INSTALLMENT 1: Why the Supreme Court Decision in Roe Versus Wade was Legally Incorrect and Unconstitutional

Please find below the first part in an article written by Timothy J.  You will find this timely, since many of us are all headed to D.C. for the March for Life on January 22.  Here's your history lesson, so you can go armed with all the information you could possibly need to defend the pro-life position.  The stars stand for footnotes, which will be put into the series as Tim gets them sent to us.  Thanks, Tim!  Fantastic job on this series.  Without further ado ...

Installment No. 1:

Regardless of what side one takes on the issue of abortion, it is obvious that the decision made by the Supreme Court on January 22, 1973 in the case of Roe versus Wade, which legalized abortion during all three trimesters of pregnancy, was of historic proportions.  As notable as this case was, it is now quite clear that Roe versus Wade was fatally flawed, being both legally incorrect* and unconstitutional in a myriad of ways.  Although the justices who presided over the case were able to conceal their biased reasoning to the untrained eyes and ears of the general public, further research reveals gaping holes in their assertions and the proof they cited as evidence of these.  Thus, the aim of this research report will be to expose the main areas of Roe versus Wade’s problems and ultimately provide reasons why this case was neither legally correct nor in accord with the Constitution of this great land.

The Supreme Court’s investigation into Roe versus Wade started by looking at the history of abortion in ancient times.  After only a brief investigation, the Court concluded that “ancient religion did not bar abortion”*. However, the Supreme Court looked mostly at Greek and Roman history for evidence of the acceptance of this practice.  Yet, abortion concerned more than just the Greeks and Romans and interestingly enough, the first legal evidence of abortion appeared much further back in history than these civilizations with a reference in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, which appeared in about 1728 B.C.  This reference spoke of the penalties pertaining to a person who “unintentionally but culpably caused a woman to miscarry”.*   Thus, the first ever-recorded reference to abortion does not infer its approval, but rather the penalties for such an act.  It must be further noted that substantial evidence exists that many other ancient civilizations, besides the Babylonians, clearly had an anti-abortion mentality, among which were the Assyrians, Egyptians, Hittites, who had “notoriously low” sexual standards, and particularly the Jews, from whom evolved Christianity and many of its established principles in the Constitution.*  Given the legal scope the Court was looking for in history, this information would have been fairly easy to find, but yet there was no mention of any of it in the Court’s examination.  From these facts, one can see that the Court’s research of abortion throughout history was glaringly incomplete and that its findings did not reflect the established standard in ancient times of many cultures.

With regard to the Greeks and Romans, the Supreme Court took the position that abortion in Greco-Roman times was “resorted to without scruple”.*  However, abortion was not so commonplace that society was silent on the issue.  Many of the most eminent and influential people in Greece and Rome made very clear statements against abortion, among whom were: Soranus, Seneca, Rufus, and Ovid, the poet, who wrote that “the first one who thought of detaching from her womb the fetus forming in it deserved to die by her own weapons”.*  If some of the most famous people in Greece and Rome spoke out against abortion, it can be safely reasoned that abortion was not resorted to with as little scruple as the Court declared, for history continuously shows that the common people invariably follow the ideology of those who hold power and prestige.