RoeVWade英文及中文.docx

1、RoeVWade英文及中文Roe-V.Wade英文及中文罗伊诉韦德案( Roe V.Wade,410 U.S.113,1973)Roe v. WadeRoe v. Wade - Then and NowBy Janet BenshoofOn January 22 ， 1973 ， the United States Supreme Court struck down theState of Texass criminal abortion laws ， finding that the right to decidewhether to have a child is a fundamenta

2、l right guaranteed by the U.S.Constitution. The 7-2 decision in Roe v. Wade would have an immediate and profound effect on the lives of American women. Before Roe ， it is estimatedthat between 200 ， 000 and 1.2 million illegally induced abortions occurred annually in the United States.1 As many as 5

3、 ，000 to 10 ，000 women died peryear following illegal abortions and many others suffered severe physical and psychological injury.2To prevent women from dying or injuring themselves from unsafe ， illegalor self-induced abortions ， womens advocates spearheaded campaigns toreverse century-old criminal

4、 abortion laws in the decades preceding Roe.During the 1960s and 1970s ， a movement of medical ， public health ， legal ，religious and womens organizations successfully urged one-third of statelegislatures to liberalize their abortion statutes.Roe v. Wade is a landmark decision that recognized that t

5、he right to make childbearing choices is central to womens lives and their ability to participatefully and equally in society. Yetthe Supreme Courts decision in Roe was farfrom radicalit was the logical extension of High Court decisions on the right to privacy dating back to the turn of the century.

6、 The decision isgrounded in the same reasoning that guarantees our right to refuse medical treatment and the freedom to resist government search and seizure. In finding that the constitutional right to privacy encompasses a womans right to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy ， the High Cou

7、rt continued a long line of decisions recognizing a right of privacy that protects intimate and personal decisions including those affecting child-rearing ， marriage ， procreation and the use of contraception from governmental interference.The DecisionIn its 1973 decision in Roe ， the Supreme Court

8、recognized that a womansright to decide whether to continue her pregnancy was protected under the constitutional provisions of individual autonomy and privacy. For the first time ， Roe placed womens reproductive choice alongside other fundamental rights ， such as freedom of speech and freedom of rel

9、igion ， by conferring thehighest degree of constitutional protection strict scrutiny to choice.Finding a need to balance a womans right to privacy with the statesinterest in protecting potential life ， the Supreme Court established a trimesterframework for evaluating restrictions on abortion. The Co

10、urt required the state to justify any interference with the abortion decision by showing that it had a compelling interest in doing so. Restrictions on abortions performedbefore fetal viabilitythat is the period before a fetus can live outside awomans body ， were limited to those that narrowly and p

11、recisely promoted real maternal health concerns. After the point of viability ，the state was free toban abortion or take other steps to promote its interest in protecting fetal life. Even after that point ， however ， the states interest in the viable fetus must yield to the womans right to have an a

12、bortion to protect her health and life.Immediately following the Roe decision ， those who did not want to seewomen participate equally in society were galvanized. The far right initiated a political onslaught that has resulted in numerous state and federal abortion restrictions and contributed to a

13、changed Supreme Court ， ideologically benton eviscerating Roe. The right to choose became the target of not only the religious right ， but also right-wing politicians and judges who used the Roe decision to attack the judicial activism of the Supreme Court and its purported failure to adhere to the

14、text of the Constitution and the ori ginal intent of its framers. This backlash reached its peak during the three terms of Presidents Reagan and Bush. Beginning in 1983 ， the U.S. solicitor general routinely urged the Supreme Court ， on behalf of the federalgovernment ， to overturn Roe. In addition

15、， when appointing Supreme Court justices ， Reagan and Bush used opposition to Roe as a litmus test. During this twelve-year period ， five justices - OConnor ， Scalia ， Kennedy ， Souter ，and Thomas - were appointed. Not one of these five ， who still constitute amajority on the Court today ， supports

16、the strict scrutiny standard of reviewestablished by Roe.The Dismantling of RoeShortly after the Roe decision, state legislatures began passing laws in hopes of creating exceptions to it or open!ng up areas of law that Roe did not directly address. No other right has bee n frontal attacked and so su

17、ccessfully undermined, and all in the course of two decades the same two decadesthat sustained adva nces in other areas of wome ns rights, in eluding education and employment.Teenagers were the first successful target. In 1979 the Court endorsed state laws that required parental consent, as long as

18、they were accompanied by a complicated system whereby minors could assert their privacy rights by request!ng a hearing before a state judge on whether they were ”mature” or an abortion was in their best interests (Bellotti v. Baird)。The next assault on Roe was directed at low-in come women. In 1980

19、the Hyde Amendment, which prohibited Medicaid from covering most abortions, was upheld by the Supreme Court by a 5-4 margin (Harris v. McRae)。The Court abandoned the neutrality required in Roe, finding that, for poor women, government could promote childbearing over abortion, so long as it did so by

20、 manipulating women through public funding schemes, not criminal laws.Dissenting in City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health (1983) , Justice OConnor called for a radical erosion of Roe and proposedthat a lesser standard of constitutional protection for choice be established, called the

21、 undue burderf standard, in place of the strict scrutiny11 test. By 1989, after the arrival of Justices Kennedy and Scalia and the elevation of William Reh nq uist to chief justice, there were no longer five votes to preserve reproductive choice as a fundamental constitutional right. The Courts ruli

22、ng in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989) dem on strated this new reality when five justices expressed hostility toward Roe in differing degrees and essentially called for states to pass legislation banning abortion in order to test the law.Three years later, in Casey, the strictjudicial

23、scrutiny established in Roe was finally abandoned in a plurality opinion of Justices OCon nor, Kennedy and Souter. Although the Court said it was not overturning Roe*s central premise that aborti on is a fun dame ntal right, the Casey decisi on replaced the original nstrict scrutiny standard governi

24、ng other fundamental rights for the weak and confusing undue burden standard. This opened the door to a host of state and federal criminal restrictions designed to steer women away from abortion and to promote the rights of the fetus throughout pregnancy. Over 300 criminal abortion restrictions have

25、 been enacted by legislatures in the past six years alone, none of which would have been constitutional under the original Roe decision.The Four Pillars of RoeThe Roe opinion was grounded on four constitutional pillars： (1) the decision to have an abortion was accorded the highest level of constitut

26、ional2 ） theprotection like any other fundamental constitutional rightgovernment had to stay neutral ； legislatures could not enact laws that pushedwomen to make one decision or another ； （ 3 ） in the period before the fetusis viable ， the government may restrict abortion only to protect a womans he

27、alth ； （4 ） after viability ， the government may prohi bit abortion ， but laws must make exceptions that permit abortion when necessary to protect a womans health or life.Only two of the four Roe pillars remain today as a result of the SupremeCourts 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeaster

28、n Pennsylvania v.Casey. This decision is the culmination of a steady decline in constitutional protection for the right to privacy. A womans right to choose is still constitutionally protected ， however ， the strict scrutiny standard was jettisoned in favor of a lesser standard of protection for rep

29、roductive choice called undue burden. Under Casey ， state and local laws that favor fetalrights and burden a womans choice to have abortion are permitted ， so longas the burden is not undue. No longer does the state have to be neutral in the choice of abortion or childbearing. Now the government is

30、free to pass laws restricting abortion based on morality ， a code word for religiousanti-abortion views. States are now permitted to disfavor abortion and punish women seeking abortions ， even those who are young and sick ， with harassing laws.Roe in the 21st CenturyIn 2000 ， eight years after the C

31、asey decision ， the Court agreed to hearanother case that opened up Roe for reexamination. During that period ，President Clinton had appointed two justices ， Ginsburg and Breyer. The first challenge to Roe in the 21st century came in the form of a Nebraska ban on so-called partial-birth abortion bro

32、ught by the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. The language of the Nebraska ban and the cookie-cutterversions passed in 30 states was sweeping and broad ， and could haveincluded virtually all abortion procedures ， even those used in the early weeksof pregnancy. Publicly ， however ， supporters of these bans camouflaged this fact by using a term made up by the National Right-to-Life Committee partial-birth abortion and pretending that the bans were designed to prevent doctors fr