Until 1973, laws regulating abortions were left to the states, and many chose to enact regulations that banned the practice. Most of these laws targeted those performing abortions rather than the women themselves. Before 1973, the resultant fear of losing their medical licenses and facing criminal charges meant that few doctors were willing to perform abortions. By the late 1960s, social pressures and the feminist movement pushed states to begin to relax these laws; by 1970, 16 states had created new regulations that allowed women access to legal abortions.
The United States Supreme Court heard two cases in early 1973: Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton; on January 22, 1973, the Court declared that the 14th Amendment protected a woman's right to abortion under the Due Process Clause and its interpreted right to privacy. This case provides the foundation for all abortion laws in the United States today.
The decision to overturn the decision made in Roe v. Wade has sparked anger all over the United States as some people believe their rights have been taken away. Unfortunately, the main thing issue over this debate that the people of this country are failing to understand is the interpretation and legislation of the 10th amendment.
The 10th amendment states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
An example of this would be authority over matters of medicine is left up to the states, not the federal government. Each individual state has a licensure process for doctors and hospitals.
If abortion is murder of the unborn, then the first tier of authority over determining what constitutes murder or justifies homicide is the state government, not the federal government. The federal government can prosecute killers of federal officials and similar situations, such as crimes on military bases. However, in most murder cases, state courts make the final decision.
This was the case before the decision in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. The federal right to an abortion was not based on whether or not it was a homicide but on the "right to privacy”. However, even this claim falls flat, as the Constitution does not relate privacy laws to abortion. In fact, The Constitution is completely silent on abortion altogether. The silence of the United States Constitution on topics of medicine, murder, and privacy makes it quite evident that the right to regulate abortion belongs to the 50 states under the Tenth Amendment.
This isn't a matter of whether or not abortion should be legal, but rather an argument that Roe v. Wade was a decision that never should have happened.
In the 1800s, the Supreme Court also decided that slavery was legal via its Dred Scott decision. After the Civil War, the Constitution was changed via an amendment to give the federal government the authority to outlaw slavery.
Suppose the federal government intends to lawfully control abortion. In that case, it should do so either by a law enacted by Congress, reviewable by the lower courts, or by a Constitutional amendment that, once enacted, can be regulated by courts but not ignored by them.
We are a government of the people, ruled by the people. So why not allow or limit abortion the right way, the American way — by having the states, the people, make those decisions?
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