Reproductive rights

“ As we have already pointed out, a restriction of the fertility of women occurs in the majority of marriages, to this extent, that the potential reproductive powers of the wife are not fully utilized. In recent times, however, the restriction of fertility, by the deliberate use of measures for the prevention of pregnancy, has become so widely diffused, that it appears unwise from the scientific standpoint 389simply to ignore the question, and it has become indispensable to study how the practice developed, and to consider what are its actual results. ”

“ In general, in any country where we find a diminished prolificity a falling off of childbirth unaccompanied by a decrease in the number of marriages occurring at the reproductive ages, we may attribute this decrease to voluntary restriction of childbearing on the part of the married, or in other words, to the prevalence of "birth control." ”

“ The Court of Appeals determined that Missouri's declaration that life begins at conception was "simply an impermissible state adoption of a theory of when life begins to justify its abortion regulations." ”

“ As a practical matter, because viability follows "quickening" — the point at which a woman feels movement in her womb — and because viability occurs no earlier than 23 weeks gestational age, it establishes an easily applicable standard for regulating abortion while [p554] providing a pregnant woman ample time to exercise her fundamental right with her responsible physician to terminate her pregnancy. ”

“ Since Roe was decided in January, 1973, the Court repeatedly and consistently has accepted and applied the basic principle that a woman has a fundamental right to make the highly personal choice whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. ”

“ With the substitution of the more rationalized standards of self-interest and group loyalty for the irrational taboo control of reproductive activities, there will be as much freedom for women to choose whether they will accept maternity as there is now, in the period of transition from the old standards to the new. ”

“ Her decision will embrace her own destiny and personal dignity, and the origins of the other human life that lie within the embryo. The State is entitled to assume that, for most of its people, the beginnings of that understanding will be within the family, society's most intimate association. ”

“ II For today, at least, the law of abortion stands undisturbed. For today, the women of this Nation still retain the liberty to control their destinies. But the signs are evident and very ominous, and a chill wind blows. ”

“ My interpretation of the plain language is supported by the structure of the statute as a whole, particularly the preamble, which "finds" that life "begins at conception" and further commands that state laws shall be construed to provide the maximum protection to "the unborn child at every stage of development." Mo.Rev.Stat. §§ 1.205.1 (1) , 1.205.2 (1986) . I agree with the District Court that " [o] bviously, the purpose of this law is to protect the potential life of the fetus, rather than to safeguard maternal health." ”

“ Indeed, I am persuaded that the absence of any secular purpose for the legislative declarations that life begins at conception and that conception occurs at fertilization makes the relevant portion of the preamble invalid under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution. ”

“ Nothing in this Act may be construed to subject the pregnant mother upon whom any abortion is performed or attempted to any criminal conviction and penalty.
Section 5. That chapter 22-17 be amended by adding thereto a NEW SECTION to read as follows: Terms used in this Act mean: (1) "Pregnant," the human female reproductive condition, of having a living unborn human being within her body throughout the entire embryonic and fetal ages of the unborn child from fertilization to full gestation and child birth ”

“ When once artificial impregnation is an every-day occurrence, a Parliament of women will doubtless pass legislation to make it illegal for any man to procreate a child naturally, if it is the wife’s desire to have one by the intermediation of science ”

“ Both sexes should be lead to understand, for example, that it is up to the woman to choose the hour of conception. And neither sex should be ignorant of the means of contraception. Following my thought to its logical conclusions, I would say that in a society which had not made it possible for its female constituents to refuse or avert an undesired pregnancy, those constituents would be perfectly justified in leaving their progeny to the care of the collectivity. ”

“ She was a goddess of the mother family and polyandric.1955 The two policies, sex license and sex renunciation, were both advocated at the same time in the early centuries of the Christian era and in the Middle Ages. Men found out that the problem of reproduction for them was far more complicated than the multiplication of dates to the utmost limit. At this point of knowledge instinctive or intelligent regulations had to be put on physical appetites. For primitive men the reproductive function is as simple a function as eating or sleeping. ”

“ For if federal judges must allow the State to make the abortion decision, presumably the State is free to decide that a woman may never abort, may sometimes abort, or, as in the People's Republic of China, must always abort if her family is already too large. In contrast, our cases represent a consistent view that the individual is primarily responsible for reproductive decisions, whether the State seeks to prohibit reproduction, Skinner v. ”

“ As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a law that no deformed child shall live, but where there are too many (for in our State population has a limit) when couples have children in excess and the state of feeling is adverse to the exposure of offspring, let abortion be procured. ”

“ Finally, the Court today recognizes that in the case of abortion, “the liberty of the woman is at stake in a sense unique to the human condition and so unique to the law. The mother who carries a child to full term is subject to anxieties, to physical constraints, to pain that only she must bear.” ”

“ But a clearer insight shows that the group standards permit the exercise of the reproductive activities only in accord with arbitrary regulations which have coalesced in the institutions of marriage and the family. These institutions have been developed to fit a definite ideal of manhood and womanhood which grew up out of a manner of thinking in accord with taboo control and ignorant superstitions rather than in harmony with the actual facts of the situation. ”

“ The Court, for the most part, sustains this position: during the period prior to the time the fetus becomes viable, the Constitution of the United States values the convenience, whim, or caprice of the putative mother more than the life or potential life of the fetus; the Constitution, therefore, guarantees the right to an abortion as against any state law or policy seeking to protect the fetus from an abortion not prompted by more compelling reasons of the mother. ”

“ To promote the State's profound interest in potential life, throughout pregnancy the State may take measures to ensure that the woman's choice is informed, and measures designed to advance this interest will not be invalidated as long as their purpose is to persuade the woman to choose childbirth over abortion. ”

“ When, on the contrary, a male minor seduced by an adult woman, makes her pregnant, it is the woman only who is responsible for the maintenance of her child, and there are no reasons to accord her the right of abortion, for it is she who desired the sexual act. ”

“ No abortion not necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother shall be performed unless the attending physician first certifies with reasonable medical certainty that the fetus is not viable. ”

“ I have already said that in cases of rape, and forced pregnancy in general, the right to artificial abortion should be conceded to the woman. On the other hand, I think it should be prohibited on principle when the fecundating coitus has been voluntary on both sides, and when there is no medical reason for such a measure. In principle, the human embryo, when once conceived, should have the right to live. Birth is only an episode in its life. ”

“ Indeed, before the advent of the Charter, Parliament recognized that the interest in the life or health of the pregnant woman takes precedence over the interest in prohibiting abortions, including the interest of the state in the protection of the foetus, when the continuation of the pregnancy would or would be likely to endanger the pregnant woman's life or health. ”

“ If every pregnancy were at once legally recognised in this way, and if the law would determine the responsibilities of both parents [48] towards their offspring, untrammelled by marriage laws and with the well-being of society as its only aim, the most pressing need of our time, from the standpoint of sexual ethics, would be satisfied. A complete equality can only be attained by naming all children after the mother. ”

“ Local diseases and pathological conditions in the woman (at times in man also) within wedlock, may render parturition and immediate danger to the life of the mother or of the child, or of both together. Surely in such cases it is the bounden duty of the physician to intervene and counsel against, nay absolutely forbid impregnation. Well, how is it to be done? Must husband and wife who love each other be separated? It would be unnatural, in fact it is quite impossible. Or should they abandon sexual intercourse altogether and live like brother and sister? ”

“ If the State has a right so to interpret and limit the law of reproduction, a principle in human affairs is established, and its decree that individuals shall not mate before a certain age, or not mate at all, is only a further application of the same principle. By the law of reproduction a strong instinct, second only in force and universality to the law of self-preservation, is planted in the sexes, and upon a blind obedience to this force, the continuity of the race depends. ”

“ Those women, therefore, who for any cause, allow an undesired maternity to be imposed on them by men holding the legal relation of husbands, and permit themselves to be made the means of giving existence to children whom they do not want, in legal marriage, ought to be, and one day will be, regarded in the same light as those are who become mothers outside of wedlock. If it be wrong for a woman to become a mother, without the consent of Church and State and society, it is wrong for her to become a mother with such consent. ”

“ We are deeply divided over many issues, none more than the painful and difficult issue of abortion. The law now is that the woman, not the Government, makes a decision until the third trimester when a baby can live independently of his mother and therefore the Government can prohibit abortions. ”

“ No partial birth abortion shall be performed in this state, unless such procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself. ”

“ Thirdly, the policy of birth control opens the way to an extension of the Servile State, [79] because women as well as men could then be placed under conditions of economic slavery. Hitherto, the rule has been that during child-bearing age a woman must be supported by her husband, and the general feeling of the community has been opposed to any conditions likely to force married women on to the industrial market. ”

“ Now we all admit it is right to control the process of childbirth, and to save the mother as much pain as possible. It is no more unnatural to control conception by artificial means than to control childbirth by artificial means. ”

“ Two legal provisions which bear directly on women to compel them to keep up the birth rate may be mentioned here. The first of these is the provision whereby sterility in the wife may be made a cause of divorce. This would be a powerful inducement to women who loved their husbands to bear children if they could. ”

“ The question, then, is not whether family limitation should be practiced. It is being practiced; it has been practiced for ages and it will always be practiced. The question that society must answer is this: Shall family limitation be achieved through birth control or abortion? Shall normal, safe, effective contraceptives be employed, or shall we continue to force women to the abnormal, often dangerous surgical operation? ”

“ Excluded from the definition of active promotion of abortion as a method of family planning are referrals for abortion as a result of rape or incest, or if the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term. ”

“ It is clear that the implications of Birth Control, or, rather, what is generally, though not logically understood [2] by the term, of the practice of contraception, are far reaching. It profoundly affects the life of the individual; it reacts upon the internal economy of the community ”

“ With the written consent of one parent or person in loco parentis of the woman if the woman is unmarried and under the age of eighteen years, unless the abortion is certified by a licensed physician as necessary in order to preserve the life of the mother. ”

“ It is a fundamental constitutional liberty that individual Americans -- not government -- can best take responsibility for making the most difficult and intensely personal decisions regarding reproduction. The goal of our nation must be to make abortion less necessary, not more difficult or more dangerous. We pledge to support contraceptive research, family planning, comprehensive family life education, and policies that support healthy childbearing and enable parents to care most effectively for their children. ”

“ It is needless to say that abortion should be permitted whenever pregnancy seriously endangers the life or health of the mother, or when a grave disease in the mother condemns the child to become an invalid. ”

“ The law of maternity is already violated to such an extent that it is questionable whether half our New England women can properly nurse their offspring. There is a general law in nature that "supply and demand" go together and are co-equal, and if one fails the other is endangered. ”