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Just up front. I'm very much pro-choice, and my obvious bias toward that side is going to affect what I say.


I would assume that pro-lifers/anti-choicer/pro-fetus/whatevers desire the decision Roe vs. Wade to be overturned. Or at least, if they live in the USA. So let's play "what if."

What if Roe vs. Wade was overturned. Abortion become illegal again (EDIT: Corrected by Chicka. Abortion becomes illegal in (x) states that choose it to be) Women who have abortions and are discovered are put into jail or put on trial for murder. The majority of these women will be having abortions via clotheshanger, possibly with a backdoor appointment with a doctor, using herbal methods, or drinking a gallon of coffee a day. (Or so I've heard. Doesn't too much caffiene cause miscarriage or a really screwed up baby?)

Now, the thing is. How are you going to stop them from having abortions? I mean, sure, the threat of being put in jail might scare some off, but I would think that the majority of women who need/want abortions are going to go ahead, and get one, using unorthodox methods. It's not too hard to obtain large canisters of vitamin C pills, a load of coffee, or clotheshangers. And I'm not sure if there would be leftover evidence for it.

And if you were found out, you could claim normal miscarriage, either way, I believe.

So how are you going to ensure women can't get abortions within their homes?


And secondly, how are you going to find out that they are having abortions in teh first place? There isn't that much of a chance for discovery in your own home, unless you tell someone, and they rat on you. And, as stated above, you can say you had a miscarriage. I did hear something about a place where they required all females who could have children to have monthly pregnancy tests, and then somehow kept them all from aborting if they turned out to be pregnant. eek This is only by word of net, though, so it's quite possible it isn't true. Still, that's one possible way...even if I think it is a serious violation of your bodily integrity and privacy as well.

How are you going to find out?


And lastly, if you do find a pregnant woman who wants to abort, how are you going to stop her? Are you going to put her in jail til she gives birth, and keep all usable-for-abortion objects away from her? Are you going to put her in house arrest, and have people follow her around to make sure she doesnt' do anything? Are you going to chain her to her bed til she gives birth? Because honestly, other than things like restraint, I can't think of many other ways to keep a woman who is determined not to have the child from aborting.


How are you going to stop her?

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Poke holes in what I typed, correct me, give me links, and tell me if caffiene can really cause abortion, and if that horror story I typed out really did happen somewhere.

Doctors doing back alley abortions before RvW moved into abortion clinics and did the same thing in a building sanctioned by law. When abortion was illegal in certain states, the doctors were prosecuted more than the women were. I haven't read a case of a woman prior to 1973 put on trial for murder for having an illegal abortion. I've heard of women being tried for having them now, but I think that's because now they have the option to have a professional do it.

The same reasoning can be applied to anything. The only people I call anti-choice are those who favor chips being implanted in all our brains so that the government controls our every decision. It is a choice to run a red light. It is a choice to rob a bank. Neither choices are legal, yet, people run lights and get away with it. People even murder born human beings every day and get away with it. There isn't a way to stomp out murder without eliminating choice. The only thing that can be done is regulating it in the ways we can that don't infringe on our rights to privacy and freedom.

The same applies to abortion. No one in here (I hope) would support making child abuse legal since we can't keep it from happening and when people get caught they can take their anger out on their children. It is dangerous work to rape someone, did you know that? What if the other person has a knife, or a gun? Raping someone without legal sanction could kill you. Making it so that there were buildings where you could have your victim sedated or strapped down and all of his or her weapons removed would make it safer to rape people. Yet this is not made legal and if it is, I'm leaving this country. Because it infringes on the other person's safety.

This is not to argue that a fetus is a person, since if you are prochoice you most likely would never agree that a fetus is. But it is to point out that when people feel that the unborn are people, abortion is no less horrific than the rape scenario I just presented. Would any of us stand for the government allowing this? Heck no, we all believe that women (and men) are people. But consider that there are those in the world who do not believe women are just as good as men. In fact, there are many people in the world who believe that men are better than women and have more rights. That women are as good as property. That angers the heck outta me. Probably because I'm a woman, but I know it does for men in here too.

Now as sure as you are that women are people, most people who are prolife are sure that the unborn are people. This isn't a debate over whether they are or not. That isn't the point. The point is that is how sure they are and that is why abortion is so disturbing to them. No matter what you think, it doesn't change how people feel.

I only explained it in-depth because the argument is used a lot, but it's true. Saying that making it illegal won't stop it can apply to any law. Including but not limited to rape. You would never cosider making it legal just because it couldn't be stopped and some rapists will get hurt due to it being illegal. So why is it reasonable to assume that people who are prolife would consider having abortion stay legal just because it can't be stopped?

The answer is, you can't stop it. Just like you can't stop any crime. You theoretically can, but it involves taking everyone's free will away.

Much as us 'lifers would love to eradicate abortion everywhere, it is literally an impossible task. As lymelady said, stopping abortions completely would require government espionage bordering on tyranny. We don't want that.

But a big step can be taken to stop abortions by making them illegal. You seem to illustrate a world where every woman who would've had an abortion crosses the line of legality to get one. This is irrealistic.

Before Roe v. Wade, abortions were present, but in a much lesser number than they are now. As soon as the procedures were legalized, numbers of abortions skyrocketed. If abortions were to become illegal again, most women wouldn't take the chance to have one. Weigh the odds: months pregnant and in jail (possibly years in jail; I'm no expert in homicide sentences), or months pregnant and free?

If Roe V. Wade is completely overturned, then there had BETTER be some reform taking place.

For example, cheaper and more available child care, cheaper and better health care, more organized government programs to help those in need, better sex education, cheaper but more effective birth control methods, better support systems for young mothers and fathers and work towards eliminating poverty in this country.... so on.

If RvW is overturned it once again becomes a states' issue like it was prior to 1973, so every state must make its own decision on the case. Because it's taken like 40 years for the issue to resurface, i'd say it'd be a century before every state get around to making official statements on it, and I dobut it'll ever truly be gone. Still, i'd prefer it was no longer sanctioned by the government.

The only way that RvW could be overturned was if SCOTUS decided that the government has the power to intrude on our personal lives in tons of fun ways.

After all, it's not as if RvW represents a "right to an abortion"; it's more the "right to not have the government dictate decisions about your body."

If RvW was overturned, then Lawrence would be, too. Which would basically mean that if the government wants to make masturbation illegal that's okay by the Constitution.


I have a feeling that there are very, very few people who actually want RvW overturned. The implications of what the government could do if it was overturned are pretty staggering.

Primarily because the fetus isn't a legal person; moreover, it would be both asinine and impossible to grant the fetus personhood. We wouldn't even have any way to identify this new "person"; the identifying characteristics we use include things such a names and birthdates, but the fetus has neither. He or she often doesn't have a known gender, and isn't yet a citizen of any country. The only way the "person" could be identified is through the mother: "fetus of Susan Doe." Because the fetus is not a legal person, the fetus has no rights; the fetus only has rights in so far as the state has an interest in protecting its life, the same way that a state has an interest in abolishing animal cruelty. So while the state may have a legitimate interest in trying to keep the number of abortions down, what's at issue, as far as the law is concerned, is a single individual making a decision about her reproductive life.

Her decision isn't impacting any legal entity; it's impacting a life that the state has an interest in, but the interests being weighed are the woman's right to make her own medical/reproductive decisions versus the state's interest.

Moreover, under common law, abortions prior to quickening were not really the concern of the law; the decision to terminate a pregnancy was a decision to be made by the woman, and like other aspects of reproduction it was a decision they considered belonged to the home and the family rather than the government. A woman, usually along with her husband and doctors, was better equipped to determine what was best for her family and her body. Similar to keeping the number of abortions down, the state also has an interest in limiting the number of children born with certain genetic disorders, but most people agree it would be unconstitutional to require mandatory sterilization of people with, say, Down syndrome. For that matter, in order to curb the spread of STDs a state could make extramarital sex illegal, but I think most people would also agree that was unconstitutional, as well.

From the perspective of the law, what's the difference between abortion and those two hypotheticals?

And the answer is that there really isn't any difference. The state has legitimate interests in all three cases, but in each instance they impact decisions which are some of the most intimate and personal decisions a person has to make, all involving intimate relationships and whether, when, and how to have children.

Eliminating legal abortion prior to viability would make the right to privacy nonsensical, in that it would be saying at the MOST conservatively, "you have a right to privacy except when the state's interest involves another entity's life".... Now, how does that not implicate curbing the spread of STDs? If extramarital sex were made illegal, it's very likely that the spread of HPV, HIV, and other STDs would drop substantially; thousands of lives a year could be spared. And yet, if someone is HPV positive, it's perfectly legal for them to have sex; we don't question their right to do so, to almost certainly and knowingly cause the deaths of others through their actions.

How can it be okay for the government to turn to one woman and say, "in order to preserve life, we use our power to force you to bear a child," and not okay for the government to turn to another and say, "in order to preserve life, we use our power to prevent you from bearing a child"?