Question about Roe v. Wade

[ohheckyeah]

Why wasn't Roe v. Wade decided on the basis of the 13th amendment?

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Formally abolishing slavery in the United States, the 13th Amendment was passed by the Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865.

Servitude
1
: a condition in which one lacks liberty especially to determine one's course of action or way of life
2
: a right by which something (as a piece of land) owned by one person is subject to a specified use or enjoyment by another

If a woman is forced to carry a baby to term isn't that involuntary servitude? Doesn't she lack the liberty to determine her course of action or way of life? Isn't that "something owned by the woman being subject to a specified use of her body by another?"

[Marie Marie]

1. I remember hearing somewhere (Thom Hartmann??) that Roe V Wade

was not about a woman's right to abortion but was consitutionally based on a woman's right to privacy. Anybody out there know more about this than I apparently do?

[ohheckyeah]

4. But isn't forced

pregnancy and delivery involuntary servitude? Especially if a woman is raped but even without rape, having sex is not consent to pregnancy.

Seems to me if they had based Roe V. Wade on the 13th instead of the 14th then we wouldn't be having this fight again.

[easychoice]

2. pretty good explanation here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. I always thought it was the 4th. n/t

[ohheckyeah]

5. No, it was the 14th amendement that was

the basis...the right to privacy. I disagree with Roe v. Wade being based on the 14th though....better than nothing but left it open to attack and restrictions.

[Tumbulu]

6. It should have been

But perhaps back then society still had this idea that bearing children was the normal thing every woman dreamed of doing. Perhaps it has taken this long and the large percentage of women who chose not to bear children to see it all more clearly.

[ohheckyeah]

7. I wonder if there is some way to

appeal the decision being based on the 14th amendment? I'm guessing not.

They really screwed up with Roe v. Wade by making it too easy for the states to enact all of these stipulations.

[RudynJack]

9. You can't appeal a Supreme Court decision

Nor, do I think you ask for a re-hearing for a case you won. I've never heard of a case being reheard because the plaintiff's liked the outcome, but not the reasoning.

[ohheckyeah]

13. That's what I figured.

I just find this whole attack on Roe v. Wade and women very disturbing.

[RudynJack]

16. oh

I couldn't agree more. But it's bread and butter for their base.

[ohheckyeah]

17. True

[Old Codger]

8. Supreme court

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. Decided simultaneously with a companion case, Doe v. Bolton, the Court ruled that a right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but that right must be balanced against the state's two legitimate interests in regulating abortions: protecting prenatal life and protecting women's health. Arguing that these state interests became stronger over the course of a pregnancy, the Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the trimester of pregnancy.

The Court later rejected Roe's trimester framework, while affirming Roe's central holding that a person has a right to abortion until viability.[1] The Roe decision defined "viable" as being "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid", adding that viability "is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks."[2]

In disallowing many state and federal restrictions on abortion in the United States,[3][4] Roe v. Wade prompted a national debate that continues today, about issues including whether and to what extent abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, what methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication, and what the role should be of religious and moral views in the political sphere. Roe v. Wade reshaped national politics, dividing much of the United States into pro-choice and pro-life camps, while activating grassroots movements on both sides.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

[ohheckyeah]

11. I've read that...

but what I'm saying is I disagree with it being decided as a privacy issue. I also don't think the state has two legitimate interests in regulating abortion except to require abortion clinics to be medically safe.

Had it been declared involuntary servitude there would be no restrictions.

[theKed]

14. I would imagine it's

what they could manage to hold up to legal assault. Perhaps they thought a judgement based on the thirteenth would be too fragile, legally, to uphold?

[ohheckyeah]

15. Probably....

at least at that time and in that political/social climate.

Could a woman in a state that restricts abortion to a certain number of weeks challenge state law under the 13th amendment?

[theKed]

18. Well

That's if you could get the courts to rule that pregnancy is servitude.

Not that I'm saying this is how *I* would rule it, but I would imagine some sort of counter-position that it wasn't involuntary, even if you could get it seen as a form of servitude. You (hypothetical "you", not YOU) had sex knowing even with birth control/condoms/what have you there was whatever small fraction of a chance of pregnancy, therefore any consequences of that are consented to. You might squeek out a defense against rape-induced pregnancies (y'know, those "legitimate rapes&quot , since it's unlikely (though possible I suppose) the "she was asking for it" defense wouldn't hold up.

[ohheckyeah]

19. I understand that argument

and it probably would be made. I disagree, of course, that consent to sex is in any way consent to a pregnancy. But, a rape induced pregnancy does, IMO, definitely fit the definition of involuntary servitude.

[LittlestStar]

10. Torture: the definition of forced childbearing

Definition of TORTURE
1: to cause intense suffering to : torment
2: to punish or coerce by inflicting excruciating pain
3: to twist or wrench out of shape : distort, warp

Pregnancy deforms your body permanently, causes excrutiating pain, causes the loss of jobs/wages, causes bankruptcy (uninsured women).

You can't even force a DEAD republican white male to give up a fucking kidney to save a living, breathing child, but these fuckers want to FORCE ALL women to make new people, whether they want to or no, because they are so "pro-life". If they gave a shit about life, and if women were considered people, you could never refuse to give a kidney AFTER death, and you could never force a living, breathing female to be an incubator/person dispenser!

[ohheckyeah]

12. I resent the hell out of the

idea that women should be forced to be incubators. It's repugnant to me.

Roe v. Wade was and is certainly better than nothing but it's rapidly becoming almost nothing.

I don't have children, didn't want children and took a lot of flack over not wanting children. I had my tubes tied at age 30 when I had a laser laparoscopy for endometriosis. I ended up having a hysterectomy at 31 and people were appalled that I didn't do everything possible to save my reproductive organs including being in pain 24/7.

[sorosland64]

20. If Roe v. Wade

is overturned it goes to the states.