Course: Gender Law
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Roe v. Wade (1973) has been widely criticized on political, moral, and legal grounds. Pro-life activists have mounted massive campaigns against the decision. Many Republican Presidents have promised to appoint Supreme Court Justices who would overrule the decision.
Why, then, is the decision still around now, almost 40 years later? What can we learn about gender, law, and politics from the failure of conservatives to overrule Roe?
Mitt Romney, Obama’s main contestant for the presidential bid 2012, made no secret of his pro-life stand and his imminent desire to reverse the famous Roe Vs. Wade decision of 1973. Being a republican presidential candidate meant that he had a chance to overturn a decision that a number of previous republican presidents had failed to do. He never quite got the chance but instead faced defeat from Obama, a Pro-choice candidate. This implies that the Roe Vs. Wade might still continue to operate with America reaching an astonishing over-a-million abortions per year to show for it thereby bringing the tally close to 55 million deaths. Roe vs. Wade is really a controversial case in itself but what really made the controversy was the fact that it was passed by a majority of supreme court Judges appointed to the bench by republican presidents (Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower). Out of the Six republican-oriented judges only one, William Rehnquist opposed the decision. It was overwhelmingly won over on a 7 – 2 vote and what is quite worth noting is that one of the judges who voted against it (Byron White) was appointed by a democrat president from a party which supported a pro-choice stand on the issue of abortion. By this time it had become clear that despite a party’s puritan conservative view on issues of national significance they could never write out the judges take on the issue; they never had the final say.
This case would illustrate
References: "Senators and Roe V. Wade" - The Washington Times (Washington, DC), July 31, 2005 | Questia, Your Online Research Library http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-134695725/senators-and-roe-v-wade