As a young boy I remember seeing a British horror film titled The Undying Monster.  We Americans have our own undying monster.  It’s the abortion issue.

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade and sent the abortion question back to the states. 

But the debate rages on.

Abortions, legal or otherwise, were not uncommon in 19^th and early 20^th century America.  During the early 1900s more than 200,000 women are believed to have undergone this procedure each year.  The death rate was high, more than 2,000 per annum, but that number dropped  precipitously with the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s.

Abortions were illegal throughout the United State during most of the 1800s, but in the early 1900s there was a rise in the pseudoscience of eugenics and a push for birth control.   Margaret Sanger and the Planned Parenthood organization was part of this movement.  As a result, many states modified their abortion laws, and abortions were generally legal in seventeen states prior to 1973. 

In the Supreme Court’s 1973  Roe vs Wade decision the essential finding was that a person may have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable.  The Court based its ruling on a right to privacy that the justices somehow discovered in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.  Viability means the ability to live outside the womb, which the court interpreted to be coincident with the beginning of the third trimester of a woman’s pregnancy.  Roe v Wade meant that no state could absolutely ban abortion, but they could still impose some limits on the procedure after the first trimester of pregnancy.

The matter became the subject of. great controversy and bitter political battles between the anti-abortionists and those who favored a woman’s right to choose.  There were countervailing protests and marches on either side. Many in the Christian community was incensed over what it considered to be a slaughter of the innocents.  Those on the left were perhaps equally agitated over anything they conceived to be a threat to a woman’s right to make her own choice.

Even though the court’s rulings permitted states to place some restrictions on abortions after the first trimester, in many states there were no regulations, and in some jurisdictions abortions were obtainable on demand up until the very last days preceding birth.  The rate of abortions skyrocketed, peaking at over 1.2 million in 1990.  In recent decades it has hovered at around 800 thousand per annum.

Horror stories abounded, and the issue was never allowed to die.  The Republican Party, with its strong conservative Christian element, became increasingly pro-life.  The Democrats aligned themselves with the pro-choice movement.  Battle lines were drawn, and a judge’s perceived position on the abortion issue became a critical question in deciding if he or she should be nominated and confirmed as a Supreme Court justice.

Christian evangelicals and conservative Catholics are very important to the modern Republican Party, and Donald Trump was especially indebted to them for his victory in 2016.  He paid them back by nominating Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Barrett, all conservative Catholic judges, to the Supreme Court.  The confirmation battles were vicious, but the Republicans controlled the Senate.  Once these three were installed in the court, the Roe v Wade decision was destined for a revisit.

There remain two polar opposite positions on the subject of abortion.

On one extreme you have people who are convinced that human life begins at the moment of conception.  They believe that destroying fertilized ova, no matter at what stage, is an act of murder.  On the other extreme you have those who believe woman is the master of her body and that it is her decision as to whether a fertilized ovum is allowed to come to term or may be terminated at any stage of her pregnancy.

Most people come somewhere between these extremes.

Donald Trump along with many others take what may be described as a common-sense approach.  They oppose abortions, but they realize that it is impossible to prevent women from sometimes taking that route. Therefore, they propose a ban on most abortions after the fifteenth to twentieth week of pregnancy.

By that time:

• The pregnant woman has had time to understand her condition and exercise her options.
• The woman’s general health will be known.
• If rape or incest is involved, that fact should be evident.
• The unborn child may be viable.

Of course, should continuation of the pregnancy pose a threat to the woman’s health or life, it may be terminated at any time.

The overturn of Roe v Wade pushed decisions on abortion laws back to the fifty states.  In each state citizens can express their will through their legislature, and in many states they appear to be following the common-sense approach.

Kamala Harris and Democratic party leaders propose passing federal legislation that would allow women the freedom to terminate a pregnancy as they may wish, and they are willing to eliminate the Senate filibuster in order to override Republican opposition.   Since this would tread on the boundaries of federal/state jurisdiction, the legal ramifications of such legislation are unknown.  A constitutional amendment on abortion is unattainable in the current political environment.

Trump wishes to leave decisions on abortion with the states.  People on either extreme assail his position, but the pro-abortionists crowd is particularly vehement in its attacks.  Democrats advocate for a woman’s freedom of choice and use it as a powerful campaign issue of special importance to young female voters.