Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 4, 1993 TAG: 9302040400
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
LANGUAGE OF ROE IS TOO BROAD
IN RESPONSE to Thomas Tierney's Jan. 29 letter to the editor concerning my commentary on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade: He accuses me of misstating the holding of Roe, which, I wrote, established "the right to abortion on demand throughout pregnancy."Tierney's correct that a clear understanding of Roe is important, no matter what one's position on abortion. And I am grateful for his help in trying to clarify a holding which has been misstated so often, including by the Roanoke Times & World-News.
It is true that Justice Blackmun's opinion gives women unfettered access to abortion in the first trimester; allows states to regulate abortion, but only to safeguard the health of mothers, in the second trimester; and after "viability" allows states to "regulate and even proscribe abortion except where it is necessary . . . for the preservation of the life or health of the mother" (Roe vs. Wade, emphasis mine).
What Tierney overlooks is that this "health" exception (explained in the Doe vs. Bolton companion case decided on the same day as Roe) is so broad as to effectively preclude any state proscription of post-viability abortion. In Doe, health is defined as "all factors - physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age - relevant to the well-being of the patient." In Roe, the court expanded on the factors the physician might consider as relating to the mother's health: "Maternity or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life or future . . . Mental and physical health may be taxed by childcare . . . In other cases . . . the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved."
Any limitations on post-viability abortion can be circumvented by finding a doctor willing to certify, for example, that a woman's mental health will be "taxed by childcare." If health is equivalent to well-being, virtually any convenient reason will suffice to override proscriptions of late-term abortion.
That this is true is suggested by the 16,000 annual abortions performed after 20-weeks gestation - as well as by the 1986 Thornburg case, in which the court struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring that after "viability" the abortionist use the abortion method most likely to result in live birth (i.e., induced labor rather than dismemberment or poisoning), unless this would significantly increase risk for the mother. The court ruled that even this modest regulation "chill[s] the performance of late abortion" and was therefore unconstitutional. ANDREA SEXTON Chairperson Virginia Society for Human Life SALEM