complications until her condition is life-threatening, resulting in needless hysterectomies and colostomies and sometimes loss of life.
When it's been demonstrated by an abortion-advocacy organization that secret abortions are riskier for teens, it's really disgusting to see the abortion lobby try to frighten parents this way.
Posted by: Christina | May 24, 2005 10:10 PM
If it weren't for abortions I'd be dragging around seven kids ....
Ok, I sense some people didn't think that was funny ... **slowly backs off the stage**
Posted by: Bud-dy | May 24, 2005 10:15 PM
HAHA!!! That was frickin hilarious C-Dog! Of course, funny to me involves a lobster tank full of babies with rubber bands on their little fists.
Oh yes, it would be full of water too
Posted by: Wolf | May 25, 2005 2:24 AM