Abortion: from the criminal act to constitutional rights

     In 2007, we lived in Indiana, wife pregnant. To accompany his wife to do pregnancy check, encountered two white women of advanced maternal age more than 30 years in the hospital, the conversation. According to common sense, pregnant women of fetal suffering from Down syndrome risk steep rise, so older pregnant women, need to do some examination, to determine whether the fetus has Down's syndrome, early discovery, abortion, so as not to have no cure for disabled children. But the two pregnant women say, they are not prepared to do so, everything is in God 's hands, no matter what kind of children are born.
  In American, of ordinary people, abortion is an emotionally difficult to accept. Put a fetus of 7 months forced fall off, is tantamount to infanticide, regardless of what the law says, cannot accept moral emotion. His country's one-child policy can become America political issues, in America national emotion, deep foundation.
  At milepost type "Roe v. Wade" (1973), America have strict limits on abortion. Roy in the state of Texas, like most other states, the strict prohibition of abortion, the only exception is not pregnant, abortion is not enough to save the "life", abortion. In the free state, condition slightly wide, such as the need for pregnant women, abortion "health".
  In the strict limit and even prohibit abortion American, accompanied by 1960 years of sexual liberation, become a part of the feminist movement for abortion rights. In 1973 the "Roe v. Wade" (RoeVs.Wade America) case, the Federal Supreme Court made a landmark decision. In the recent 40 years, the decision sparked controversy prolonged.
  The plaintiff Roy, 21 years old, Texas woman. After she became pregnant in 1969, want to terminate the pregnancy, this is not the law in Dezhou at that time. In theory, she can choose to New York, abortion is free to operation, but for high school dropouts, unemployment, poverty, Roy, economically not viable. She had no choice, only through litigation, constitutional challenge to Dezhou since 1854 the implementation of restrictive abortion laws, "for women to control their own bodies" constitutional rights.
  The case came to the Supreme court. The court debate the "unborn fetus" whether has the constitutional rights of the problem of "human". Draft records both the constitution text, the constitution, or the Fourteenth Amendment, can't get the "unborn fetus" is "people" of the conclusion; the scientific evidence is of no help; nearly half the states of the abortion law reform and support "the unborn fetus" is usually the legal sense of "human" conclusion. In addition, in Dezhou, if the pregnant woman self abortion, not crime, legal only for the doctor through the operation for the Abortion Act, visible Dezhou law also does not take the "unborn fetus as a" legal "people" look.
    Roy's lawyer and then think, the question is whether a woman has the right to terminate the pregnancy, which is a fundamental question of human dignity, the Supreme Court has the obligation to answer. She said: "we are not here to promote abortion. We do not require the court ruled that the abortion is a good thing. We advocate here is: a specific person to continue or terminate pregnancy, should be made by the people themselves to decide. In a word, she has decided to do their constitutional rights."
  The Supreme Court final judgement: no state shall make it rigidly uniform ban on abortion, not create unnecessary difficulties to prevent abortion; in the first three months pregnant, abortion decisions in the hands of pregnant women and their doctors; during the period of the second three months, states may regulate the abortion, but can only be considered for the protection of women's health in; during the period of the third three months, states may restrict or even prohibit abortion, only when there is no abortion can not save the life of the pregnant woman, to allow abortion.
  Abortion from the criminal into constitutional rights, civil liberties groups cheering. But the opposition has never ceased to overturn Roe v Wade efforts. According to the statistics of the National Abortion Federation in roe, after 10 years, 32 abortion clinics by the bomb attack, and another 38 were set on fire, is home to more than 600 by protesters besieged; in the 1990's, 7 abortion doctor was murdered or attack injured.
      Opponents, including the States members of Congress and the president. They use all legal means to limit roe. For example, although Congress failed to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v Wade, but it have introduced various measures to limit the roe decision. In the Roe v Wade after more than ten years, Congress enacted 30 laws restricting abortion, such as government officials from the use of federal funds to pay for an abortion, forbids the use of federal legal services lawyers to provide legal services for the prohibition of abortion, the use of federal funds to pay federal prison inmates abortion cost etc..
      From the prohibition of abortion to the conditional abortion constitutional rights, Americans refuse to be cowed or submit, through the advance wave upon wave of struggle. A person, a struggle, could change the whole country.

      This paper starts from the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily