Abortion in the United States
The issue of abortion in the United States is a highly charged issue with significant political and ethical debate.
The prevailing legal opinion on abortion in the United States, following the Supreme Court of the United States's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, is that abortion is legal prior to the third trimester of pregnancy and that a fetus's right to life and a woman's right to control her body must be balanced. Therefore, U.S. courts have upheld a woman's right to abortion, but this right is limited and conditional.
Given this legal foundation, much of the ensuing debate has been in determining when the fetus is "viable" outside the womb as a measure of when the "life" of the fetus is its own (and thereby requiring protection of the state), or under the control of the mother. The advent of medical technology has enhanced the ability of a fetus to live outside the womb from 28 weeks old down towards 24 weeks making the determination of being "viable" somewhat more complicated.
Though abortion is legal in many Western European countries, the procedure is more widely available in the United States. U.S. abortion law, in terms of how late an abortion may take place, is considered more liberal than that of other nations such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, for example. Canada is more liberal granting abortion on demand, while Australia restricts it far more.
There were few laws on abortion in the United States at independence. In some cases, it was governed by English common law, which found abortion to be legally and ethically acceptable if occuring before 'quickening,' when the movement of the fetus could first be felt. Laws against abortion began to appear in the 1820's. Connecticut outlawed post-quickening abortions in 1821, and New York made post-quickening abortions a felony and pre-quickening abortions a misdemeanor eight years later. Many of the early laws were motivated not by ethical concerns about abortion but by worry about the safety of the procedure. Indeed, many early feminists, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, argued against abortion, favoring birth control instead.
The movement accelerated during the 1860's, and by 1900, abortion was all but illegal in every state. Some states did include provisos allowing for abortion in limited circumstances, generally to protect the mother's life or pregnancies due to rape or incest. Abortions continued to occur, however, and increasingly became readily available. Illegal abortions were often unsafe, however, and led to 20% of all pregnancy-related hospital admissions in New York and California by one estimate.
Colorado was the first state to liberalize its laws, allowing abortions to take place legally in cases of rape, incest or permanent mental or physical disability in the child or mother in 1967. Similar laws were passed in California, Oregon, and North Carolina. In 1970, New York repealed its 1830 law and allowed abortions up to the 24th week of pregnancy on demand. Similar laws were soon passed in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. A law in Washington, DC, which allowed abortion to protect the life or health of the mother, was challenged in the Supreme Court in 1971 in United States v. Vuitch. The court upheld the law, deeming that 'health' meant 'psychological and physical well-being,' essentially allowing abortion on demand. By the end of 1972, 13 states had a law similar to that of Colorado, while Mississippi allowed abortion in cases of rape or incest only and Alabama allowed abortions in cases of the mother's physical health. Thirty-one states still allowed abortion to protect the mother's life only.
In deciding Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that a Texas statute forbidding abortion except when necessary to save the life of the mother was unconstitutional. The Court arrived at its decision by concluding that the issue of abortion and abortion rights falls under the right to privacy. In its opinion it listed several landmark cases where the court had previously found that right implied by the Constitution. Hence, the court held that a first-trimester embryo or fetus carried by a woman falls within her right to determine for herself, privately, what is to occur with her own body. The court further ruled that the state could intervene to restrict abortion in the second trimester of development and could outlaw it altogether in the third trimester (about 4/5 of U.S. states forbid third-trimester abortion except as necessary for the mother's health).
A central issue in the Roe case (and in the wider abortion debate in general) is whether human life begins at conception, birth, or at some point in between. The Court declined to make an attempt at resolving this issue, noting: "When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer." Instead, it chose to point out that historically, under English and American common law and statutes, "the unborn have never been recognized...as persons in the whole sense" and thus fetuses are not legally entitled to the protection afforded by the right to life specifically enumerated in the Fourteenth Amendment. So rather than asserting that human life begins at any specific point, the court simply declared that the State has a "compelling interest" in protecting "potential life" at the point of viability.
The 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey overturned Roe's strict trimester formula, and emphasized the right to abortion as grounded in the general sense of liberty protected under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, rather than a generalized right to privacy. Advancements in medical technology, expected to continue, meant that a fetus might be considered viable, and thus have some basis of a right to life, at 22 or 23 weeks rather than at the 28 that was more common at the time Roe was decided. For this reason, the old trimester formula was ruled obsolete, with a new focus on viability of the fetus.
Currently in the United States 50% of all abortions are performed in the first eight weeks of pregnancy and 89% in the first twelve weeks. There were 21.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in the United States in 2001-02; the highest rate was 29.3 per 1,000 in 1980-81.
The "Jane Roe" of the landmark Roe v. Wade lawsuit, whose real name is Norma McCorvey, later became a strong advocate of the Pro-life movement. McCorvey claims she became the "pawn" of two young and ambitious lawyers who were looking for a plaintiff who they could use to challenge the Texas state law prohibiting abortion.
In the United States the issue has become deeply politicized: in 2002, 84% of state Democratic platforms supported abortion while 88% of state Republican platforms opposed it. This divergence also led to the (currently defunct) Moral Majority having an increasingly strong role in the Republican Party. This opposition has been extended under the Foreign Assistance Act: in 1973 Jesse Helms introduced an amendment banning the use of aid money to promote abortion overseas, and in 1984 the so-called Mexico City Policy prohibited financial support to any overseas organization that performed or promoted abortions. The "Mexico City Policy" was revoked by President Bill Clinton and subsequently reinstated by President George W. Bush. Several items of legislation impacting on abortion, including the Child Custody Protection Bill and the Unborn Victims of Violence Bill, are awaiting Congressional debate (February 2003).
Since 1995, led by Congressional Republicans, the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate have moved several times to pass measures banning the procedure of so-called "partial-birth" abortions. After several long and emotional debates on the issue, such measures passed twice by wide margins, but President Bill Clinton vetoed those bills in April 1996 and October 1997 on the grounds that they did not include health exceptions. Subsequent Congressional attempts at overriding the veto were unsuccessful.
On October 2, 2003, with a vote of 281-142, the House again approved a measure banning the procedure called the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (HR 760). Through this legislation, a doctor could face up to two years in prison and face civil lawsuits for performing such an abortion. A woman who undergoes the procedure cannot be prosecuted under the measure. The measure contains an exemption to save a woman's life; it does not permit the procedure unless her life is threatened. On October 21, 2003, the United States Senate passed the same bill by a vote of 64-34, with a number of Democrats joining in support. The bill was signed by President George W. Bush on November 5, 2003, but a federal judge blocked its enforcement in several state just a few hours after it became public law.
Several federal courts are examining the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Federal Judge Phyllis Hamilton of California struck it down on June 2, 2004 on three grounds:
In Judge Hamilton's decision, some concerns over nomenclature were also raised. Not the term favored by abortion practitioners, "partial-birth" abortions are often confused with third-trimester abortions, specifically the procedure known by abortion practitioners as intact dilation and extraction (intact D&X). Intact dilation and extraction often involves cases of wanted pregnancies in which the fetus develops hydrocephalus, in which the head of a fetus may expand to a size of up to 250% of the radius of an adult skull. This condition also very often causes fetal death or fetal mental retardation. Furthermore, an attempt to give birth to such a fetus is often fatal for women. Hydrocephalus is usually not discovered until the second trimester, and many say the best medical route to take is a late-term abortion.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, commonly known as "Laci and Conner's Law" was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush on April 1, 2004, allowing two charges to be filed against someone who kills a pregnant mother (one for the mother and the one for the fetus). It specifically bans charges against the mother and/or doctor relating to abortion procedures. Nevertheless, it has generated much controversy among right-to-abortion advocates. They view it as a potential step in the direction of banning abortion.
In 2003, the American Civil Liberties Union, National Abortion Federation, and other abortion rights groups planned to file lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the bill. Courts have struck down several similar state statutes.
In the 1980s and 1990s, many opponents of legal abortion who had become frustrated with the apparent political impossibility of outlawing it turned instead to direct confrontations with abortion providers and women seeking abortions. The organization Operation Rescue carried out organized picketingss, occupations, and blockades of abortion clinics, in which hundreds of anti-abortion activists would surround clinics in an attempt to shut them down.
Operation Rescue went bankrupt after losing a RICO lawsuit challenging its tactics, and many of its tactics were specifically outlawed by the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, known as the "FACE Act" or "Access Act".[1] This led to a split among anti-abortion activists, with some continuing to picket and provide sidewalk counseling within the limits of the FACE Act, and a small minority turning to violence. The activities of anti-abortion activists were moderated following the 2000 election of President George W. Bush, whose outspoken opposition to abortion gave new hope to political anti-abortion efforts, as well as the highly visible arrests and convictions of several violent pro-life extremists.Legal aspects
Abortion Statistics
Because reporting of abortions is not mandatory, statistics are of varying reliability. The most reliable and consistent statistics come from the Centers For Disease Control and the Alan Guttmacher Institute.Number of abortions in United States
When women have abortions
Reasons for abortions
Abortion before Roe
Landmark case - Roe v. Wade
Legislative developments
Similar decisions are expected from federal courts of Nebraska and New York.Pro-life activism