The Supreme Court and Verbal Gymnastics

​In 1973 the Supreme Court legalized abortion-on-demand with two decisions called Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton and abortion became legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy. Justice Harry Blackmun, who authored the decision, filled his writings with verbal gymnastics, misusing medical and legal terminology throughout his binding opinion.

​So reckless and illogical were the writings and opinions of the Supreme Court on that day in 1973, there were those who supported the legalization of abortion, yet wrote very critical responses about the decision:

​Edward Lazarus, a former Blackmun clerk, who "loved Roe's author like a grandfather" wrote:

​"As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible …Justice Blackmun's opinion provides essentially no reasoning in support of its holding… Roe is a jurisprudential nightmare. Extending the unenumerated constitutional right to privacy to cover a woman's choice to have an abortion required an analytical leap with little support in history or precedent."

​In a highly cited 1973 article in the Yale Law Journal, Professor John Hart Ely criticized Roe as a "decision which is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to do so."

​Justice Blackmun's irresponsible suggestion in the decision that "we need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins…since there is no consensus," in order to decide on legalizing abortion, is answered by Dr. Bernard Nathenson, founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, when he says. "Of course I was pleased with Justice Blackmun's abortion decisions… but I could not plumb the ethical or medical reasoning that had produced the conclusions. Our final victory had been propped up on a misreading of obstetrics, gynecology and embryology, and that's a dangerous way to win."

​It is a straightforward medical and scientific conclusion that the union of a sperm and egg produce a living human being and that the only difference between you now, and you in the womb, is size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency. This understanding should not be undermined by the misuse of words in order to create a social order that has denied the right to life of over 57 million of the smallest members of the human race since 1973.

​We must speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.