{"id":85900,"date":"2016-01-21T14:36:18","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T19:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=85900"},"modified":"2016-01-21T14:55:08","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T19:55:08","slug":"texas-abortion-ceo-fails-on-every-point-in-fear-mongering-time-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/texas-abortion-ceo-fails-on-every-point-in-fear-mongering-time-article\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas abortion CEO fails on every point in fear-mongering Time article"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As pro-lifers mark the 43rd<\/sup> anniversary of Roe v. Wade<\/em> with mourning for its victims<\/a> and resolve to set things right, abortion advocates are commemorating it with a mix of ghoulish celebration and fear-mongering over the possibility\u00a0of Roe<\/em> falling. In Time Magazine, Whole Women\u2019s Health CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller and reproductive historian Rickie Solinger write a commemoration<\/a> that leans heavily toward the latter, inadvertently demonstrating why overturning this monstrous ruling is so vital.<\/p>\n

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Today, where a woman lives determines her access to abortion services, and states mandate whether she is required to have (and look at) an ultrasound beforehand, whether she must obtain parental consent, whether has the right to have a medical abortion, among other conditions. Wherever she lives, she has to assess the political and economic environment into which her child would be born, as she decides whether to continue her pregnancy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If the Roe<\/em> court had addressed all the additional factors Miller and Solinger wish they had, their ruling would have even less to do with the Constitution\u2019s actual meaning than the already-bankrupt decision they gave us<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The authors are arguing that it\u2019s not enough for the judiciary to affirm a supposed right, it also has to proactively reshape the law to make that right as easy to exercise as possible. We\u2019ve discussed before<\/a> how this is philosophically incompatible with the Constitution, so here let\u2019s demonstrate it another way, with how our predecessors actually handled such conflicts as they arose.<\/p>\n

The 15th<\/sup> Amendment to the Constitution<\/a> had already guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race, but that right was often circumvented<\/a> in the segregation-era South by poll taxes imposing a cost on voting, which blacks would be unable to pay. Miller and Solinger\u2019s logic would have us believe the proper recourse would have simply been for the judiciary to step in and declare poll taxes unconstitutional, but despite the noble intentions behind such an act, it would be an abuse of the Constitution by reading things into it that simply weren\u2019t there. Instead, we made poll taxes unconstitutional the right way by enacting the 24th<\/sup> Amendment.<\/p>\n

If our opponents want to guarantee simpler, easier \u201caccess\u201d to abortion, they are perfectly free to try it the legitimate way – by crafting a constitutional amendment of their own and persuading their fellow Americans to support it. But they choose instead to run to the courts because deep down, they know they’d lose a fair fight for public opinion<\/a>. Miller and Solinger write:<\/p>\n

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She has to consider who is defined as a legitimate mother in the U.S., whose children have value, and whose do not. These conditions of pregnancy and childbearing undermine the possibility of dignity and safety for millions of women today.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sometimes pro-aborts\u2019 lack of self-awareness about what they write is mind-numbing. Those promoting or considering abortion are the only ones deciding which kids do and don\u2019t have value, and it\u2019s only because they chose to raise the question because it helps rationalize what they want. The rest of us already know \u201cwhose children have value\u201d: everybody\u2019s.<\/p>\n

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Most Americans are unaware that abortion was generally legal in the U.S. until the mid-19th century; ending a pregnancy was a woman\u2019s prerogative until she, herself, reported having felt fetal movement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Most Americans are\u00a0\u201cunaware\u201d of this because it isn\u2019t true. This is one of the historical questions Roe <\/em>got wrong<\/a>, as the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist explained<\/a> in his dissent from Planned Parenthood v. Casey<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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The common law which we inherited from England made abortion after \u201cquickening\u201d an offense. At the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, statutory prohibitions or restrictions on abortion were commonplace; in 1868, at least 28 of the then 37 States and 8 Territories had statutes banning or limiting abortion.
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In addition, the quickening distinction was a matter of outdated medical knowledge, and many laws were handicapped by investigators\u2019 inability to determine whether an early abortion took place. So even the details of the past seemingly in abortion\u2019s favor were not such due to any deeply-rooted pro-choice principle.<\/p>\n

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Some feminists opposed abortion largely because of its association with a woman\u2019s loss of \u201cchastity.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Really? Let\u2019s let the early, real feminists’ own words be the judge of that<\/a>:<\/p>\n