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Show AN ABORTION MESSAGE PAGES 5 & 6 ick'k1ckickirkickiiiickiiciriciftrk'k'k1ck Independent ''At Dedicated To The Constitution, Liberty, Morality, and Truth Vol. 6, No. 43 October 23, 1975 25C Salt Lake City, Utah 84115 uesfion Is Asked The Can Abortion As Allowed By Supreme Court On January 22, 1973, Be Medically, LegaUy And Morally Good For The Nation? ivi tr: riri iww II(II I (!! Raw Judicial Power The court simply fashions aqd announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 states are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of . the continued existence and development of the fetus on the one hand against a spectrum of possible impacts on the mother on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but in my view its ; judgment is an improvident and extravagent exercise of the power of judicial review which the Constitution extends to this court. ( Justice i : c E in a White Byron i the dissenting opinion Court decision on Supreme on abortion) !! ! il j a (Choose Life, Then, So That You And Your Descendants May Live. (Deuteronomy 30:19) How Far Did The reme Court Go? Droplet Of Life This baby is from an unruptured ectopic pregnancy (dccuring outside the uterus). The baby is about seven weeks old. Note his fingers and toes and facial features. Under the Supreme Court ruling, he can be killed now, or any time for the next four or five until he is three months old. Some interpretations of the weeks court decision would allow him to be killed up to the very moment he is born. UTAH INDEPENDENT 57 Oakland Avenue Salt Lake City, Utah 84115 Second data Postage Paid at Cert Lake Cfty. Utah High Courts Errors mazing The court makes some really amazing biological errors in its decision, according to Dr. Andre Hellegers, director of the Kennedy Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction and When it deals with the history of abortion, it talks about Bio-Ethic- s. what people, thought about conception in the past without realizing that conception was only discovered in the 19th century. The ovum wasnt to to M 05 C CO N lO CK 03 H J a ft S M o O fi 1- OS E aos smo (t o t-- M CO CO 4 tc M or. W i m a w to zs -4 V m discovered until 1827. The court says that the Pythagoreans held as a matter of dogma that the embryo was animate from the moment of conception. Well we didnt even know about conception until 150 years ago. The Pythagorians were philosophers not biologists, but the court seems to regard The following summary of the course, they arrived at the right answers anyway, even though they knew very little about biology. Medical American The Association in the 19th century took its stand against abortion when it became known what the. Continued on page 9 by the Four- teenth Amendments guarantee Supreme Courts January decision on abortion was that life shall npt be taken prepared by John T. Noonan,i without due process of law. At professor of law at the University this point, he or she is, however, legally recognizable as potential of California, Berkeley: well-bein- g of the patient. 22, 1973 a human being is viable or capable of meaningful life, a state has no compelling interest which justifies it in restricting in any way in favor of the fetus a womans fundamental personal liberty of abortion. For six months, or usually for seven months, the fetus is denied the protection of law by virtue of either the Ninth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment. 1. Until After viability has been reached, the human being is not a person in the whole sense, so that even after viability he or she 2. 5. The state may require that all abortions be done by licensed physicians, that after the first trimester they be performed in life. licensed facilities, and tjiat after viability they may be 3. A state may nonetheless not regulated so long as health protect a viable human being by abortions are not denied. The preventing an abortion un- state is constitutionally barred, dertaken to preserve the health of however, from requiring review the mother. Therefore, a fetus of of the abortion decision by a seven, eight, or nine months is hospital committee or consubordinated by the Constitution currence in the decision by two to the demand for abortion physicians other than the atpredicated on health. tending physician.' The Con4. What the health of the stitution also prohibits a state mother requires in any particular from requiring that the abortion case is a medical judgment to be be in a hospital licensed by a joint exercised in the light of all committee on accreditation of factors physical, emotional, hospitals or indeed that it be in a psychological, familial, and the hospital at all. woman's age relevant to the If a man loses his reverence for any part of life he will lose his reverence for all life. ... (Albert Schweitzer, theologian, son of a Lutheran pastor, doctor, Nobel Peace medical prize winner, missionary in Africa) 1887-196- 5, JUSTICE REHNQUIST DISSENTS their opinions as dissenting biological opinions. Factually, of is not protected To reach its result the court Connecticut legislature.. .By the to find within had has time of the adoption of the necessarily the scope of the Fourteenth Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 Amendment a right that was there were at least 36 laws apparently completely unknown enacted by state or territorial to the drafters of the Amendlimiting abortion. ment. As early as 1821, the first legislatures While many states have amended state law dealing directly with or updated their laws, 2i of the abortion was enacted by the laws on the books in 1868 remain in effect today. Indeed, the Texas statute struck down today was, as the majority notes; first enacted in 1857 and has remained substantially. unchanged to the present time. (Justice William Rehnquist in a dissenting opinion on the Supreme Court decision on abortion) |