This letter was published in the Washington Post on July 1, 2013 ----
"The legal basis behind Roe v Wade"
Charles Krauthammer was wrong in knocking Roe v Wade ["Roe v Wade, revisited," op ed, June 28]. Roe's recognition -- not "invention" -- of every woman's fundamental constitutional privacy right to terminate a problem pregnancy was based on the common law, the Bill of Rights, and the Ninth and 14th amendments. Further, Roe built on the Supreme Court's precedents, including the Griswold (1965) and Baird v Eisenstadt (1972) rulings.
Conservative legislators seeking to have government limit reproductive choice or impose on all women an unscientific, unbiblical, ahistorical "personhood at conception" ideology are attacking a fundamental right of more than half our population. Women who are opposed to abortion are under no obligation to have one.
Edd Doerr, Silver Spring
The writer is president of Americans for Religious Liberty
No comments:
Post a Comment