Reflecting on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade
Tuesday is the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that found a woman's right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 40 years later, a history professor reflects on what has been achieved - and what is to come.
Reflecting on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade
Janet Golden
By Janet Golden
Twenty years ago I appeared in the film Motherless: A Legacy of Loss from Illegal Abortion, talking about the history of abortion. The 28-minute documentary, embedded above, profiles three women and one man whose mothers died of complications from abortion before its legalization. The film also includes the testimony of a former chief physician at Philadelphia General Hospital recalling the 32-bed ward for women being treated for what he called “botched, criminal abortions.” Surprisingly, the film is still being used in classrooms, and its message - that the legalization of abortion following the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision saved women’s lives - is still relevant.
Tuesday is the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that found a woman’s right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The decision invalidated all state laws restricting access to abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, allowed states to regulate second trimester abortions in ways related to maternal health, and permitted third trimester abortion restrictions including allowing states to outlaw them. You can hear the oral arguments and read the full opinion.
As everyone knows, in the decades since that decision, vehement debates over abortion and the cultural divide those arguments represent have grown ever more virulent. Abortion battles have taken lives, with the assassinations of abortion providers and the bombings of clinics in which abortions are performed. State laws restricting abortion have increased in number, limiting access to safe, legal abortions and making abortion more expensive. But restrictions do not decrease demand. As the Guttmacher Institute points out, “By age 45, nearly half of American women will have an unintended pregnancy and nearly 1 in 3 will have an abortion.”
As we reflect today on the impact of Roe v. Wade, let us remember what it achieved. Maternal mortality declined significantly after the legalization of abortion, because abortions were performed by skilled professionals rather than untrained back-alley practitioners or by women themselves. The safety of legal abortion is documented in a study published last year in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology reviewing the years 1998-2005. During that time death rates from induced abortion were 0.6 per 100,000. By way of comparison the death rate among women who delivered live neonates was 8.8 per 100,000.
Roe v. Wade was a public health success story. But the next chapter has yet to be written. It will involve reducing the rate of abortion by increasing access to contraception. A recent study confirmed that providing free birth control does just that. The Affordable Care Act mandates that private health insurance plans offer birth control and other preventive services. Let us hope that this will reduce the rate of abortion and let us urge that co-pays and other restrictions on birth control be eliminated.
Access to safe, legal abortion and to contraceptives are vital to protecting the public’s health. They are means of ensuring the health of women. And, let us not forget, when women can access the professional medical services they need, fewer children grow up motherless.
Janet Golden, a Rutgers University history professor, specializes in the histories of medicine, childhood and women.
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My friend and I were having a discussion about gun control. He said to me the only purpose of a gun is to kill someone. I said, couldn't the same be said of abortion?— LouDiamondPhillipsheadScrewdriver- Womens healthcare? HAHAHA! A confused bunch who are anti death penalty but pro-abortion. This will go down in history as big a human catastrophe as slavery.— keapitreal
- Roe v Wade can be proven to be a success by counting the number of dead babies. The government wants to ban guns because they kill children. Only physicians are permitted to kill children in the US.
I suggest we ban abortions, ask women to close their legs and tell boys to keep their pants zippered.— Sportyrider71 - Maybe the next documentary will be on these women who died at the hands of planned parenthood.
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/10/09/deaths-at-planned-parenthood-show-no-concern-for-women/
Hey lulu, enough of the claptrap rent-a-lines. Men tend to be more in support of abortion. It gets them out of their responsibility and allows them to use women for fun and move on...more of a mens' lib thing. Look up Birthright.org and educate yourself if you think pro-lifers turn their back on the living. Not true. I imagine you'd be for slavery in the 1800s for similar reasons. People=disposable property. If we free them, they might turn to a life of crime....thankfully religious abolitionist folks back then prevailed.
— Mr. Underhill - The fake outrage over this is laughable. The same people commenting here will be the first people saying 'put someone to death' for crimes, or 'kill'em all' when talking about how to conduct war when they never served. 'Home of the brave' should have been replaced with 'Home of the Hypocrites' long ago.— war vet x4
Since the economy is not doing very well, let's ask people to recognize the right to abortion the same way they do when they vote. Instead of a sticker on the coat which says, "I voted today", how about "I aborted today"? It would be voluntary, of course, in order to protect the supreme right of privacy.— r a leon- Abortion is the murder of a child. The end.— kelprod2-freemarket
- Follow the money, people. Abortion is a huge money-maker and fundraiser for the democrat party. Democrats became extremely pro-abortion over the last few decades when they realized how profitable and really essential the practice was for their campaigns. They wouldn't even support a common sense law forbidding abortions for gender selection! And the president wouldn't support a law in Illinois to protect babies that survived the murder attempt. All of you who vote for this party had better seriously consider what you really support. Nearly 1,000 pre-born baby deaths a day are on the democrat party's hands.— Mr. Underhill
- just when you thought this site and its papers couldn't sink any lower, behold the headline for this article. How despicable, but then again, philly.com is aiming for exactly this, to represent in all its glory, the thinking of just one side of the populace it serves, as though any business model that aims to please only half of its potential market is doomed to fail anyway.
Even as their business continues to swirl around the drain, they choose to represent only one extreme position over and over again.
Also, @PotteryPete, how funny a comment you made about the "countless women whose lives have been saved because they had an abortion." Hey, dope, most of your side has moved away from that absurd argument. It's all about "choice", my friend, and no other supporting arguments are needed any monger.— advantasux 
Comment removed.- Does anyone know when the fetus gets a soul?— HenryFaley
- yes...at conception
— hannibal barca - Thanks, God. — Izzy812
- The abortion argument is so hard to make that your side is making up faux terms like "anti choice" and "pro health" to try to paint the bad guys like good, innocent, MORAL people. If everyone made the right choices, there would be no need for this discussion.— winlasalle
- I pity the poor soul who thought her abortion cause was worth dying for. But the word "reflecting" should not be used to call her a champion for inflicting self harm. Let's start "reflecting" on the 50 million other victims of "safe" "legal" abortions since 1973, ie the unborn ones.
— winlasalle
