The fate of Roe v Wade
The vast majority of emails I send to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan’s petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells are still being dumped to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September “Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding”). In fact, yesterday I sent a larger number of emails in one day than in previous weeks – 281 – but received only two out-of-office autoreplies: from the 182nd and 187th emails. I was quite surprised to discover this morning that three scientists had signed, the second largest number of signatories we have had in one day since 18 March. Oh, and Declan has not even received an email of acknowledgement from the founder and editor-in-chief of The Big Issue (a magazine sold by homeless people throughout the UK on registered street pitches) in respect of his complaint that from 10 November we will no longer be able to have a registered pitch (see previous blog).
With major implications for human embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, the fate of Roe v Wade, the US Supreme Court case that legalised abortion, has become a well-publicised issue of concern in this year’s presidential election between abortion-rights opponent Republican nominee John McCain and abortion-rights supporter Democratic nominee Barack Obama. According to the Los Angeles Times, possible retirements of several Supreme Court justices could affect whether the Supreme Court maintains its slight majority in favor of upholding the decision. At least five Supreme Court justices support upholding court precedents on abortion rights, but if a supporter of Roe were replaced by a conservative nominee under a McCain administration, it could tip the majority against abortion rights.
Through most of the 1990s and until recently, the Supreme Court had a solid 6-3 majority in favor of upholding the right of a woman to choose abortion, reports the Times. But the margin has shrunk to one, now that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is retired and has been replaced by Justice Samuel A Alito. And Justice John Paul Stevens, a leader of the narrow majority for abortion rights, is 88. Dawn Johnsen, an Indiana University law professor and former lawyer for NARAL Pro-Choice America, said: “Clearly, Roe is on the line this time,” adding: “It is quite clear they have four votes against it. If the next president appoints one more, the odds are it will be overruled.” Kathryn Kolbert, president of People for the American Way, said: “What we find scary is that people don’t understand what’s at stake. In the next four years, one to as many as three Supreme Court justices may step down, and they all will come from the liberal end of the court.” Wendy Long, a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas and counsel for the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said she believes the “consensus is Roe will fall slowly and incrementally, not in one decision” (Savage, Los Angeles Times, 5/10).
According to Salon, any effort by McCain to replace a more liberal justice with a more conservative one would probably be very tough because there seems little doubt that the Senate will remain in the control of the Democrats. That majority could prevent McCain from selecting individuals as conservative as Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito. “Still, the Democrats might find it harder to block a minority or female nominee, just as they failed to block Justice Clarence Thomas’ confirmation, despite a Democratic majority in the Senate,” Salon reports (Chemerinsky, Salon, 6/10).
Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman in an opinion piece writes that McCain is “out to overturn” Roe. Abortion-rights groups have been “crying wolf for so long that it’s hard to believe that the wolf is actually at the door,” but a ballot measure in South Dakota aimed at banning abortions except in cases of rape or incest, to save a woman’s life or to avert a “substantial and irreversible” maternal health risk of impairment to “a major bodily organ or system” is “directly pointed at Roe and targeted to arrive at the Supreme Court in time to greet a new justice,” according to Goodman. She adds, “If what happens in South Dakota doesn’t stay in South Dakota, a woman’s right will depend on whether she has enough gas to drive to the next, or the next or the next state” (Goodman, Boston Globe, 4/10).
New Scientist reports that this November voters in Colorado will decide on whether to amend the state’s constitution so that a “person” would “include any human being from the moment of fertilization”. The amendment was drafted by Rob Muise and colleagues at the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative religious legal organisation based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. By assigning rights to the embryo, it would probably make both abortion and stem cell research illegal, according to New Scientist. “Pro-choice advocates would challenge the law in court, creating what Muise calls a legislative ‘train wreck’: a series of appeals by one or both sides that would eventually take the case to the Supreme Court, which by then might have a conservative and anti-abortion majority” (Giles, New Scientist, 26/9).
Cardinal Justin Rigali, chair of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said: “The Catholic Church strongly supports promising and ethically sound stem cell research - and strongly opposes killing week-old human embryos, or human beings at any stage, to extract their stem cells” (The Wall Street Journal, 30/9). The Vatican has opened an office in Brussels and works hard together with other conservative forces for the implementation of more restrictive abortion laws and for the preference of Catholic Law above EU laws (Wikstrom, International Viewpoint, Sept). Should conservative Christian legal groups succeed in the US Supreme Court, the profound consequences for science may very well be felt in Europe. So, in the section of our campaign in support of human embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning called “Religion in Public Life”, we will monitor Roe v Wade.
The Washington Independent reports that last year the Supreme Court voted in a 5-4 decision to uphold a federal ban on late term abortions, regardless of the health of the mother. In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision “alarming”. She wrote: “It tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between pre-viability and post-viability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health.”
