Roe v. Wade: 42 Years in the Past

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
1

January twenty-second marks an anniversary of a court decision that has resulted in the legal slaughter of over FIFTY-SEVEN MILLION completely innocent lives. The numbers collected by the CDC are the lowest possible, in no way could they possibly be any lower.

Please remember that the child was brought into the world after the mother took part in an activity that is known to create life. If a discussion about the tiny number of women who are raped is desired, I would be happy to have that discussion.

The truth about Jane Roe of the decision is not known by many. In fact after the first bullet point, the details of the rest of the case were completely new to me. Yet nearly every person I talk with about abortion tells me that I am staunch pro-LIFE.

[b]5 facts about “Jane Roe” (Norma McCorvey)[/b]

This month is the forty-second anniversary of the legal decision, Roe v. Wade, in which the Supreme Court eliminated the abortion laws of all 50 states. Here are five facts about the plaintiff behind the case that transformed America:

  1. “Jane Roe” was the legal pseudonym for Norma McCorvey the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade. McCorvey filed court documents against Henry WADE, the district attorney of Dallas County from 1951 to 1987, who enforced a Texas law that prohibited abortion, except to save a woman’s life.

  2. In 1969, McCorvey was 22 years old, divorced, homeless, and pregnant for the third time (she had placed her first two children for adoption). An adoption agency connected her with two young lawyers fresh out of law school who were eager to challenge the Texas statutes on abortion. McCorvey only met with her lawyers twice-once for beer and pizza, the other time to sign an affidavit (which she didn’t read). In order to speed things up McCorvey lied and told them she had been raped. She never appeared in court, and she found out about the infamous ruling from the newspapers. The baby she was seeking to abort was born and placed for adoption.

  3. When McCorvey met her lawyers she didn’t know the meaning of “abortion.” Her lawyers told her that abortion just dealt with a piece of tissue, and that it was like passing a period rather than the termination of a distinct, living, and whole human organism. Abortion was a taboo topic in 1970, and Norma had dropped out of school at the age of 14. She knew that John Wayne movies talked about “aborting the mission,” so she thought it meant to "go back"â??as in, going back to not being pregnant. She honestly believed “abortion” meant a child was prevented from coming into existence.

  4. In the late-1990s, McCorvey was working at a Dallas abortion clinic when the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue moved its offices next door. She says Rev. Phillip Benham, Operation Rescue’s national director, started “sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ” with her. She later became a Catholic and committed pro-life advocate.

  5. In February 2005, McCorvey petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the 1973 decision with McCorvey v. Hill, arguing that she had standing to do so as one of the original litigants and that the case should be heard once again in light of what she claimed was evidence that the procedure harms women. The courts, however, denied her petition.

The original article can be viewed here - 5 facts about Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) - ERLC -

2

@kneedragger79 - As a prolifer and a Catholic, what is your position on overpopulation, specifically in places like Nigeria? Together with the drastically declining birth rate of the European peoples, at current trends the global population will be radically transformed and increased to an extent that the planet will be unrecognisable in a generation. Even leaving aside any Malthusian concerns about feeding the global populace or the environmental impact or the amount of fresh water available and so on; leaving aside all that, how are a billion Nigerians and billions of other third worlders going to feed and sustain themselves without European producers, capital, investors, technology etc? What are we going to do about this problem?

3

I find it unusual how Western countries have basically taxed themselves to death, funding multicultural suicide. (I know this isn’t all we’re being taxed to death over, as the saying goes, just sayin’)

4

SexMachine -

From the beginning here, I need to apologize because I fail to understand the whole argument that you are making. We need to keep abortion legal in our first world country to save the lives of people in a third world country? Or are you going the other direction, we need to kill the babies in Nigeria so they do not suffer through life outside the womb? Either way you want genocide to remain legal through all nine months of pregnancy, around the entire world? Absolute fail on your part for having compassion for a fellow human being.

Secondly, who is to say the child that is being slaughtered could not of had the answers you are seeking?

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
@KneeDragger_79 - As a prolifer and a Catholic, what is your position on overpopulation, specifically in places like Nigeria? Together with the drastically declining birth rate of the European peoples, at current trends the global population will be radically transformed and increased to an extent that the planet will be unrecognisable in a generation. Even leaving aside any Malthusian concerns about feeding the global populace or the environmental impact or the amount of fresh water available and so on; leaving aside all that, how are a billion Nigerians and billions of other third worlders going to feed and sustain themselves without European producers, capital, investors, technology etc? What are we going to do about this problem?[/quote]

5

[quote]kneedragger79 wrote:
SexMachine -

From the beginning here, I need to apologize because I fail to understand the whole argument that you are making. We need to keep abortion legal in our first world country to save the lives of people in a third world country?
[/quote]

No not at all. I’m pretty prolife myself. I’m just wondering what the answer to overpopulation might be and particularly overpopulation of poor people who cannot sustain themselves. The Catholic Church is also very adamant about the use of condoms. And surely this leaves us in a position where we are unable to deal with the overpopulation problem.

I never mentioned killing anybody. I asked how you think we should deal with overpopulation and if you acknowledge the problem.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Ah…you seem to be fixated on abortion. I’m not talking about abortion. Why are you pretending I’m advocating late term abortion and things I never mentioned? Can you comprehend things that don’t revolve around abortion? That’s essentially what I was trying to find out. And it seems that no, you are incapable of having a normal conversation without bringing up abortion and accusing the other person of advocating it and so on.

6

SexMachine: There should be a sticky on the PWI Forum Top Page proclaiming, in big bold letters,

[u][i]All Hope of a Reasonable Conversation Abandon, All Ye Who Enter a Kneedragger Abortion Thread![/u][/i]

On the eve of attending a fundraising banquet hosted by the local Right to Life organisation (to which I contributed) and attended by the local Bishop, I was once accused by Kneedragger of “supporting the slaughter of innocent children”, for posting the following:

[i]There’s a very strong “us vs. them” feeling to the whole abortion debate, another characteristic it shares in common with the gun control debate, or the war against terrorism.

[M]uch in the same way as you should not interpret my opinion that the US military is needlessly overextending itself through a foreign policy of intervention in Africa and the Middle East as my implicit support of Islamic extremism and terrorism, I think you are being incredibly intellectually lazy in assuming, just because my position on this particular issue is not in lockstep with yours, that I must be an advocate of the murder of the unborn.

For the record, I believe that a human fetus is alive, and human, and probably deserves to live. I would be delighted if someone were to suggest a workable alternative to abortion, one that would both prevent the conception of unwanted children on the one hand, and find adoptive parents for all of the unwanted babies that have been conceived on the other. So far, we don’t have that. Not even close.

Telling teenagers not to have sex, or “scaring” them into not having sex, is a step in the right direction, but an absolute eradication of the practice of abortion in this country is going to involve a legal and cultural paradigm shift that, to my mind anyway, the country is not yet ready for. If we were a totalitarian theocracy, with the power to implant all teenage girls with a subdermal contraceptive at puberty, which would be removed by the state upon marriage, and only upon both partners showing proof of financial stability suitable for raising a child, while imposing stiff civil and criminal penalties on any couple conceiving a child out of wedlock, or without proper authority, then abortion would cease.

I don’t want to live in a country like that. Do you? What is the alternative, and why has it not been tried yet?[/i]

7

Oh, and I’ll say it for the last time, SexMachine.

You really should read Fates of Nations.

Overpopulation is not a problem for the human species.

It is [b]THE[/b] problem, and always has been.

8

Varq, is that by James Morrow ?

9

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
Varq, is that by James Morrow ?[/quote]

Paul Colinvaux.

10

Food for thought: Pro-lifers are some of the most ardent anti-welfare/nanny-state supporters. Since we are likely all adults, we known when abortions occur, it’s due to unwanted pregnancies in predominately poor communities and broken homes.

Interesting stance.

11


James K. Morrow totally looks like Varq’s dad

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
James Morrow[/quote]

Holy shit. I just Googled James Morrow.

I assume you’re talking about James D. Morrow, professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, and not James K. Morrow, science fiction writer.

I took a look at James K.'s bibliography. It looks eerily like the kind of stuff I might write. And this guy looks–even more eerily-- almost exactly like my father.

Now I’m disturbed. I’m going to bed.

12

[quote]Brett620 wrote:
Food for thought: Pro-lifers are some of the most ardent anti-welfare/nanny-state supporters. Since we are likely all adults, we known when abortions occur, it’s due to unwanted pregnancies in predominately poor communities and broken homes.

Interesting stance. [/quote]

This is a paradox I have often pondered.

It never occurs to the predominantly Christian conservative Republican pro-life advocates that if the fifty seven million babies aborted since Roe v Wade were alive today, about 35 million of them would now be of voting age, and would overwhelmingly vote Democrat.

13

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Brett620 wrote:
Food for thought: Pro-lifers are some of the most ardent anti-welfare/nanny-state supporters. Since we are likely all adults, we known when abortions occur, it’s due to unwanted pregnancies in predominately poor communities and broken homes.

Interesting stance. [/quote]

This is a paradox I have often pondered.

It never occurs to the predominantly Christian conservative Republican pro-life advocates that if the fifty seven million babies aborted since Roe v Wade were alive today, about 35 million of them would now be of voting age, and would overwhelmingly vote Democrat.[/quote]

I consider neither being poor nor voting democrat reason enough to eliminate someone’s life.

I also would rather pay someone’s way under our nanny state system, these people having been given the chance at life and either failed or never tried, than sit back and risk the next Einstein, Gates or George Washington was among those 35 million.

I’m not a “social contract” type by any means, but I understand the herd will be responsible for a couple of those that can’t fend for themselves.

14

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Brett620 wrote:
Food for thought: Pro-lifers are some of the most ardent anti-welfare/nanny-state supporters. Since we are likely all adults, we known when abortions occur, it’s due to unwanted pregnancies in predominately poor communities and broken homes.

Interesting stance. [/quote]

This is a paradox I have often pondered.

It never occurs to the predominantly Christian conservative Republican pro-life advocates that if the fifty seven million babies aborted since Roe v Wade were alive today, about 35 million of them would now be of voting age, and would overwhelmingly vote Democrat.[/quote]

I consider neither being poor nor voting democrat reason enough to eliminate someone’s life.

I also would rather pay someone’s way under our nanny state system, these people having been given the chance at life and either failed or never tried, than sit back and risk the next Einstein, Gates or George Washington was among those 35 million. [/quote]

Yep. I don’t like the nanny state…in point of fact I despise it. And I despise many applications of welfare system today (though not all). I do not see these things as a paradox or contradiction to my pro-life stance. Neither poor decisions made while young and horny, nor being poor, nor being uneducated, is a rational stance for murder.

In general, to believe that is justifiable, or that being against the nanny state means you are contradicting your pro-life stance, is akin to saying “because you drew a cartoon of Mohammed, it is absolutely reasonable for me to murder you. Not only that, but it’s my right”.

Of course my stance is predicated on the idea that abortion is murder, so if you are contesting that particular premise then you also cannot call me a hypocrite–we simply disagree on premises for the argument at hand.

15

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
SexMachine: There should be a sticky on the PWI Forum Top Page proclaiming, in big bold letters,

[u][i]All Hope of a Reasonable Conversation Abandon, All Ye Who Enter a Kneedragger Abortion Thread![/u][/i]

On the eve of attending a fundraising banquet hosted by the local Right to Life organisation (to which I contributed) and attended by the local Bishop, I was once accused by Kneedragger of “supporting the slaughter of innocent children”[/quote]

I quite remember the thread. It was asinine then and it is asinine now lol

16

[quote]Brett620 wrote:
Food for thought: Pro-lifers are some of the most ardent anti-welfare/nanny-state supporters. Since we are likely all adults, we known when abortions occur, it’s due to unwanted pregnancies in predominately poor communities and broken homes.

Interesting stance. [/quote]

If one were to believe that welfare were good for the poor, then it might be partially paradoxical.

The pro-life right wingers also give substantially more to the poor from their own pockets.

17

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Brett620 wrote:
Food for thought: Pro-lifers are some of the most ardent anti-welfare/nanny-state supporters. Since we are likely all adults, we known when abortions occur, it’s due to unwanted pregnancies in predominately poor communities and broken homes.

Interesting stance. [/quote]

This is a paradox I have often pondered.

It never occurs to the predominantly Christian conservative Republican pro-life advocates that if the fifty seven million babies aborted since Roe v Wade were alive today, about 35 million of them would now be of voting age, and would overwhelmingly vote Democrat.[/quote]

I consider neither being poor nor voting democrat reason enough to eliminate someone’s life.

I also would rather pay someone’s way under our nanny state system, these people having been given the chance at life and either failed or never tried, than sit back and risk the next Einstein, Gates or George Washington was among those 35 million.

I’m not a “social contract” type by any means, but I understand the herd will be responsible for a couple of those that can’t fend for themselves. [/quote]

Beans, are you opposed to medical abortion, surgical abortion, or both? I take issue with the latter, but not the former.

18

[quote]Bismark wrote:

Beans, are you opposed to medical abortion, surgical abortion, or both? I take issue with the latter, but not the former.
[/quote]

You mean health of the mother exceptions? (For the record, I include rape and incest here.)

Look the best I can describe it is: if those were the only time people were getting abortions (something like 3% of abortions currently taking place,) I don’t think abortion would be, at all, on my radar of important issues.

I get it’s still abortion, and I get the whole “punishing the child for the sins of the father” in some cases, but I can’t imagine having to choose your wife or your child, or having to carry your rapists baby. In those rare, rare cases, I’m not going to have any issues.

As it is, I’m not going to judge anyone who gets an abortion anyway. If my daughter ever comes to me and says she wants one, I’ll give her my opinion, tell her I can’t drive her there or walk her in, but when she comes home I’ll be here to take care of her, and will never love her less, or different or anything. She’s my daughter that made a choice that is between her and god (if she believes) at this point.

Maybe that’s fucked up, but it is what it is. I can’t support it, but I can’t prevent it either, unless my love of parenthood, and opinion on the slaughter of innocent babies can change her mind.

19

From the begining I stated with “I need to apologize because I fail to understand the whole argument that you are making.” This medium has its limits and I often fail to understand even sarcasm on the internet ; )

To me, you are one hundered percent pro-LIFE or not. I see zero gray water issues in my life. About ovepopulation though, rather than even worry about ifs and maybes, I worry about life and overpopulation is far from a problem in America. America is the police of the world and we need to stop acting like it.

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
No not at all. I’m pretty prolife myself. I’m just wondering what the answer to overpopulation might be and particularly overpopulation of poor people who cannot sustain themselves. The Catholic Church is also very adamant about the use of condoms. And surely this leaves us in a position where we are unable to deal with the overpopulation problem.
[/quote]

You mentioned abortion and abortion almost always results in the death of an innocent child.

See above.

You are one hundered percent correct. If you were to combine all the lives lost in all the wars of this world, together they do NOT even hold a candle to the abortions in just America. You bet I know abortion is a problem and I am fixated on it. Jaa jaa jaa jaa

[quote]Ah…you seem to be fixated on abortion. I’m not talking about abortion. Why are you pretending I’m advocating late term abortion and things I never mentioned? Can you comprehend things that don’t revolve around abortion? That’s essentially what I was trying to find out. And it seems that no, you are incapable of having a normal conversation without bringing up abortion and accusing the other person of advocating it and so on.
[/quote]

20

Varqanir -

My appologies in not apologizing before. My position was never intended to be taken as personally attacking you.

After a aneroxic brain injury last year, my memory has gotten better, I hope I do not need to applogize again ; )

I have a question for you though. Where it is in America that the most kids do NOT get pregnant out of wedlock or even have sex?

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
SexMachine: There should be a sticky on the PWI Forum Top Page proclaiming, in big bold letters,

[u][i]All Hope of a Reasonable Conversation Abandon, All Ye Who Enter a Kneedragger Abortion Thread![/u][/i]

On the eve of attending a fundraising banquet hosted by the local Right to Life organisation (to which I contributed) and attended by the local Bishop, I was once accused by Kneedragger of “supporting the slaughter of innocent children”, for posting the following:

[i]There’s a very strong “us vs. them” feeling to the whole abortion debate, another characteristic it shares in common with the gun control debate, or the war against terrorism.

[M]uch in the same way as you should not interpret my opinion that the US military is needlessly overextending itself through a foreign policy of intervention in Africa and the Middle East as my implicit support of Islamic extremism and terrorism, I think you are being incredibly intellectually lazy in assuming, just because my position on this particular issue is not in lockstep with yours, that I must be an advocate of the murder of the unborn.

For the record, I believe that a human fetus is alive, and human, and probably deserves to live. I would be delighted if someone were to suggest a workable alternative to abortion, one that would both prevent the conception of unwanted children on the one hand, and find adoptive parents for all of the unwanted babies that have been conceived on the other. So far, we don’t have that. Not even close.

Telling teenagers not to have sex, or “scaring” them into not having sex, is a step in the right direction, but an absolute eradication of the practice of abortion in this country is going to involve a legal and cultural paradigm shift that, to my mind anyway, the country is not yet ready for. If we were a totalitarian theocracy, with the power to implant all teenage girls with a subdermal contraceptive at puberty, which would be removed by the state upon marriage, and only upon both partners showing proof of financial stability suitable for raising a child, while imposing stiff civil and criminal penalties on any couple conceiving a child out of wedlock, or without proper authority, then abortion would cease.

I don’t want to live in a country like that. Do you? What is the alternative, and why has it not been tried yet?[/i][/quote]