Opinion Piece Examines Fallout Of Potential Roe V. Wade Reversal

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 30 Sep 2008 - 11:00 PDT

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If abortion-rights opponent Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is elected president in November, the fallout from a potential Roe v. Wade reversal could be worse than envisioned, Linda Hirshman -- a lawyer and author of the book "Get to Work; A Manifesto for Women in the World" -- writes in a Washington Post opinion piece.

Hirshman describes a scenario in which McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, is elected and appoints a conservative judge to the Supreme Court. A district attorney then prosecutes a local clinic for performing the procedure, and the case ultimately reaches the Supreme Court, which overturns Roe by a 5-4 vote. If such a situation occurs, women still could obtain abortions in certain states, as was the case before Roe was decided. However, Hirshman writes that "it's not 1972" when "the climate then was one of growing sympathy for women seeking abortion." Hirshman adds that several states -- Louisiana, Mississippi, and North and South Dakota -- have trigger laws explicitly aimed at making abortion criminal upon a Roe reversal, and "seven other states have committed to acting to the extent that the court might allow." Such trigger laws are much harsher than those that existed before Roe, according to Hirshman.

In addition, Hirshman writes that a "Supreme Court that reversed Roe could also rule more broadly that the fetus is a person under the Fourteenth Amendment. Such a ruling would be the flip side of Roe, making state support of abortion a constitutional offense." According to Hirshman, such a ruling by the court "would surely encourage the antiabortion states' most restrictive plans and increase the pressure on Congress to pass a national law restricting abortion."

Furthermore, some states with criminal abortion laws would "almost certainly also forbid their residents to cross state lines to obtain an abortion" if Roe were reversed, Hirshman writes. According to Hirshman, it is not a "long way from McCain's bold statement that life begins at conception" to "police cars waiting on an abortion clinic side street," adding, "If the law were to take this post-Roe course, Americans' lives would be determined by their state citizenship in ways unseen since the Civil War" (Hirshman, Washington Post, 9/28).

~ Hirshman will be on washingtonpost.com on Monday at 12 p.m. ET to discuss the opinion piece. Questions can be submitted before and during the chat.

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