VoteMatch
Abortion is a woman's right
POSITIONS
- Strongly Support means you believe: Abortion is a private decision between a woman and her doctor. You believe in the `Right to Choose' and are strongly pro-choice. The right to abortion empowers women and is an important part of women's health rights and women's reproductive freedom. That right includes the right to a government subsidy for poor women who want an abortion.
- Support means you believe: Restricting `Partial-Birth Abortions' or other specific procedures is reasonable, but clinic access should be unfettered, since other women may choose differently than you. You are pro-choice, but believe that some restrictions are acceptable.
- Oppose means you believe: The fetus is a human being who has rights independent of its mother's rights. You are "pro-life." While abortion under certain circumstances might be tolerated, the basic rights belong to the fetus, not the mother.
- Strongly Oppose means you believe: Abortion is immoral because it kills a human being, and should never be tolerated. `Roe v. Wade' should be overturned and we should protest abortion clinics as other forms of injustice are protested.
This question is looking for your views on abortion rights in general. However you answer the above question would be similar to your response to these statements:
- Uphold Roe v. Wade
- No Litmus Test for nominees
- Enforce Clinic Access laws
- Oppose Strict Constructionist judges
How do you decide between "Support" and "Strongly Support" when you agree with both the descriptions above? (Or between "Oppose" and "Strongly Oppose").
The strong positions are generally based on matters of PRINCIPLES where the regular support and oppose positions are based on PRACTICAL matters.
If you answer "No Opinion," this question is not counted in the VoteMatch answers for any candidate.
If you give a general answer of Support vs. Oppose, VoteMatch can more accurately match a candidate with your stand.
Don't worry so much about getting the strength of your answer exactly refined, or to think too hard about the exact wording of the question -- like candidates!
- Strongly Support means you believe in the principle of the right to choose.
- Support means you believe that abortions will occur anyway so we should make them safe for practical reasons.
- Oppose means you believe more practical limitations are appropriate to make abortions rarer.
- Strongly Oppose means you believe that abortion violates the principle of taking a fetus' life.
BACKGROUND
Basic terminology of the abortion debate
- ‘Roe v. Wade’ refers to the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
- ‘Right to Choose’ refers to a pro-choice stance, upholding Roe v. Wade.
- ‘Right to Life’ refers to a pro-life stance, seeking to overturn or limit Roe v. Wade
- Pro-life advocates refer to Roe v. Wade as an example of ‘Judicial Activism’ or ‘legislating from the bench’, i.e., that judges are making the law rather than interpreting it. In these terms, pro-life advocates believe in ‘Strict Constructionism’, or a literal interpretation of the Constitution with no implied rights.
- A ‘Litmus test’ requires Vice Presidential & Supreme Court nominees to agree with one’s abortion view.
- ‘The Human Life Amendment’ would be a Constitutional Amendment overturning Roe v. Wade. There is currently no such Amendment pending, but proponents regularly introduce ‘Human Life Bills’ in Congress.
- States’ Rights: Most pro-life legislation aims at overturning Roe v. Wade, which means returning the decision about abortion to the states. In contrast, a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution would ban abortion in all states. Overturning Roe v. Wade would NOT ban abortion -- it would then become a state decision, with some states allowing abortion and some restricting or banning it.
Roe v. Wade
The essence of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision is that Constitutional rights apply only after birth; hence abortion does not breach a person’s right to life.
States cannot regulate 1st trimester abortions; states can regulate but not ban 2nd trimester abortions; and states can ban 3rd trimester abortions (as many have).
The debate on abortion generally focuses on when human life begins.
The courts often focus on ‘viability’, the point at which the fetus could survive outside the womb.
- Viability naturally begins at about 6 months of pregnancy, but with modern medical advances the age of viability is pushed back substantially.
- Strong pro-life advocates believe that the fetus should be protected from the moment of conception.
Abortion Legislation
The details of abortion legislation focus on what the states can regulate and what they can ban in later trimesters:
- ‘Partial-Birth Abortion’ refers to a late-term abortion method which induces a breech delivery and collapses the fetal skull before completing delivery.
This procedure is banned in 24 states, but pro-choice advocates, including President Clinton, have sought to overturn state laws with a federal ruling.
- In April 2000, the Supreme Court rejected a Nebraska law banning partial birth abortions.
- In June 2000, the Court said that the Nebraska ban was unconstitutional because it had no exceptions and barred second trimester abortions.
- Each state decides if ‘Parental Consent’ is required for teenagers seeking abortions.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that spousal consent cannot be required by the states.
- Each state also determines rules about ‘informed consent’, about 24-hour waiting periods, and about when viability occurs after the 1st trimester.
- In Nov. 2005, the Supreme Court heard the case ‘Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood,’ on the issue of parental consent (its first abortion case since 2000). They ruled in 2006 that states may require parental involvement, but not when it risks the health of the minor. No precedents were overturned nor set.
Related Legislation
‘Clinic Access’ laws refer to what pro-life protesters may and may not do at the entrances to abortion clinics, and how far away they must stay.
Clinic access became an issue after several abortion clinics were bombed and several abortion doctors were shot in recent years.
‘RU-486’ is a drug that induces abortion in early pregnancy. In September 2000, after 12 years of study, the FDA approved the use of RU-486 until the 7th week of pregnancy.
‘Cloning’ is a rapidly advancing technology in which a fetus develops from only one parent. It has been successful in animals, and is entering trial stages with humans. Pro-life advocates generally oppose cloning on the same basis that they oppose abortion.
‘Stem Cells’ are undifferentiated cells, which are useful in research for cloning and for treating many diseases. Stem cells are best taken from human fetuses; hence the pro-life opposition. Many pro-life advocates support fetal stem cell research because of the medical potential. In 2001, Pres. Bush announced that the federal policy would be to allow fetal stem cell research on existing stem cell lines but not on new ones.
‘Embryonic Stem Cells’ specifically means those taken from embryos. Stem cell research per se is not controversial -- but if a politician says they supoprt stem cell research, without the prefix 'embryonic', it can mean they OPPOSE embryonic stem cell research. Avoiding the term 'embryonic' -- or emphasizing the term 'adult stem cells' or the technical term 'somatic stem cells' -- implies that the speaker opposes stem cell research.
Support for stem cell research does not necessarily correlate with support for abortion rights. Some famous spokespersons, such as Nancy Reagan and Orrin Hatch, support embryonic stem cell research but oppose abortion rights. But because the controversy focuses on the use of embryonic material,
this issue very frequently is discussed as part of the abortion debate. Perhaps in a future VoteMatch quiz we will separate out stem cells from the abortion question!
Buzzwords in the abortion debate
- Describing abortion as a health issue or as a women's rights issue is a pro-choice stance.
- Describing abortion as a moral issue or as an issue of balancing the mother's rights with the fetus' rights, is a pro-life stance.
- Any reference to "the rights of the unborn" is a strong pro-life stance, as is defining life "from the moment of conception."
- Any reference to "the rights of the mother" is a strong pro-choice stance, as is defining a "right to privacy" (between a woman and her doctor).
- As mentioned above, the most obscure buzzword is that supporting ‘judicial activism’ implies a pro-choice stance, while supporting ‘strict constructionism’ implies a pro-life stance.
In nominations for Supreme Court justices, asking this question is the archetypical ‘Litmus Test’ -- liberal Senators spent many hours questioning Clarence Thomas on whether he held a Strict Constructionist view of the Constitution (he did not admit so).
- For serious policy wonks, the most important abortion buzzword is ‘Stare Decisis’ -- that is the basis upon which Clarence Thomas declined to rule against Roe v. Wade. Thomas meant that although he would have ruled against Roe v. Wade in 1973, he would not do so now because the 1973 Supreme Court ruling had been in force for a quarter century and hence has precedential weight.