Is Lieberman right in calling for a re-examination of abortion rights?

December 26, 2003
Lieberman Calls for Abortion Discussion
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 1:30 p.m. ET

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman says he believes in a woman's right to choose an abortion, but he thinks advances in medical science call for a re-examination of the current definition of abortion rights.

The Connecticut senator said those advances may force reconsideration of the approach to abortion rights as defined in the Roe vs. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lieberman said the period of time a woman actually has a ``right to choose'' gradually grows shorter as medical science pushes fetal viability ever-earlier in pregnancy, the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader reported in its Friday editions.

``To me, Roe v. Wade said that in the stages of pregnancy up to viability (of the fetus), the state basically cannot intervene in a decision a woman makes whether to go forward with a pregnancy or not. But after viability, the state can regulate that choice because the interest of the fetus goes up,'' he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Lieberman-Abortion.html?pagewanted=print&position=

No Dem should be talking about weakening Roe Vs Wade, esp. with our current theocratic MISadministration.

the woman? Funny, Scientology has argued against this in court when their cleansing programs were challenged by family members.

and third trimester abortions are far lower than first.

Under the new politeness, may I simply express how glad I am that at least one Democrat is going after the fundie vote?

Also, as a man, it gets me off the hook!

We need dialogue. This is a good move, politically speaking, because we've been losing votes to the GOP for years, votes of people who are Dems in their hearts, but bothered in their hearts by Dem's unqualified support of abortion. Many people are in favor of Roe v. Wade in general, but concerned that there are so many abortions.

If it's progressive to oppose unnecessary wars, and unnecessary killing in necessary wars, and it's progressive to oppose the death penalty, why is it progressive to support the killing of fetuses at any stage of gestation, for any reason? A fetus is an immature human being, growing and developing to be ready to join the "outside world." Shouldn't we be trying to make these killings less necessary?

We know much, much more about fetal development now than we did when Roe v. Wade was decided. There were years in the past when I myself might have easily decided to get an abortion if I'd found an unplanned pregnancy might be a hardship, and I have neither the right nor the desire to judge any woman who has made that choice. I am suggesting that we re-examine the issue and decide what we can do to make abortion less necessary in the future. I hope we can do it as women, though I don't vote to exclude men from the discussion. I would vote to exclude the extremists on either side of the issue -- each side must be willing to listen and prepared to compromise a bit.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Hell, they can do that with a fertilized egg now.

When did I miss this truely astonishing breakthrough?

Lieberman isn't saying that abortion should be made illegal or that roe v. wade should be overturned. What he's saying is that the current definition that abortions are fine until the third "trimester" when the fetus is "viable" may not stand up to scrutiny and that we should possibly reexamine where we define the fetus to be a life. What he's calling for is a discussion of in what timeframe abortion should be legal, and he gives no indication of where he thinks it should be legal -- all he's calling for is a discussion.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

He'll have to be completely pro choice and have to use thi to help him support his point. I think this can turn out to be a good thing.

Could someone tell me when D/democrats got so closed minded?

Yeesh, Joe is entitled to an opinion just like everyone else, and the matter of viability worries him, wtf is wrong with that?! Look I'm about as pro-choice as anyone can get (*preferring no limitations to abortion at all), HOWEVER, I can appreciate and respect Joe Lieberman's concerns about the matter.

Furthermore, anyone who isn't willing to LOOK at something again when valid, worthwhile information comes to light has NO business downing ANYONE ELSE for being closed-minded! So the man has questions and concerns. Feckin' ANSWER THEM with facts, don't sit here on a high horse and bitch because he doesn't think or view life the same way YOU do!

(*MODS, this is a generalized response, not intended to insult to original poster. I simply don't see the cause for such intense outrage over one man's questioning of a very divisive issue.

without it, all we have are emotional arguements. IMO, the debate should not be "if" but "how late".

I voted for more studies/bad timing.

knowledge of science. With a better knowledge of prenatal development, I think people might need to reconsider some of their opinions. Here at DU, I have read many posts talking about a fetus being a "blob" or "a glob of cells," "some tissue," "no more a person than cells scraped off your arm," "not alive," "not human," "not even having a brain," and more along these lines, all of which are incorrect, from a biological standpoint.

I was pro-choice for years, being a feminist and going along with the rhetoric about woman's rights (some of which I still believe and support, of course.) I thought pro-lifers were weird. Then one day, for the hundredth time or so, I was teaching a class how biologists determine whether something is living or not living. To my horror, in the middle of my explanations of the traits of living things, I suddenly realized that a fetus meets every definition of life from the moment of fertilization.

It was as if I'd deliberately kept myself from applying my knowledge of biology to consideration of the abortion issue. I had to rethink everything. As you can imagine, I did not want to be on the same side of the fence with those weird pro-lifers. I have found, though, that pro-lifers I've met at protests have not been weird, which is not to deny that weird ones exist, as we've all seen some on the news. I have only been involved in peaceful protests and have never protested at a clinic. The pro-lifers I know personally are opposed to war, the death penalty, and euthanasia, as well as abortion, and support helping women, decreasing the need for abortions.

We do need to examine the scientific facts about prenatal life, consider all the ramifications of women's rights and fetal rights, and just really have a dialogue about abortion in this country. We probably need to exclude the extremist hardliners from either side unless they can demonstrate that they can actually consider the other viewpoint fairly.

Dennis Kucinich wants to have this dialogue and heal the wounds in the country that pit one side against the other. Pro-life most of his life, he last year developed concerns about how some pro-lifers ignore the woman. This led him to become pro-choice and to promise that he would require Supreme Court nominees to support upholding Roe v. Wade. He thinks that having been on both sides of the issue, he is well-positioned philosophically to do this. One of many reasons I support DK!

I don't believe Joe Lieberman is calling for a dialogue on a difficult issue. I believe he's trying to assert his candidacy at the expense of the party's platform.

He did essentially the same thing in the Rose Garden last spring, endorsing Bush's assault on Iraq.

Where have you gone, Lowell Weicker?

Roe in a Nutshell

Roe declared that there is a constitutional right to privacy, that pregnancy is fundamental, and that States had no compelling reason to restrict abortion to the extent they had. Roe also pointed out, in a "strict-constructionist" sense, that the Constitution always used the term "person" to apply post-natally and not to the unborn (Pojman 28-29). The most controversial part of Roe was in the dicta; it established a trimester approach to pregnancy that was based on the viability of the fetus. In this scheme, the abortion decision was left to the woman and her doctor during the first trimester. States could restrict abortions in the second trimester. In the last trimester, States could ban abortions except in cases where it was necessary to save the mother's life. The trimester scheme surprised all the litigants, none more than Sarah Weddington who had argued the case (Weddington 161-162). It was the trimester scheme that received the most flak in the aftermath.

Blackmun

The author of the majority opinion in Roe, the late Harry Blackmun, addressed the controversy that Roe would generate in the second paragraph of the decision. Blackmun wrote that the Court was aware of the "sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy" and of the "deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires" and how "one's philosophy, one's experiences, one's exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one's religious training, one's attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one's thinking and conclusions about abortion."

Roe Aftermath: The Firestorm

In spite of Blackmun's efforts to soften and explain the decision to the public, which included a proposed press release (Lazarus 359), Roe became for social conservatives a rallying cry for their cause and a symbol of the nation's "cultural degradation" and "the mass murder of innocent unborn children" (Lazarus 360). None other than Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" in Roe, has joined the fray as a vocal anti-abortion activist. McCorvey never had an abortion, gave birth to a child that she put up for adoption. McCorvey can be seen speaking out against abortion on religious programs such as Pat Robertson's 700 Hundred Club.

The Classic Objections to Roe

The then Associate Justice Rehnquist wrote the dissenting opinion in Roe. Rehnquist felt that the trimester approach used by Blackmun had no constitutional basis and amounted to "judicial legislation" (Pojman 34). Rehnquist pointed out that at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, "there were at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures limiting abortion" and that one could only conclude that the "drafters did not intent to…withdraw from the States" the power to pass abortion legislation (Pojman 34-35). Rehnquist also pointed out that the Constitution had no explicit right to privacy.

In their essay "Roe v. Wade: No basis in law, logic, or history", Dennis Horan and Thomas Balch compared Roe's failure to recognize the fetus as a person to other notorious Supreme Court decisions such as Dred Scott, that ruled that blacks were not citizens, and Plessy, which upheld racial segregation. The authors quote Archibald Cox, who achieved fame as the first Watergate prosecutor, who referred to Roe as "a set of hospital rules and regulations" whose validity will be destroyed with "new advances in science providing for the separate existence of a fetus" (Pojman 74). Horan and Balch also point out that for all practical purposes, if one were to rely on the scheme in Roe, there was no foreseeable scenario in which a State could "constitutionally prohibit abortion at any time during pregnancy" (Pojman 75). People oppose abortion because "it kills unborn human life" (Pojman 77). Historically the unborn was recognized as a person based on "the biological and medical knowledge of each historical era" (Pojman 77).

Another View of When Life Begins

Throughout the centuries there has been different "cutoff" points in which life was considered to have begun. The medieval Catholic Church followed the "forty-and-eighty-day rule" in which "the soul was thought to enter the male fetus forty days after conception and the female fetus eighty days after conception (McDonnell 43)." The Church allowed the abortion of a male up to forty days, and of a female up to eighty days (McDonnell 43). How the Church determined the sex of the fetus remains a mystery to this day. In 1869 the Church "officially abandoned the forty-and eighty-day rule, and adopted the position that the soul was infused at conception, which effectively outlawed all abortions" (McDonnell 43).

Casey: Roe's near-death experience

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) the Supreme Court struck down a provision of the Pennsylvania law that required married women to sign a statement attesting that they had notified their husbands that they were seeking an abortion. The Court let stand a provision that required parental notification in the case of minors. The Court also scrapped Roe's much maligned trimester scheme. The remarkable thing is that the Court was going to overturn Roe, but did not do so. In his inside the Court book "Closed Chambers", former clerk Edward Lazarus gives a rather telling account of how the Court, prompted by the likes of Solicitor General Ken Starr (among others), had decided to use Casey to overturn Roe. This would have happened had it not been for Judge Souter. Souter shared the same concern for due process and stare decisis of his hero Justice Harlan, the lone dissenter in the 1896 Plessy decision. Souter convinced Justices O'Connor and Kennedy to write an opinion in which they would uphold Roe not on its merits, but to preserve the Court's institutional integrity (Lazarus 459-476). The language was simply stunning; a decision to overturn Roe would be "a surrender to political pressure, and an unjustified repudiation of the principle on which the Court staked its authority in the first place." "(Overruling Roe)…would subvert the Court's legitimacy beyond any serious question" (Lazarus 476).

What if the fetus has the right to life?

In her classic article "A Defense of Abortion", Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that a woman has a right to an abortion even if the fetus is a human person. The fetus and the mother have "an equal right to life," but the mother also has the right to decide, "what happens in and to her body...the sum of her rights now outweighing the fetus right to life" (Pojman 119-120). The right to life is not as simple as abortion opponents think it is. From Thomson's point of view, "having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person's body-even if one needs it for life itself" (Pojman 123-124). Thomson illustrates this principle by her use of an "imaginary violinist." Suppose, she asks, that you wake up in the morning and find yourself sharing your circulatory system with a famous violinist. The Society of Music Lovers kidnapped you because you have the only blood type that can help the violinist. What if you were told that the violinist's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens to your body? What if you were told that, because the violinist's right to life outweighs your right to life, you "cannot ever be unplugged" from the violinist? Thomson's argument is that this situation is as outrageous as saying that the fetus right to life is greater than the mother's right to decide what happens to her body (Pojman 117-118).

Are the Choices Pure and Simple?

In their essay "Breaking Through the Stereotypes," Daniel and Sidney Callahan give an account of a study that they conducted on the beliefs and views of women on either side of the abortion issue. The Callahans found it difficult to label prolifers and prochoicers as having values that were either totally conservative or totally liberal. Both groups shared common values that could be used as a basis for dialogue. The Callahans found in their interviews that most of the women, regardless of which side they were on the abortion issue, were concerned about the socio-economic and cultural conditions that cause women to seek abortions. The women were willing to work together to find ways to limit abortion choices made solely because of poverty, oppression, or lack of social support. The women were also willing to work together to further social reforms that "would be more supportive of troubled pregnancies." The women also rejected the views of many in the prolife movement that any choice for abortion is due to "crass expediency," and its prochoice flipside that seems only interested in the availability of abortion (Pojman 10-11).

In her introduction to Kathleen McDonnell's "Not an Easy Choice," Ellen Herman argues that the anguish that women experience when making abortion decisions are not rooted in morality or personal choices. The anguish is caused by "the sexual guilt and shame imposed on women by a misogynist culture, and the resulting injustice of the context in which reproductive choices are made" (McDonnell xi).

Financial hardship is the most common reason cited by women seeking abortions. Although there are many reasons why a woman would seek an abortion, money is usually what "tips the scales" in its favor. It is tragic when a woman, who wants to have a child, is coerced by her poverty to have an abortion (McDonnell 71). In her book "Not an Easy Choice", Canadian feminist Kathleen McDonnell argues that abortion "must be carried out by those who love and respect women," and who have a "deep reverence for both life and death" (McDonnell 132). McDonnell also proposes that feminists should make clear that the right to choose "shares nothing with a population control ideology that legitimizes the control and exploitation of women's reproductive capacity in the interest of perpetuating an inequitable political and economic order" (McDonnell 133). Poor women are also victimized by the pharmaceutical industry. Many of the new contraceptive methods being developed and distributed in Third World countries are used primarily "for population control purposes, not to increase women's choices" (McDonnell 138).

Should abortion be prohibited?

As we saw earlier in our discussion of Casey, it is unlikely that a future Supreme Court will adhere to the doctrine of stare decisis to reaffirm Roe's essential holding. A second Bush Administration will undoubtedly resume the tactics of the Reagan and first Bush Administrations to overturn Roe by simply changing the Court's composition (Lazarus 469). Justice Clarence Thomas's unremarkable tenure in the Court gives credence to the view that his nomination by President Bush was done to placate the Republican rightwing, and to overturn Roe, and not for his constitutional scholarship (Lazarus 450-451). We can expect more Thomas-like nominees to the federal bench from a second Bush Administration.

One cannot ignore the possibility that further advances in neonatal care developments will continue to push viability closer to the point of conception. Since viability in Roe marks the earliest point at which the State can impose restrictions on abortion (Pojman 38), it would be within the realm of possibility for a State to intervene on behalf of the unborn the moment a woman first finds out she is pregnant without violating what remains of the Roe construct (Pojman 109).

A concern over the vulnerability of Roe has prompted many prochoicers to look for other arguments that could be used to preserve the right to choose. Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, the two attorneys that represented the plaintiffs in the Roe v. Wade case, discussed using the gender discrimination argument when they were preparing for trial. Forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term would violate her right to due process of law. The argument parallels the one used in racial discrimination cases. Weddington and Coffee did not emphasize the gender discrimination argument because there was a lack of precedent in 1971 (Weddington 260-261).

In a 1985 article written for the North Carolina Law Review, Ruth Bader Ginsburg criticized Roe for being based on the right to privacy rather than on the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Ginsburg argues that abortion prohibitions should have been linked to discrimination against women. The conflict, according to Ginsburg, is not "simply one between a fetus' interests and a woman's interests ...nor is the overriding issue state versus private control of a woman's body for a span of nine months. Also in the balance is a woman's autonomous charge of her full life's course" and "her ability to stand in relation to man, society, and the state as an independent, self-sustaining, equal citizen" (Pojman 109).

Conclusion

Philosophers such as Rousseau and Marx described equality under the law as a sham used by the powerful in order to preserve in the law all of the injustices done to the weak. The weak are to give up their class warfare in exchange for being treated as an "equal" to the powerful under the law. To Marx and Rousseau, this is only an illusion because the weak remains weak at the mercy of the powerful having abrogated their right to fight back. Women will continue to be subjugated by society, and be viewed as inferior to men, as long as our society and its laws are based on an unequal power structure. Laws will remain on the books that will treat women on an unequal basis when compared to men. Abortion will continue to be treated as a legal issue rather than as a personal one. It is debatable whether our society can address, much less resolve, the social inequality and injustice that are an inherent part of capitalism.


Works Cited

Lazarus, Edward. Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.

McDonnell, Kathleen. Not An Easy Choice: A Feminist Re-examines Abortion. Boston: South End Press, 1984.

Pojman, Louis, and Beckwith, Francis, eds. The Abortion Controversy: 25 Years After Roe v. Wade. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1998.

Weddington, Sarah. A Question of Choice. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.

Copyright

Permission granted by author.

Quoted from Abortion: Should it be prohibited? Published as an article, Reality Complicates Pro-Life/Pro-Choice Issues (May 2001, p. 6) PreConvention 2001 Discussion Bulletin, Communist Party,USA. Copyright the author. All rights reserved.

Communist Party USA
235 West 23 Street,
New York, NY 10011

I have read (skimmed very quickly, then began reading.) I do want to comment on this:

"None other than Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" in Roe, has joined the fray as a vocal anti-abortion activist. McCorvey never had an abortion, gave birth to a child that she put up for adoption. McCorvey can be seen speaking out against abortion on religious programs such as Pat Robertson's 700 Hundred Club."

I have read an interview with Norma McCorvey ("Jane Roe") and according to her, she went to attorney Sarah Weddington because she was seeking an abortion and had been told Weddington could help her get one. As I recall, Sarah Weddington had herself had an abortion in Mexico not long before meeting McCorvey but she didn't tell McCorvey how to get a Mexican abortion, she convinced her to be the plaintiff in a case to overturn a law or laws banning abortion. Given the time a court case takes, McCorvey gave birth to her baby before Roe v. Wade was decided and, as stated in the article, gave the baby up for adoption, as she previously given up two or three other children, being a person who has not had much success in coping with life or motherhood. I don't recall if she'd ever been married, by which I mean to suggest nothing about her morals but only that she might have been successful raising her children if she'd had a husband (legal or common-law) or even a good friend to help her. Norma has been a victim of her own bad judgement or bad luck and also of others using her to further their own goals.

After years of guilt, during which she was active in the pro-choice cause, working in an abortion clinic, etc., she became a Christian through the ministry of a pro-life evangelist. She began speaking out against abortion at that time. Later, she became a Catholic. I don't know if she still appears on the fundie shows like 700 Club, having become Catholic. I never watch such shows but fundies are very anti-Catholic so I'm not sure she'd be welcomed now.

I relate this story because I was put off by Sarah Weddington's deceit in using Norma McCorvey to make a name for herself and by the victimization of Norma by both sides. Norma was lauded, used, and later despised by the pro-choice movement. Pro-choicers viewed her as a traitor when she changed her view to be pro-life. And then the fundie pro-lifers lauded and used her. It reminded me of the film "Citizen Ruth" -- a film that should make you squirm no matter which view you take.

I'll do a google later and see if I can turn up a link for this information, and also check my memory of what I read.

"In their essay "Breaking Through the Stereotypes," Daniel and Sidney Callahan give an account of a study that they conducted on the beliefs and views of women on either side of the abortion issue. The Callahans found it difficult to label prolifers and prochoicers as having values that were either totally conservative or totally liberal. Both groups shared common values that could be used as a basis for dialogue. The Callahans found in their interviews that most of the women, regardless of which side they were on the abortion issue, were concerned about the socio-economic and cultural conditions that cause women to seek abortions. The women were willing to work together to find ways to limit abortion choices made solely because of poverty, oppression, or lack of social support. The women were also willing to work together to further social reforms that "would be more supportive of troubled pregnancies." The women also rejected the views of many in the prolife movement that any choice for abortion is due to "crass expediency," and its prochoice flipside that seems only interested in the availability of abortion (Pojman 10-11)."

The entire paragraph is important, but I emphasized two sentences that sum it all up for me (more details follow in the rest of the paragraph.) I have long suspected that the few extremists on either side and the media have fanned the flames to make everyone believe that the other side is all wrong. This occurs with other controversial issues as well (war, gay rights, capital punishment) and it's up to the sane people (and we are the majority!) to say we won't play these games any longer. We will talk to each other.

Lieberman's right (something I've never said before!) to say we need a new dialogue and a new understanding. The GOP pretends to be completely opposed to abortion but it's a political gimmick for them. The Dems, in their turn, are so adamantly pro-choice that they turn off a lot of voters who can accept some abortion but are horrified at the huge numbers of abortions performed each year.

There are no absoluet rights in our society--- none--- and reproductive choices should be subject to the same balancing tests as are all other rights. Advances in neonatology have raised very real issues about the definition of 'viability', and we do ourselves a great disservice when we refuse to recognize this.

Lieberman is right, IMO.

There are some great comments on this thread from fellow DUers. I think the one issue that is not being discussed is whether abortion should be politicized at all.

The legitimate role of government is to provide more choices to its citizens, not restrict them, when it involves family issues of which abortion and birth control are two of the most notable.

The government should be working to give more choices and assistance to women. A streamlined nationwide adoption process would be a legitimate role for the government to play. Free pre and post natal care to women, is another thing the government should do (I actually believe in universal health care for all!).

Unfortunately we cannot discuss these issues while abortion continues to be in the front lines. The rightwing is not interested in a dialogue. They need abortion as a fund raiser!

:kick:

Far right.