Roe V Wade and Doe V Bolton

Justin Frazer Dr. Bryce Jones BSAD 234 4/10/13 Abortion is a hot debate topic. So naturally, it has generated many a(prenominal) disputes and court subject areas. Two of the most famous and definitive court cases regarding abortion are hard roe v Wade and get-up-and-go v Bolton. some(prenominal) of these cases were ruled on at the same time. both cases provideed in landmark decisions that would change how many stirs were allowed to regulate abortion. These notions also help put into view the dividing line between law and morals. roe v Wade Jane roe was actually a pseudonym for the plaintiff, Norma McCorvey. She utilize this for protection and also to emphasize that she was fighting for all pregnant women. The defendant was Henry Wade, district attorney for Dallas County, Texas. McCorveys claim was that the Texas abortion law, passed in 1859, violated her constitutional counterbalances. Backstory Norma McCorvey, age 21, became pregnant in 1969. She did not want to conti nue with her motherhood, as her marriage had failed and her first daughter was in the care of her mother and stepfather.As previously articulated, Texas passed a law in 1869 preventing all abortion, excluding cases in which the womans keep was in danger. She met Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, devil attorneys who were interested in changing the abortion law. There were both issues standing in the way McCorvey faculty not have standing because the abortion law lonesome(prenominal) applied to women who performed abortions, not to those who needed them. The game issue was if she passed the point in her pregnancy where it was safe to perform an abortion, the case would become irrelevant.Their argument in a previous case, Griswold v Connecticut, nicety William O. Douglas interpreted the Ninth Amendment to mean that any corrects not explicitly granted to the government were retained by the people previously it had been taken to mean that those rights were retained by the st ates. At the time of this case, this meant that all previously banned contraceptives between couples were now legal. Weddington and Coffee could argue that this right to privacy, as Douglas defined, should also be applied to abortion.The first reply from Assistant D. A. John Tolle, defending D. A. Wade, claimed on the nose what they had expected Jane Roe had no standing since the law only affected women who performed abortions. An anonymous affidavit from McCorvey submitted to a three-judge panel on May 22, 1970, stated that she wanted to terminate her pregnancy due to the economic disappointment which pregnancy entailed and because of the social stigma attached to the bearing of illegitimate children. At the hearing, Weddington argued on Roes standing to sue, as well as the constitutionality of the abortion statute (on the grounds of the First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments). After the acknowledgment argued for the unborn fetus as a child, a life, Weddington brought up the i ssue of the impossibility to define when life begins (which is still one of the main arguments between pro-life and pro-choice advocates). Finally, Tolle argued that right of a child was more important than the womans previously stated right to privacy. However, the three judges found that the Texas abortion laws were unconstitutional by depriving rights dictated by the Ninth Amendment. Since this only declared the law unconstitutional and did not prevent the enforcing of the law, the plaintiffs then appealed to the Supreme Court. In October 1972, the plaintiffs and the defendants make their cases as they had before. Several things played into the Courts following decision the ruling of Eisenstadt v Baird, which made it legal for unmarried persons to use birth control.This solidified Weddingtons argument for the right to privacy in the Ninth Amendment that individuals have the right to be bare(a) from government intervention in matters such as whether or not to have a child. Seco nd, Justice Harry Blackmun, after reviewing the abortion statutes, ruled that they were no longer valid because they were put in dwelling due to the dangers of abortion this was no longer an issue, as abortion was just as safe as childbirth in the present time. Concerning the rights of the unborn as a child, Blackmun found that nowhere in theConstitution or lodge of Rights (specifically, the Fourteenth Amendment) a person includes the unborn. The final ruling the abortion decision must(prenominal) be left to the judgment of the womans doctor in the first trimester. In the second trimester, the state may regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably valid to agnate health. After that, the state can regulate or stop the abortion. Summary Norma McCorvey wanted an abortion, but could not obtain would since it was illegal in her state, Texas.Most states at the time had abortion statutes in place proscribing abortion. She, under the alias Jane Roe, and the two attorney s representing her, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, filed a suit against the county of Dallas on the grounds that the abortion laws violated a womans right to choose under the right to privacy, interpreted in the Ninth Amendment in the previous case Connecticut v Griswold. The district court ruled in favor of Roe, basing judgment upon the Ninth Amendment.This ruling did not prevent the enforcement of the abortion laws rather, it merely stated that they were unconstitutional. McCorvey and her attorneys, now not only representing Jane Roe as a person, but as all women, appealed directly to the Supreme Court. On the opposing side, there was the accompaniment that the state believed they had the responsibility to protect the life of the unborn child. The argument against that was this when does life really start? It could be said that life doesnt begin until after the child is born not when it is still a fetus.This really sparked this debate that still goes on today. Justice Harry Blackmun found that, after reviewing the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Founding Fathers never explicitly put the unborn with the persons protected under our nations documents. However, he said that this was not absolute. He said that, though he agreed that the Ninth Amendment encompassed a womans right to choose whether or not to terminate her pregnancy, the right to choose was also not absolute.So, they came to a compromise during the first trimester of a pregnancy, abortion was legal, but at the judgment of the womans doctor (which has changed since then). During the second trimester, the state could regulate abortions in a way that is adjoind to maternal health. During the 3rd trimester, the state could proscribe abortions. The general rule was that if the fetus is able to live outside the womb (with contrived aid), which was typically at about 28 weeks, then the woman no longer has a right to an abortion. This entire case and the decisions that were made is a landmark i n our history.It has sparked much debate and divided many people into pro-life and pro-choice groups. Doe v Bolton A companion case to Roe v Wade, Doe v Bolton was an abortion case that happened in atomic number 31 around the same time (decision on the same day) that its Texas counterpart did. Much like other states with abortion laws, tabun only allowed abortion if the pregnancy was a danger to the womans life by judgment of a licence physician, the fetus was in danger of being born with a serious defect, or if the abortion was a crossroad of rape ( 26-1202(a)).The woman wanting an abortion also had to qualify for the following conditions, defined under 26-1202(b) of Georgia Criminal Code the abortion is to be performed in a hospital certain by the conjugation Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, the procedure be approved by the hospital staff abortion perpetration, and the execute physicians judgment be confirmed by independent examinations of the patient by two other licensed physicians. Sandra Cano, a mother of three, did not meet any of these conditions. Under the pseudonym Mary Doe, she and her attorney, Margie Pitts Hames, sued Arthur K.Bolton, the Attorney customary for Georgia. Their claim was that the abortion statute of Georgia was unconstitutional. Like Roe, the three-judge panel of the district court found that Doe did, in fact, have standing in this issue. They ruled that the first three conditions ( 26-1202(a)) listed above were unconstitutional, but they upheld the medical approval and residency requirements. In extension, like Roe v Wade, they merely provided that the section of the law was unconstitutional they did not give any injunction against enforcing the law.This is called declaratory relief. The plaintiffs then appealed directly to the Supreme Court, like Roe and her attorneys. The arguments and counter-arguments were all the same as in Roe v Wade. The Court found that the three conditions in section 26-1202(b) were unc onstitutional. They found that the JCAH accreditation requirement did not pertain to the womans right, and did not reasonably relate to the abortion statute. The two conditions requiring the abortion to be approved by a committee and by two other physicians were found to not serve the womans health in any way.The committee condition violated the womans right to receive medical care from her physician, and the two-doctor condition violated the physicians right to practice. These conditions were struck down. Justice Blackmun, mentioned in the previous case, said that Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton must be read together. The former allowed the states to proscribe abortion in the third trimester. However, Doe v Bolton added that the abortion could still be allowed if it was a matter of the womans health, in the opinion of the womans doctor.This is essentially a loophole around the viability requirement of the ruling of Roe v Wade. Doe v Bolton and Roe v Wade together struck down state abo rtion laws and struck up heated debates. These were the first real challenges regarding abortion in the United States. Both declared abortion a constitutional right. Summary Sandra Cano (Mary Doe) and attorney Margie Pitts Hames sued the state of Georgia for its unconstitutional abortion statute. The district court found they had standing, but like Roe v Wade, they gave them only declaratory, not injunctive, relief.The plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court for broader relief. Georgias Criminal Code, section 26-1202(b), stated that in addition to the requirements to receive an abortion that a woman must be in danger from the pregnancy, the child must be in danger of severe defect from birth, or the pregnancy being a result of rape, any woman wanting an abortion had to receive one in a hospital accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, she had to receive permission of two physicians other than her own, and the decision must also be approved by a hospital com mittee.The Court struck all of these requirements as unconstitutional. Additionally, the Court ruled that a woman may obtain an abortion after viability (as defined in Roe v Wade) if it was necessary to preserve her health. Along with its companion case, Roe v Wade, the decision was made on January 22, 1973, that abortion was a constitutional right.