The LuLac Edition #4, 736, May 10th, 2022

 

MAYBE I’M AMAZED

Our “Maybe I’m Amazed” logo. 

ROE VS. WADE EDITION  

Norma McCorvey aka Jane Roe 

VS. 

Henry Wade 

MAYBE I’M AMAZED……that the case became Roe when  Norma McCorvey  became pregnant with her third child 1969. McCorvey wanted an abortion but lived in Texas, where abortion was illegal except when necessary to save the mother's life. Her lawyers filed the suit by the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe".

MAYBE I’M AMAZED….that the suit was filed against one Henry Wade, the District Attorney.  Wade was well known for his role in both the Lee Harvey Oswald arrest and then the Jack Ruby trial in the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy. Her lawyer’s alleged that the Texas law was unconstitutional.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…..that three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas heard the case and ruled in her favor. Texas then appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED……that in January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor ruling that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion.  

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…..that the case was  first argued December 13, 1971, reargued October 11, 1972 and then decided January 22, 1973.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…..that after the re-argument, it took just 3 ½ months to get a final decision.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED….that on every anniversary of the decision date, Pro Life groups by the thousands sent representatives filled with buses to lobby for the repeal of Roe.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED……. The Court also ruled that this right is not absolute and must be balanced against governments' interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…… The Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the three trimesters of pregnancy: during the first trimester, governments could not prohibit abortions at all; during the second trimester, governments could require reasonable health regulations; during the third trimester, abortions could be prohibited entirely so long as the laws contained exceptions for cases when they were necessary to save the life or health of the mother.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED……that 5 of the seven judges who voted to make this the law of the land were appointed by Republican Presidents.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED……. The Court classified the right to choose to have an abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the highest level of judicial review in the United States.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED….the affirmative Judges Blackmun, joined by Chief Justice Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Powell voted yes and that White and Rehnquist voted no.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED….. The Supreme Court revisited and modified Roe's legal rulings in its 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In Casey, the Court reaffirmed Roe's holding that a woman's right to choose to have an abortion is constitutionally protected, but abandoned Roe's trimester framework in favor of a standard based on fetal viability and overruled the strict scrutiny standard for reviewing abortion restrictions.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED…..but not surprised because this was a long time coming. On May 2, 2022, Politico obtained a leaked initial draft majority opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito indicating that the Supreme Court is prepared to overturn Roe and Casey in a pending final decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, expected to be held by June 2022. A press release from Chief Justice John Roberts the following day confirmed the authenticity of the leaked document, but stated that the draft "does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case".

MAYBE I’M AMAZED….that later in her life, Norma McCorvey became an Evangelical Protestant and, in her remaining years, a Roman Catholic, and took part in the anti-abortion movement. McCorvey stated then that her involvement in Roe was "the biggest mistake of [her] life."During an interview shortly before her death, in what McCorvey referred to as her "deathbed confession", she said she had been paid to speak against abortion, and added that she continued to have abortion-rights beliefs. She passed away on February 18^th, 2017 at the age of 69.    (Wikipedia, LuLac)