FREE ESSAY ON ROE VS WADE

ROE VS WADE

Roe Vs Wade, the decision. 
1. The requirements of the Constitution. 
Any analysis of Roe Vs Wade must be accomplished within the language of the Constitution.
Under the American Constitution the state is obligated to exercise its powers with
extreme deference to the rights of the individual. Certain of these rights are so crucial
to the establishment and maintenance of a free society that special amendments, i.e. the
Bill of Rights, were added to the Constitution to specifically stay the hand of the state
when the exercise of its powers placed it in conflict with the interests of the
individual. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments specifically prohibit the taking of a
human life without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment expands this guarantee by
prohibiting any state from denying a person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the law. 
The Constitution extends these guarantees to all persons within the jurisdiction of the
United States. No other qualification is made. The only conditions which can be
identified anywhere in the Constitution are life, which is presumed to be present, and
personage, which is a given condition of the human specie. When life begins, stage of
development, age, environment, meaningfulness of life, potential, viability, morality,
religion nor any other condition are anywhere mentioned and do not compromise or modify
these guarantees. In Roe Vs Wade Justice Blackmun acknowledged, regarding the status of
the fetus and referring to the Texas statute on abortion, that If this suggestion of
person hood is established,......the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically
by the [14th] Amendment. In other words, the only requirements held forth by the
Constitution regarding the disposition of the unborn are first, that life be present,
second, that it belong to a person, i.e. a human being, and third, if these criteria are
met, that due process be extended before its life can be taken. 
*********************************************************************************************2.
Proof that life is present: 
The spirit and language of the Constitution are such that the presumption of the presence
of life, as it pertains to persons, must always preclude any assumption that life is not
present. In every action involving law the presence of life is a given. It is the absence
of life that must be verified and certified by the State or responsible authority in
every instance along with the cause of death, if known. Even the presumption of death, in
the absence of a corpus, involves a lengthy lapse of time and a detailed process to
accomplish. It was therefore an automatic burden of the Court to establish, beyond any
reasonable doubt, that life was not present in the unborn individual before issuing
license to those who might take it. This was a duty that the Court not only failed to
accomplish but rejected out of hand. 
The redundant and consistent history of human experience teaches two lessons pertinent to
this issue. 
First, living things eventually become non living things. 
Second, non living things never become living things. 
From these two facts we can derive two truths.
First, life is either present or it is not. This is a statement of inherent truth, a
tautology. 
Second, no species of life ever arises spontaneously. 
If these things are true then it follows that life must be present from the point of
conception until death occurs. This conclusion is inescapable. When life begins is of no
consequence. This is a simple but valid Aristotelian syllogism leading to a simple, valid
and irrefutable conclusion. Life begets only life. It may survive only a short time and
then die, but first it was alive. 
3. Species, i.e. personage. 
All living things are a product of a reproductive process. The reproduction of anything
requires the existence of a template, be it a die, a blue print, a set of repeatable
instructions or whatever to determine what species of thing will be reproduced. Among the
living that template is genetics. Species among the living is a property of genetics and
nothing else. Therefore if the living being in question is of human origin and human
destiny then between the point of its origin and any time in the future it can only be
regarded as human. If it is human then two things become immediately apparent. First its
being constitutes a species of being and therefore an entity of life as opposed to an
undifferentiated tissue of life. Second, if its species is human, it is a person. 
4. Due Process. 
As quoted above, Justice Blackmun acknowledged that If this suggestion of person hood is
established.....the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th]
Amendment. In other words due process is required before its life can be taken. 
5. Additional unsupportable assumptions contained in Roe: (A few are briefly examined
below.) 
First: Blackmun's position requires the acceptance of the notion that there is a period
of gestation between conception and the onset of 'viability' (about 24 weeks) that can
only be referred to as pre-living or pre-viable. Such a notion is unique among all
pertinent schools of thought. 
Second: Blackmun holds forth that the law deals in reality, not obscurity,....the known
rather than the unknown and does not deal in speculation and, quoting Justice Clark, that
the law recognizes the actual and not potential. 
There are two words that derived from the ancient Greek word vita, which means life. One
is viability, which refers to the ability of a living thing to grow, to develop, to
continue on or live. In other words it denotes 'potential'. The other modern word derived
from vita is vitality. This word refers to the presence of the life process. In other
words the 'actual' existence or presence of life. Yet the word Blackmun chose to
establish his ruling was 'viability' i.e. the word denoting potential and ignored the
word denoting the actual presence of the life process. In other words he embraced the
'unknown' and unknowable rather than the knowable, the presence of the life process. In
light of his views on 'formation' this point becomes crucial. 
Third: The decision states that When sperm meets egg life may eventually form, but quite
often it does not... and The phenomenon of life takes time to develop, and until it is
actually present it cannot be destroyed. Its interruption prior to formation would hardly
be a homicide.... italics mine. 
In nature numerous things may be observed over time to take form. Crystals form, clouds
form, canyons form and so on. Each of these formations is a consequence of the process
that formed them, such as crystallization, condensation, erosion etc. Life also is a
function of process. Whatever form it takes is incidental to, and a consequence of, that
process. Do not the dead, prior to decay, have just as much form as the living? It is the
process that is of the essence, not the formation. Nothing happens in the absence of
process. The process is life. 
Fourth: Blackmun looks to the law and the Constitution for a definition of personage and
finding none declares that the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in
the whole sense. His statements beg the question: Does the law define language or does
language give meaning to the law? The purpose of the Constitution is not to define
personage but to contain tyranny. It should be noted that the Constitution requires prior
personage as a condition of bestowing citizenship. Citizenship is bestowed on persons
born and persons naturalized. Personage is the prerequisite, not the achievement, and is
therefore assumed. Where in law is it established that birth bestows personage or
membership in the human race? 
Fifth: Blackmun, on the basis of meager precedent and an inconclusive examination of the
thinking of the Stoics, ancient healers and philosophers, English common law, the
American Medical Association, and so forth decided that life must not be present in the
unborn. When life is present is a question we do not try to resolve. To assume otherwise
would have required a determination of its species. This he carefully avoided as well.
His position also required that viability and the acquisition of life be achieved in the
absence of the life process. In other words, conception and the process of gestation
plays no significant or compelling roll in the reproductive process and is accomplished
in the absence of life. When sperm meets egg life may eventually form, but quite often it
does not... This assumes that the onset of life is a coincidental and spontaneous
occurrence only casually associated with the reproductive process. Ignored is the fact
that viability is a function of vitality, not visa versa, and is meaningless in the
absence of life. In other words, the requirement of vitality precedes the onset of
viability. Life must first be present before the possibility of potential can emerge. The
notion that life is somehow 'acquired' at about the 24th or 28th week of gestation and
its presence determined by the onset of viability is, to put it generously, unique.
Stated another way, one cannot 'become viable' and then become vital or alive. Viability
is a condition of vitality or life. Not its determinate. 
Sixth: In addition, Blackmun's assumption that life was not present in the unborn is not
supported by any credible body of fact or evidence. (Blackmun, his disclaimer not
withstanding, had to make this assumption in order to reach his conclusion. The presence
of life requires determination of species. Determination of species would have required
the protection of the law.) Such meager evidence as presents itself rests upon the
ignorant assumptions of ancient traditions. It was on these that he built is argument on
'the compelling point' of 'viability'. 
Conversely, the probability that life is present is supported by virtually every credible
source within reach of the Court. He had only to ask himself, can the process responsible
for propagating life do so in the absence of life? and would it be reasonable to assume
that it could? From here he would have been required to investigate and deduce a
conclusion other than the one he reached. 
Seventh: Blackmun assumes that the individual has the right to privacy, which is correct.
He also assumes that the individual has the right to do just about anything they want
with their body, including having an abortion. This is only partly correct. In a free
society the individual only has unfettered authority, and therefore the right, to do
those things he can do for himself and to himself and then only within reasonable limits
that may be imposed by law regarding the legitimate interests of the State. For example,
the individual has the right to buy or build or otherwise acquire a house for himself.
But he does not inherently have the right to a house. He has the right to acquire and be
secure in what he has acquired but not the right to have in the absence of acquisition,
i.e. his ability to acquire. In the matter of abortion, the female does not automatically
have the right to an abortion. She may, however, have the right to petition the court or
an appropriate governing body to acquire an abortion, or even to attempt to perform one
on herself, but she does not automatically have the right to a service that must be
provided by another. Such a 'right' would require the forfeiture of authority by another
party. The State has the power to deny such services if the State reasonably believes it
is in its best interest and its legislative bodies so decide. The individual does not
have the inherent 'right' to acquire a service from someone who would be in violation of
State law by rendering that service. Until the question of the presence of life and
condition of personage are properly resolved and any reasonable doubt removed a
legislative body might very reasonably decide, in order to forestall the possibility of
injustice, that a moratorium should be placed on abortion providers. Reasonable doubt is
a well established principle of law, the very purpose of which is to forestall injustice.
Blackmun, rather than resolve these doubts, acted presumptively and precipitously to
preclude them. 
These are a few of the more obvious errors to be found in the text of Roe. For a more
complete examination please refer to the article The Servant of Expediency. 
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