It is a great shame that abortion has become such a polarising and partisan issue in the USA. I think part of the problem is that abortion rights rested for decades on the assumption derived from the 1973 Roe v Wade case that the US Constitution guaranteed the right to abortion. Many lawyers thought this was a legal error, including some on the liberal left who support abortion rights in principle but thought the Roe case was legally flawed and could be successfully challenged, leaving reproductive rights in a much worse state.

This 2013 interview with prominent Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems prescient:

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-offers-critique-roe-v-wade-during-law-school-visit

I support abortion rights in general, but the issue is not black-and-white. There are many complex moral questions around late-term abortions, or terminating foetuses because they are found to be physically imperfect, for example. Women’s rights are extremely important in this issue, but not the only consideration.

In Australia the question of abortion rights is less controversial and more settled, in part because it has evolved as Ginsberg would have preferred in the USA: “gradually, in a process that included state legislatures and the courts.” Alon’s preference asserting an absolute human right to abortion beyond the reach of courts and governments risks reinstating the situation in the USA before Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, where entrenching abortion as a supposed constitutional right left no room for the evolution of a near-consensus such as we have here. As the USA found out in 2022, that could actually make women’s rights more precarious, not less.

You have me intrigued Rhian – you say, “Women’s rights are extremely important in this issue, but are not the only consideration”.

What other considerations do you think can trump women’s rights, and why?

BTW, what do you understand to be the basis for “women’s rights”, “abortion rights”, indeed, “human rights”?

Do you think that “rights” are justified simply by majority opinion/consensus?

Hi JP

Fair questions.

When rights are constrained, it is usually because they clash with other important rights. The right to free speech does not extend to libel or incitement to violence. Freedom of religion does not, in Australia, accommodate polygamy.

The crux of the abortion debate is the clash between the rights of a woman and the rights, if any, of her unborn child. The Catholic church teaches that personhood starts at conception - the zygote deserves the same protections as an adult human. Philosopher Peter Singer has argued that even infants are not persons and it can be morally acceptable to kill them in some circumstances.

Do foetuses have rights? The Declaration of the Rights of the Child says that "the child … needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth". The UN also recognises a right to abortion, but only under limited circumstances, such as when pregnancy endangers the life or health of the mother.

In Australia, I think we get the balance between these incompatible rights about right. The law mostly allows unrestricted access to abortion in the early stages of pregnancy but limits it once the foetus is fairly developed (about 22-24 weeks, depending on the jurisdiction). Beyond roughly this point, the foetus can feel pain and has a rudimentary consciousness, and may be viable outside the womb. From this point, its rights may trump its mother’s rights.

I do not think “rights” are justified by consensus. But Roe v Wade shows that rights imposed unilaterally from above can be overturned unilaterally from above. Ginsburg’s insight – that the slow and messy processes of legislation and legal review produces a more accepted and durable outcome – is borne out by the comparison of the US and Australian experience.

Similarly ... progress towards women’s equality has taken centuries with many milestones along the way – universal suffrage, equal property rights, equal pay, anti-discrimination laws. We’re not there yet. But I faced much less of this crap than my grandmother, and my granddaughter will face less than I did.

What about the father's Rights ? Ultimately, yes the mother is to be nr one but not without the fathers involvement !

Abortion is a key fundamental in the relentless march of Western Society towards Godlessness. To further the relentless march of the anti social proponents of abortion , there needs to be maintained a fierce opprobrium amid against religious objections.

The abortion debate is a dead dog. The true and honest aim, (if any honesty remains in secular society in the West), is to further the destruction of social norms outside of radical leftist ideology.

Leftists should be shot: At that point, women will simply get on with life carrying to full term, their new born, along with the female responsibility to nurture the child in a normal human manner without complaint.

Indyvidual

Am I surprised you’re not awake to this convenient scam of the feminist, no.

To involve the father in any decision making attributed to the life of the fetus, the fact remains essential, he must play no role in the decision of its destiny. ( the leftist Bible, chapter Feminism.).

To actually achieve the identification of the father, an interventionist procedure is necessary.
This procedure will be hotly opposed by the feminist ideologue.
However, after the birth, ( assuming there is one), a simple dna sampling can be performed to identify the lucky winner of a lifetime scorch of his resources as a jackpot to the mother and child.

To alleviate this unexpected and crippling burden on the powerless father with NO choices over abortion decisions, he may either go into hiding to escape the authorities; live a life of wage servitude or commit suicide. ( The leftist idea of poetic justice)!