> Do you know that Roe v. Wade (1973) itself gave women only a very limited > and circumscribed right? > Remember, the anti-abortion movement has not been happy with Roe v. Wade > (which was itself something of a legal balancing act), nor has it been > satisfied by numerous subsequent regulations placed on our right since then. > Yoshie as you suggest, *Roe* was compromise - one in which Blackmun's majority opinion attempted to balance a woman's right to control her reproduction with the state's alleged interest in limiting access to abortion...anti- abortionists accused Blackmun (who received numerous death threats for the remainder of his life) and Supremes of creating 'abortion on demand' by enabling a woman to control her pregnancy for 3 months before allowing state to impose limits... but Blackmun and Court even restricted a woman's access to abortion during first trimester by proclaiming until viability, 'the abortion decision in all its aspects is inherently, and primarily, a medical decison, and basic responsibility for it must rest with the physician'...by super- imposing a legal grid on contiuum of pregnancy and casting a constitutional right in medical terms, Supremes located decision-making responsibility in the doctor rather than in the woman... Court's conservative approach in *Roe* notwithstanding, anti-abortionists introduced almost 200 state legislative bills within 2 years, over 60 were enacted into law in 32 states...for a time, a 'pro-choice' majority on the Court found most of these laws restricted woman's right to privacy established in *Roe*, but many of its decisions were multi-part rulings that accepted state definitions of viability, allowed states to prescribe how many doctors must be present at post-viability abortions (beyond stting initial licensing standards, states usually entrust regulations of procedures and practices to medical profesion - how many state require X number of doctors be present at a tonsillectomy?), approved parental consent, upheld certain second trimester hospital regulations, and allowed prohibitions on government funding... if the pre-*Webster* decision Court accepted principle of inequality of abortion rights, *Webster* potentially paves way for state to subordinate woman's right of procreational privacy to a 'compelling interest' in the fetus and under this interpretation, a state could criminalize abortion...also, *Wesbter* conceivably could be used to outlaw contraceptive devices that 'kill' fertilized eggs by threatening implantation after conception...alarmist? maybe, it is unlilkely that all states will ban abortion entirely, but what is left to bargain, to comprise on? Michael Hoover
