The Debate Over Roe v. Wade

Greetings! As promised, I'm providing some links to the sites of pro-life groups so you all can have a chance to see the other side of this very controversial debate over abortion in the US.

First, I think it is a good idea to look at the Roe v Wade decision itself. The most widely debated section is point 3. of the syllabus, which cites the Fourteenth Amendment and the right to privacy to establish the basis for legalizing abortion. However, the same point also opens the door to regulation of abortion on a state-by-state basis.

Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Every year there are many demonstrations and debates that take place on the anniversary of the decision. You can be sure that in 2008, on the 35th anniversary of the decision, there will be a significant amount of action from both pro-life and pro-choice groups.

For more information, a good, if not infallible, place to start is Wikipedia. This article gives a solid overview of the pro-life arguments. I like that it mentions that there are several different positions within the pro-life movement - some people are categorically opposed to abortion in any circumstances, others have a much more moderate opinion. It's also important to note that pro-life arguments are often tied to religious beliefs, so the debate can frequently engage more questions than that of abortion, such as the relationship between religion and the state.

Once you visit Wikipedia, you can also take a look at the following sites for further information. As you can see, there are a variety of different groups that oppose abortion, each for its own reasons. A simple Google search for "pro-life group" will bring several million results.

Pro-Life Action League
Feminists for Life
Abortion Facts*

*as I said in class, and as you will find in the Wikipedia article, both pro-life and pro-choice groups look to give themselves an advantage in the way they represent themselves to the public. The Abortion Facts site is a pro-life site. Many of the "facts" presented there would be hotly contested by pro-choice groups, who claim that they are false or misrepresented. Planned Parenthood, an organization that supports abortion, offers a very different picture of the abortion question. Both sides of the debate tend to offer lots of statistics to support their arguments while trying to discredit the statistics offered by the other side. This is something that is not limited to the abortion debate, of course.

...

We talked a couple of weeks ago about accomplices, aidors/abettors, and accessories to crimes. The timing was perfect: this article showed up in the New York Times the very next day! The article describes the case of Ryan Holle, a young man in Florida who is serving a life sentence in prison without parole. He lent his car to some friends who used it to drive to a woman's house. Once there, they robbed her and murdered her. Under the "felony murder" rule, Ryan Holle was given the same punishment as the men who were in the house.

Read the article and look at the different arguments offered. Then I want to know! What do you think about the "felony murder" rule? Should accessories to the crime be punished as harshly as the principal offenders? Why or why not?

Best,

Eric