When Norma McCorvey, a 22-year-old woman living in Dallas County, Texas sued Henry Wade, the Dallas County District Attorney on March 3, 1970, she used the name “Jane Roe.” This is a placeholder name, a pseudonym for a woman whose given name is not the most important or relevant thing about her. Norma McCorvey’s name was not the most important thing about her lawsuit. What was more important was that she was pregnant, and Texas law severely restricted what she and every other Texas woman could and could not do with their bodies. Jane Roe was essentially every Texas woman. But Texas was not the only state that outlawed abortion in 1970. Jane Roe was also every Iowa woman, and Connecticut woman, and Arizona woman.
Pre-Roe anti-abortion laws did not just limit what women could do with their bodies. In different ways, these statutes also controlled and criminalized the reproductive choices men could make as well. In 1970, a couple who was in love and committed to each other, but who felt they could not raise a family properly, could not have a practical discussion about whether they wanted to bring a child into the world. Jane Roe was not only every Texas woman. She was every man and woman in the United States who wanted to be free to communicate and decide with their partner what to do with their bodies, their futures, and their lives.
We were all Jane Roe in 1970, and we were all Jane Roe three years later, on Jan. 22, 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court held in Roe v. Wade that the Fourteenth Amendment’s conception of personal liberty encompasses a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
As the Supreme Court acknowledged in Roe, the question of when life begins is an immensely complicated one, and the judiciary cannot be expected to settle a question that medicine, philosophy, and theology have been unable to answer with any consensus. The law is a blunt instrument, best suited for situations that contain little moral ambiguity. Conversely, family planning and the needs and capabilities of potential mothers and fathers are infinitely subjective, and complicated by gender, religion, race, and class. This is part of the reason the Roe Court decided that government should not insert itself into the highly personal patient-physician relationship, and decide on its own what is best for every woman’s body. The anniversary of Roe v. Wade reminds us this is as true today as it was in 1970.
Sadly, forty years after Roe was decided, state legislatures continue to attack women’s access to family planning services, despite the fact that a majority of Americans support access to safe and legal abortion. National political figures claim that women who are raped should not have the option of an abortion, because pregnancy due to “legitimate rape” is a near-impossibility, and when such pregnancies do occur they are “something that God intended.” This is the worst kind of paternalism, and it voices an authoritarian sentiment — still prevalent in many state capitols — that government should monitor and control the most personal decisions we make.
The effects of such government interference will not be felt uniformly. Poor, young women of color have been and continue to be the most impacted by governments’ attempts to control reproductive decision-making. But if Roe is rolled back, they will not be the only ones who will suffer. Our history shows that when the poor and the vulnerable are oppressed, the rest of us are not far behind. Jane Roe’s lawsuit stands for the proposition that all Americans, no matter their backgrounds, have an inalienable right to determine for themselves what is best for their families and their futures. That proposition endures. None of us are willing to give up control of our bodies. All of us insist on leading our own lives. Jane Roe insisted on being treated like a person, not a vessel, not an object. We are all Jane Roe.
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2013.
Go Tucson Weekly and Mr Feinman. I reflect on Ms. Rosa Parks
I am NOT Jane Roe. In fact, Norma is NO LONGER Jane Roe. She regrets allowing herself to be USED by PP and others to propagate a class war in the U.S. directed at the weakest of our citizens. Don’t forget, the original purpose of Planned Parenthood was to eliminate minorities!
A woman has NO RIGHT to end another person’s life, even if that life is dependent upon her body, anymore than a person can end a babie’s life once it is outside of the womb. But wait, I forgot….
BABIES are NOT safe outside of the womb either, especially if they are born handicapped.
You can actually have them starved to death in a hospital! I have witnessed it.
It is SICKENING.
I mourn all the astronomers, doctors, pianists, artists, dancers, leaders and genuinely kind people who were never given the gift to live a life, due to shortsightedness and fear.
And, because somebody else thought their parents shouldn’t have a child.
I wanted to echo the comments above, the plaintiff in the case is now pro-life and I believe a convert to Catholicism. Also, Roe v Wade is the classic case in federal court over reach or pre-emption of states’ rights as set down in the Bill of Rights in the 10th amendment. Some 30 states including AZ had anti-abortion laws on the books which were overturned out of thin air by the Supreme Court, which allowed, unknown to a lot of folks in the media, abortion right up until natural birth, i.e., partial birth abortion.
The founder of PP, Margaret Sanger, was a poster child for one Adolph Hitler, who used her books as guides to ridding his 3rd Reich of minorities and Catholics. How did that work?
I have seen in the media that Norma would do whatever it takes to get publicity and payment from the religious fanatics and men who want to control women’s bodies. It has been reported in the news in years past that Norma became a drug addict, lesbian and mental patient. Nothing has been heard from her in some years. Norma was not the issue anyway in Roe VS. Wade. The issue was that women have control over their own bodies, that family planning be a private matter and the government not be involved. Planned Parenthood was NEVER about getting rid of blacks, what a ridiculous and ignorant statement for the above person to make. Planned Parenthood offers free and reduced cost medical treatment for women….mammograms, paps, lab work, x-rays, medical care than includes family planning. Without Planned Parenthood, tens of thousands of women would not have access to medical care. Margaret Sanger is a hero to women. She risked jail to provide literature on birth control when it was actually against the law to discuss birth control in this country. She, through her contacts in a position to help, is responsible for the creation of birth control pills. Is that a plot to get rid of blacks? Read her life story, it is fascinating. I believed she lived in Tucson for a time.
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Mike here. I am Not Jane Roe. Women have a womb, breasts and a disposition to nurture children that are the natural result of intercourse. Woman is by design built to the task. The greatest responsibility one could have is to raise a generation. The traditional mother who stays home to raise her children is NOT deficient in life, but the most privileged. She actually is most treasured, the seat of culture IF culture is to be valued.
Consequently if pleasure is valued above nurture, being a worker valued above raising children, self valued above supporting dependent children; then you have a great need for abortion, public school and state entitlements like daycare, medicine, etc… Someone must rock the cradle, will it be a loving mother, or big brother?
TXJesse, Margaret Sanger was not a hero, unless you support a radical Darwinistic Socialism.
From Wikipedia:
As part of her efforts to promote birth control, Sanger found common cause with proponents of eugenics, believing that they both sought to “assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit.
…
Sanger also supported restrictive immigration policies. In “A Plan for Peace”, a 1932 essay, she proposed a congressional department to address population problems. She also recommended that immigration exclude those “whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race,” and that sterilization and segregation be applied to those with incurable, hereditary disabilities.
…
Sanger was opposed to abortions, both because they were dangerous for the mother in the early 20th century and because she believed that life should not be terminated after conception.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sang…
Sanger was a Eugenicist. Her first edition of “The Woman Rebel No Gods No Masters” pretty much sums up her socialist mindset. She was either a well tenured useful idiot, or a good Marxist.
http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm
At the above link are some good quotes that let you see the real Margaret.
“The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race
(Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923)
@Mike. We need public schools because of abortion? You have some strange lines of thinking, which you are certainly entitled to. You should not try, however, to impose those thoughts on others who do not follow your line of thinking.
Pima Mujer@ Parents bear the primary responsibility to rear their children, not the state. Abortion, public school, social services, etc… are simply the government taking on the primary responsibility of the parent, and in the bigger theater, the people. Consequently totalitarian governments promote a value system, make no mistake on that.
My point is we are witnessing the breakdown of the traditional family [Father Mother Children] as the core of society, and the transfer of the people to the ‘nanny’ state. As people begin to live primarily for personal pleasure; fidelity, monogamy, family, children, etc… become burdens to individuals. Someone has to become the ‘parent’. That brings us to our modern state. Consider the arguments for abortion; What about rape, incest, not being mature enough, unplanned, etc… Never once is the life of the unborn child primarily considered. Promiscuity should be discouraged and responsibility for decisions that result in children should be supported. Make no mistake; the primary purpose of sex is to produce children, No sex means no children. I recommend you read some abortion survivors comments in a recent article here:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/fait…
“I am happy to be alive. I almost died. Every day I thank God for life. I do not consider myself a by-product of conception, a clump of tissue, or any other of the titles given to a child in the womb. I do not consider any person conceived to be any of those things.” from the article.
On the other issue of imposing values; Society is imposing a value whenever they make a law, the question to be asked is what values will make a society prosper? Any value system that reduces man to a freak of nature, an animal that is simply a mass to be managed, and tells people they can do whatever they want without concern for others; why then are we surprised to see the murder of innocents promoted, mass killings like Newtown, bullying, racism, abortion etc…? Or to see the rise of Hitlers and Stalins who have, in the last century, in times of peace, killed more people [135 million (and that is what we can count!) dead] than in all wars combined? This is the direct result of belief that man has no value except to be a productive citizen to serve the masses. An ideology that minimizes the value of human life will lead to a chaos that will require a dictator to control.
Abortion is simply a fruit of the tree of Darwinian ideology.
When Jesus was being led to be crucified, many mourned and cried at the injustice. But He responded reminding us a worse day was yet to come… [Note Simon, a bystander was FORCED to serve the state…] Today the prophecy is fulfilled in our nation. And the tree is now beginning to shrivel and dry… Consider the despair to follow… Consider the plight of those who today live under totalitarian governmental systems and ideologies that see certain individuals as burdens. Today, many of those now pray for death to come and deliver them. Governments can be cruel parents. God Help Us.
Consider Luke 23:26-31
When they led Him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus. And following Him was a large crowd of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him.
But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. “For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’
“Then they will begin TO SAY TO THE MOUNTAINS, ‘FALL ON US,’ AND TO THE HILLS, ‘COVER US.’ “For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”