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Vicki Adams of Kennebunk has had a career that includes teaching, newspaper reporting and working for nature preserves.
Raised as a member of the Catholic Church, I have always been uncomfortable with abortion. It just seemed wrong.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump flip-flops on the issue, while many of his followers oppose abortion in all cases even those involving incest and rape, and some performed to save the mother’s life. Candidate Kamala Harris says she agrees with the 1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade. So, what are the details of this decision? Here’s what I found on a U.S. Supreme Court website.
“The Court created a framework to balance the state’s interests with privacy rights,” the FindLaw summary of Roe v. Wade says. “Acknowledging that the rights of pregnant people may conflict with the rights of the state to protect potential human life, the Court defined the rights of each party by dividing pregnancy into three 12-week trimesters:
“During a pregnant person’s first trimester, the Court held, a state cannot regulate abortion beyond requiring that the procedure be performed by a licensed doctor in medically safe conditions.
“During the second trimester, the Court held that a state may regulate abortion if the regulations are reasonably related to the health of the pregnant person.
“During the third trimester of pregnancy, the state’s interest in protecting the potential human life outweighs the right to privacy. As a result, the state may prohibit abortions unless an abortion is necessary to save the life or health of the pregnant person.”
Clarity at last. The health and privacy of the mother is paramount and private until the second trimester. At that point, regulations may come into play, but abortion can be used to save the health or life of the mother. In the third trimester, the life of the fetus “outweighs” the mother’s privacy, except when it is “necessary to save the life or health of the pregnant person.”
The Supreme Court ruled again in 1992, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, extending the right to choose through the second trimester.
“[T]he Court once again upheld a pregnant person’s right to choose abortion,” FindLaw said. But, it … created a standard based on ‘fetal viability’ – the fetus’s ability to survive outside the womb. Viability is usually placed at around seven months (28 weeks), but it can be as early as 24 weeks.”
This website also includes analysis comparing the effect of the Roe decision. Both before and after Roe, there were about 1 million abortions performed in the United States annually, illegal before the decision and legal after the decision. The main difference was that the rate of pregnant women’s deaths “dropped dramatically in the years following Roe.” This brought to my mind stories about dangerous coat-hanger abortions performed without doctors before Roe.
Now that Dobbs v. Jackson recently removed national guidance on abortion, states are regulating abortion, some to extreme effect. According to widespread news reports, even women who experience miscarriages are sometimes refused care. Even rape or incest may not be considered reasonable objections to pregnancy. Imagine your daughter or wife in such a case.
I am no longer a practicing Catholic, but have been married for more than 50 years and gave birth to two children, luckily all of us are healthy. After deeply considering the freedom of women, children, and doctors, along with the values I was raised with, I think Harris has made the better and more consistent decision regarding this complex issue.
My reasoning: Infanticide is against the law; statements about allowing viable babies to be killed are lies. The causes of most abortions are poverty, life disruption and relationship concerns — with women often the victims. Therefore, the decision to end a pregnancy before viability of the fetus must be between a woman and her doctor.
