Pro Lifer's - Lets save Roe

I hardly ever get ready to blog that I don't see a column or article that beats me to the punch. I was thinking on this idea after doing a weird thing - reading the transcript of Roe v Wade. A lot of people talk about it but few really read or study the case to see what the opinion actually says. Actually through the web you can even hear tapes of some of the proceedings. I had done just that when I read a recent column by Cal Thomas talking about, rather than out right repeal, pro life advocates might work on gradually reducing the effects. He focused on the fact that a large number of those considering abortion, when shown a sonogram of the fetus, changed theri minds. If Roe had been the end of the story it would have been one thing but for abortion advocates, it was just the beginning. We've moved on from the restrictions of Roe to unlimited access at any time, strict secrecy, and then partial birth abortion. Few realize that Roe limited unrestricted access to abortion to the first trimester. Few seem to remember that a significant factor in Roe was that the abortion be performed before the fetus could viably survive outside the womb.

I'm not a legal scholar, but I am not alone in suggesting that Roe was wrong without the issue of abortion playing a role in it. Is there a right to privacy in the Constitution? This is debated continually by noted legal scholars. Is the fetus a person? If so what about the constitutional rights protecting innocent persons from harm - or death without cause. Medical science is allowing premature babies to survive at earlier and earlier stages of development - who's to define when a fetus becomes a person.

It is time for the courts to step up to the plate and clarify some of these issues. It is time for open debate on the constitution. It is time for public education to expose our young people to the constitution in a scholarly way not in a mode of indoctrination.

Maybe for the time being Roe should be our fall back point with us, demanding that the license to kill babies, not retreat beyond this point.