General Politics

Doing drugs and deciding to violate the law to do so is PERSONAL CHOICE. It is the cost of doing business so to speak.

The drug laws prevent many people from doing drugs. If it were legal and socially acceptable don't you think more people would do drugs? If they did can't you see the increase in the number of wrecked lives we would have?

I take it, ares, you want to get rid of all laws because they don't work. After all murder and stealing continue to occur inspite of the law.

And I think if the legislators of a state, duly elected by the people of that state, want to ban abortion they should be able to do that.

Well until you get the federal laws banning medical use of marijuana or what not then you can have your way. Until that time Tough!I can only take your answer in one way, ares, you are a hypocrite. States rights are fine until they get in the way of what you want, then the feds should rule. It is a question of power to get what you want it isn't philospohical at all.

there's no federal law that i can find that explicitly outlaws an abortion. scotus ruled in roe v. wade that the texas law challenged therein violates the 14th amendment. scotus decided. it has final jurisdiction. neither congress, nor courtesy of the 14th amendment any state legislature, may pass a law contrary to that decision and expect to have it enforced. BESIDES THE EVIDENT FLAWS IN MR. BLACKMUN'S REASONING IT IS QUITE EVIDENT HE WAS LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH.

on the other hand there is that piece of federal criminal law known as the controlled substances act. this is truly where states rights are being violated, as nothing in the constitution really allows for such an act to exist is there? AS IS WITH A LOT OF THINGS I BELIEVE THE FEDERAL CRIMINAL LAWS REST ON THE COMMERCE CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION. AT LESAT THE DRUG LAWS ARE WERE PUT IN PLACE BY AN ELECTED LEGISLATIVE BODY. YOU CAN'T SAY THE SAME ABOUT THE BAN ON ABORTION.

WHAT CRAP!

THAT STATEMENT PROVES TO ME YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.believe it or not, that's actually what its job is: to determine constitutionality of laws that have been enacted by an elected legislative body. THAT, DEAR, ISN'T LEGISLATION.

Yeah, and he's for BIG GOVERNMENT, but only when it comes to Marijuana laws, laws HE doesn't like.

I am not sure what you are saying, fold but I don't think I said I approved of the federal laws.

Jethro called Ares "Dear".

::Hehehehehehe::

Jethro called Ares "dear"? Ares, are you cheating on Me2 with Jethro?

Here is a definition of legislation:
1 : the making or giving of laws
specif
: the exercise of the power and function of making rules that have the force of authority by virtue of their promulgation by an official organ of the state
2 : the enactments of a legislator or legislative body
3 : a matter of business for or under consideration by a legislative body

and don't ever call me dear again.

yes, DEAR!

And, ares, one dictionary stated that the definition of legislation was the making of laws via legislation, as compared to court-made laws. Another defined its "actions which relate to subjects of permnanet or general character are "legislative."

The religion cases are interpretative cases rather than legislation. I believe that the supreme court gets most of its decisions wrong in this area but it is a matter of interpretation rather than a matter of legislation.

Legislative functions: the determination of legislative policy and its formation as rule of conduct.

interpretation: the art or process of discovering and ascertaining the meaning of a statute or constitution.

what's the difference, jethro? it's still "making rules that have the force of authority by virtue of their promulgation by an official organ of the state
"

The difference, dear, is the scope of the act. The legislator is given the responsibility of setting policy. the court's duty is to interpret that statue in light of the facts of a specific case. Or in otherwords how does the statute apply to these specific facts. When a statute comes under constitutional question the court's function is to interpret the statute in light of the constitution. I still haven't figured out how a judge can make such interpretation of the statue without having an idea of what the author's of the constitution intended. What Blackmun and the majority in Roe v. Wade did is to set a policy that wasn't in the constitution. The role of that Court should have been to say a that the setting of policy regarding abortion is reserved to the legislature. Instead it took the decision out of the political process and out of of the elected representative hands.

That is what it was, ares. Those that wanted abortion were free to petition their legislators to allow it in their state. The Court took that democratic process away for issue.

so what you're saying is that we really shouldn't have a supreme court to decide constitutionality cases because they can't possibly know what the intentions of the writers of the constitution were?

No. I am saying they need to know the intentions of the writers of the Constition, which just isn't the founding fathers but those that have written the subsequent amendments. There are tools for knowing what the intent was. For instance there is the Federalis Papers, there is socila and political history and in regards to later amendments there is legislative history.

Knowing history is nice and all, and it would be good to make an informed decision. Have an idea of what has led up to that point. But we live in a different world compared to that which our Founding Fathers lived. We have to take that into account when making decisions. We can't live totally in the past, we have to look at the present and the future.

Knowing history is nice and all, and it would be good to make an informed decision. Have an idea of what has led up to that point. But we live in a different world compared to that which our Founding Fathers lived. We have to take that into account when making decisions. No we do not.We can't live totally in the past, we have to look at the present and the future.

the constitution was not written in a vaccum. it was designed to give certain powers to the federal government while limiting other powers. It was written to resolve specific problems and conflicts. It was passed after long debate in the congress and the state legislatures. it was a democratic process. Now while times have changed that doesn't mean that it was ever intended that judges could change the meaning of the consitution because of the changing times. there is a mechanism for changing the constitutuion. if the drafters had intended to allow judges such wide powers there wouldn't have been an amendement process. What has occured is that certain judges have determined they want a certain result but know they can't get it through the political proces. That is why we have Roe v. Wade.

When the Constitution was created, what was the role of the judicial branch then? What did they envision their power to be?

and it had nothing to do with getting an interpretation that existing laws were unconstitutional? right.
where's the line at between the 2, jethro? the fact of the matter is that there is no line there. whether you regard a constitutionality decision as interpretive or legislative, there is simply no difference between the two. there cannot be one without the other.

An example of fuzzy thinking, dear. It is the kind of thing that has allowed politicians in black robes to take certain issues out of the democratic process. There is a line. In general it comes down to whether the decision sets genral policy or simply decides the case at hand. Roe v. Wade is a clear example of the former.

When the Constitution was created, what was the role of the judicial branch then? What did they envision their power to be?

Start with Article III of the Cosntitution. You could then do research on the courts at common law in England and the colonies.

From what I can tell, they can affect law. Unless I'm interpreting the Constitution wrong.

how is that any different from the pledge of allegiance case? its gonna get heard by scotus, and there's gonna be policy set by it. instead of defining the line where abortion may or may not be allowed, its gonna decide the line where religion may or may not be allowed. and if you think all it will do is decide the case at hand, i have a couple of bridges and some swamp land for sale dirt cheap.

Of course cases will have some affect on the actions of individuals. People in similar situations would be prudent to consider the guideleines of the case before taking subsequent action. The difference, however, is fairly clear. The Supreme Court if it get the pledge case will interpret the case based on the language of the first amendment. (they will include some prior case law that disregarded the intent of the drafters of the Constituion and ignored history in their deliberations.) But the difference seems to be that in Roe v, Wade Blackmun cobbled together different aspects of the constituion that didn't mean what he claimed it meant to get the decision that he wanted. In other words he put on the facade of interpretative decision but anyone that looks at it with a critical eye knows that it wasn't interprative.

This critical eye you are using... is it being totally unbiased, or are you interpreting the interpretive ruling? I mean, if you have a problem with the ruling, aren't you just going to be picking it apart for anything wrong with it? So I have to wonder about your "critical eye"

The Court's opinion brings to the decision of this troubling question both extensive historical fact and a wealth of legal scholarship. While the opinion thus commands my respect, I find myself nonetheless in fundamental disagreement with those parts of it that invalidate the Texas statute in question, and therefore dissent.

I
The Court's opinion decides that a State may impose virtually no restriction on the performance of abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy. Our previous decisions indicate that a necessary predicate for such an opinion is a plaintiff who was in her first trimester of pregnancy at some time during the pendency of her law-suit. While a party may vindicate his own constitutional rights, he may not seek vindication for the rights of others. Moose Lodge v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163 (1972); Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972). The Court's statement of facts in this case makes clear, however, that the record in no way indicates the presence of such a plaintiff. We know only that plaintiff Roe at the time of filing her complaint was a pregnant woman; for aught that appears in this record, she may have been in her last trimester of pregnancy as of the date the complaint was filed.

Nothing in the Court's opinion indicates that Texas might not constitutionally apply its proscription of abortion as written to a woman in that stage of pregnancy. Nonetheless, the Court uses her complaint against the Texas statute as a fulcrum for deciding that States may [410 U.S. 113, 172] impose virtually no restrictions on medical abortions performed during the first trimester of pregnancy. In deciding such a hypothetical lawsuit, the Court departs from the longstanding admonition that it should never "formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied." Liverpool, New York & Philadelphia S. S. Co. v. Commissioners of Emigration, 113 U.S. 33, 39 (1885). See also Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 345 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring).

II
Even if there were a plaintiff in this case capable of litigating the issue which the Court decides, I would reach a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Court. I have difficulty in concluding, as the Court does, that the right of "privacy" is involved in this case. Texas, by the statute here challenged, bars the performance of a medical abortion by a licensed physician on a plaintiff such as Roe. A transaction resulting in an operation such as this is not "private" in the ordinary usage of that word. Nor is the "privacy" that the Court finds here even a distant relative of the freedom from searches and seizures protected by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which the Court has referred to as embodying a right to privacy. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).

If the Court means by the term "privacy" no more than that the claim of a person to be free from unwanted state regulation of consensual transactions may be a form of "liberty" protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, there is no doubt that similar claims have been upheld in our earlier decisions on the basis of that liberty. I agree with the statement of MR. JUSTICE STEWART in his concurring opinion that the "liberty," against deprivation of which without due process the Fourteenth [410 U.S. 113, 173] Amendment protects, embraces more than the rights found in the Bill of Rights. But that liberty is not guaranteed absolutely against deprivation, only against deprivation without due process of law. The test traditionally applied in the area of social and economic legislation is whether or not a law such as that challenged has a rational relation to a valid state objective. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483, 491 (1955). The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment undoubtedly does place a limit, albeit a broad one, on legislative power to enact laws such as this. If the Texas statute were to prohibit an abortion even where the mother's life is in jeopardy, I have little doubt that such a statute would lack a rational relation to a valid state objective under the test stated in Williamson, supra. But the Court's sweeping invalidation of any restrictions on abortion during the first trimester is impossible to justify under that standard, and the conscious weighing of competing factors that the Court's opinion apparently substitutes for the established test is far more appropriate to a legislative judgment than to a judicial one.

The Court eschews the history of the Fourteenth Amendment in its reliance on the "compelling state interest" test. See Weber v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 406 U.S. 164, 179 (1972) (dissenting opinion). But the Court adds a new wrinkle to this test by transposing it from the legal considerations associated with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to this case arising under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Unless I misapprehend the consequences of this transplanting of the "compelling state interest test," the Court's opinion will accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of leaving this area of the law more confused than it found it. [410 U.S. 113, 174]

While the Court's opinion quotes from the dissent of Mr. Justice Holmes in Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 74 (1905), the result it reaches is more closely attuned to the majority opinion of Mr. Justice Peckham in that case. As in Lochner and similar cases applying substantive due process standards to economic and social welfare legislation, the adoption of the compelling state interest standard will inevitably require this Court to examine the legislative policies and pass on the wisdom of these policies in the very process of deciding whether a particular state interest put forward may or may not be "compelling." The decision here to break pregnancy into three distinct terms and to outline the permissible restrictions the State may impose in each one, for example, partakes more of judicial legislation than it does of a determination of the intent of the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The fact that a majority of the States reflecting, after all, the majority sentiment in those States, have had restrictions on abortions for at least a century is a strong indication, it seems to me, that the asserted right to an abortion is not "so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental," Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105 (1934). Even today, when society's views on abortion are changing, the very existence of the debate is evidence that the "right" to an abortion is not so universally accepted as the appellant would have us believe.

To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment. As early as 1821, the first state law dealing directly with abortion was enacted by the Connecticut Legislature. Conn. Stat., Tit. 22, 14, 16. By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth [410 U.S. 113, 175] Amendment in 1868, there were at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures limiting abortion. 1 While many States have amended or updated [410 U.S. 113, 176] their laws, 21 of the laws on the books in 1868 remain in effect today. 2 Indeed, the Texas statute struck down today was, as the majority notes, first enacted in 1857 [410 U.S. 113, 177] and "has remained substantially unchanged to the present time." Ante, at 119.

There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. The only conclusion possible from this history is that the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter.

III
Even if one were to agree that the case that the Court decides were here, and that the enunciation of the substantive constitutional law in the Court's opinion were proper, the actual disposition of the case by the Court is still difficult to justify. The Texas statute is struck down in toto, even though the Court apparently concedes that at later periods of pregnancy Texas might impose these selfsame statutory limitations on abortion. My understanding of past practice is that a statute found [410 U.S. 113, 178] to be invalid as applied to a particular plaintiff, but not unconstitutional as a whole, is not simply "struck down" but is, instead, declared unconstitutional as applied to the fact situation before the Court. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886); Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576 (1969).

This critical eye you are using... is it being totally unbiased, or are you interpreting the interpretive ruling? I mean, if you have a problem with the ruling, aren't you just going to be picking it apart for anything wrong with it? So I have to wonder about your "critical eye"

Do you see anything in the constitution that states that abortions can be had in the first trimester and not the second or third? If it is a fundamental right why not? it was pure legislation nothing else.

and if it bases its decision on the language of the first amendment ("congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...", which thanks to the 14th amendment can just as easily read "neither congress nor any other legislative body shall make a law respecting an establishment of religion...", and i'm not gonna think about looking up any case law it may use), it'll uphold the circuit court decision. which i think we both agree would be a very very bad thing. I think it will not uphold the decision under any circumstances. They'll do what they have to to make it so. The fact remain saying "under God" establishes nothing.

what's so wrong with cobbling together pieces of the constitution? They were cobbled together to say something it doesn't say and was never intended to say.if a law is contradictory to it, its unconstitutional. What a moronic statement. You are saying if anyone can use any of the clauses to come up with something never imagined by anyone else the court has the power to invalidate any state laaw. That wasn't the intent of the constittuion. The Constituion is the rules of government that limits the power of the feds. The document was never intended to allow the federal government to do what ever it wants. If people didn't like the abortion laws they had the ability to elect legislators that would change the law. The Court took this LIBERTY away.it doesn't matter if its contrary to one amendment or all 27. the underlying fact is that you can't handle that the criminal abortion portions of the texas penal code as they stood in 1970 were found to violate a woman's right to privacy under the united states constitution, and thus struck down. and because of that, the decision was legislating from the bench. It was legislating because it was a value judgment and not an interpretation of the constitution. Read the post of the dissent to Roe I posted above. It expalins quite well that the privacy concerns of Blackmun were supported by the constituion. Banning abortion is not a search or seizure. Second the "liberty" Blackmun stated was one in which he and a few cronies determined was liberty and did not take into account that the 14th Amendment was directed toward protecting newly freed slaves and had nothing to do with abortion.

MR. JUSTICE WHITE

At the heart of the controversy in these cases are those recurring pregnancies that pose no danger whatsoever to the life or health of the mother but are, nevertheless, unwanted for any one or more of a variety of reasons - convenience, family planning, economics, dislike of children, the embarrassment of illegitimacy, etc. The common claim before us is that for any one of such reasons, or for no reason at all, and without asserting or claiming any threat to life or health, any woman is entitled to an abortion at her request if she is able to find a medical advisor willing to undertake the procedure.

The Court for the most part sustains this position: During the period prior to the time the fetus becomes viable, the Constitution of the United States values the convenience, whim, or caprice of the putative mother more than the life or potential life of the fetus; the Constitution, therefore, guarantees the right to an abortion as against any state law or policy seeking to protect the fetus from an abortion not prompted by more compelling reasons of the mother.

With all due respect, I dissent. I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers [410 U.S. 179, 222] and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the mother, on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but in my view its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.

The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries. Whether or not I might agree with that marshaling of values, I can in no event join the Court's judgment because I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States. In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court's exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it. This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs.

It is my view, therefore, that the Texas statute is not constitutionally infirm because it denies abortions to those who seek to serve only their convenience rather than to protect their life or health. Nor is this plaintiff, who claims no threat to her mental or physical health, entitled to assert the possible rights of those women [410 U.S. 179, 223] whose pregnancy assertedly implicates their health. This, together with United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62 (1971), dictates reversal of the judgment of the District Court.

Likewise, because Georgia may constitutionally forbid abortions to putative mothers who, like the plaintiff in this case, do not fall within the reach of 26-1202 (a) of its criminal code, I have no occasion, and the District Court had none, to consider the constitutionality of the procedural requirements of the Georgia statute as applied to those pregnancies posing substantial hazards to either life or health. I would reverse the judgment of the District Court in the Georgia case.

Blacmun wrote:

Three reasons have been advanced to explain historically the enactment of criminal abortion laws in the 19th century and to justify their continued existence. [410 U.S. 113, 148]

It has been argued occasionally that these laws were the product of a Victorian social concern to discourage illicit sexual conduct. Texas, however, does not advance this justification in the present case, and it appears that no court or commentator has taken the argument seriously. 42 The appellants and amici contend, moreover, that this is not a proper state purpose at all and suggest that, if it were, the Texas statutes are overbroad in protecting it since the law fails to distinguish between married and unwed mothers.

A second reason is concerned with abortion as a medical procedure. When most criminal abortion laws were first enacted, the procedure was a hazardous one for the woman. 43 This was particularly true prior to the [410 U.S. 113, 149] development of antisepsis. Antiseptic techniques, of course, were based on discoveries by Lister, Pasteur, and others first announced in 1867, but were not generally accepted and employed until about the turn of the century. Abortion mortality was high. Even after 1900, and perhaps until as late as the development of antibiotics in the 1940's, standard modern techniques such as dilation and curettage were not nearly so safe as they are today. Thus, it has been argued that a State's real concern in enacting a criminal abortion law was to protect the pregnant woman, that is, to restrain her from submitting to a procedure that placed her life in serious jeopardy.

Modern medical techniques have altered this situation. Appellants and various amici refer to medical data indicating that abortion in early pregnancy, that is, prior to the end of the first trimester, although not without its risk, is now relatively safe. Mortality rates for women undergoing early abortions, where the procedure is legal, appear to be as low as or lower than the rates for normal childbirth. 44 Consequently, any interest of the State in protecting the woman from an inherently hazardous procedure, except when it would be equally dangerous for her to forgo it, has largely disappeared. Of course, important state interests in the areas of health and medical standards do remain. [410 U.S. 113, 150] The State has a legitimate interest in seeing to it that abortion, like any other medical procedure, is performed under circumstances that insure maximum safety for the patient. This interest obviously extends at least to the performing physician and his staff, to the facilities involved, to the availability of after-care, and to adequate provision for any complication or emergency that might arise. The prevalence of high mortality rates at illegal "abortion mills" strengthens, rather than weakens, the State's interest in regulating the conditions under which abortions are performed. Moreover, the risk to the woman increases as her pregnancy continues. Thus, the State retains a definite interest in protecting the woman's own health and safety when an abortion is proposed at a late stage of pregnancy.

The third reason is the State's interest - some phrase it in terms of duty - in protecting prenatal life. Some of the argument for this justification rests on the theory that a new human life is present from the moment of conception. 45 The State's interest and general obligation to protect life then extends, it is argued, to prenatal life. Only when the life of the pregnant mother herself is at stake, balanced against the life she carries within her, should the interest of the embryo or fetus not prevail. Logically, of course, a legitimate state interest in this area need not stand or fall on acceptance of the belief that life begins at conception or at some other point prior to live birth. In assessing the State's interest, recognition may be given to the less rigid claim that as long as at least potential life is involved, the State may assert interests beyond the protection of the pregnant woman alone. [410 U.S. 113, 151]

Parties challenging state abortion laws have sharply disputed in some courts the contention that a purpose of these laws, when enacted, was to protect prenatal life. 46 Pointing to the absence of legislative history to support the contention, they claim that most state laws were designed solely to protect the woman. Because medical advances have lessened this concern, at least with respect to abortion in early pregnancy, they argue that with respect to such abortions the laws can no longer be justified by any state interest. There is some scholarly support for this view of original purpose. 47 The few state courts called upon to interpret their laws in the late 19th and early 20th centuries did focus on the State's interest in protecting the woman's health rather than in preserving the embryo and fetus. 48 Proponents of this view point out that in many States, including Texas, 49 by statute or judicial interpretation, the pregnant woman herself could not be prosecuted for self-abortion or for cooperating in an abortion performed upon her by another. 50 They claim that adoption of the "quickening" distinction through received common [410 U.S. 113, 152] law and state statutes tacitly recognizes the greater health hazards inherent in late abortion and impliedly repudiates the theory that life begins at conception.

It is with these interests, and the weight to be attached to them, that this case is concerned.

What does this have to do with Constitutionality? Nothing. It is the predicate for his legislative act.

Blacmun wrote: The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy.

Well he got something right.

Blackmun wrote:

The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will consider in consultation.

This is a moral issue and should have been left for legislatures to determine. It is not a constitutional basis for the result.

On the basis of elements such as these, appellant and some amici argue that the woman's right is absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses. With this we do not agree. Appellant's arguments that Texas either has no valid interest at all in regulating the abortion decision, or no interest strong enough to support any limitation upon the woman's sole determination, are unpersuasive. The [410 U.S. 113, 154] Court's decisions recognizing a right of privacy also acknowledge that some state regulation in areas protected by that right is appropriate. As noted above, a State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision. The privacy right involved, therefore, cannot be said to be absolute. In fact, it is not clear to us that the claim asserted by some amici that one has an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases bears a close relationship to the right of privacy previously articulated in the Court's decisions. The Court has refused to recognize an unlimited right of this kind in the past. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) (vaccination); Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927) (sterilization).

We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation.

Ah Solomon did split the baby!

With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling" point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion [410 U.S. 113, 164] during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

What is this paragraph but evidence that Blackmun was legislating? Viability wasn't issue brought up by the state. What seems ironic is that while Blackmun stating abortion is a liberty he was imposing his own limitation upon abortion.