ROE v. WADE
410 U.S. 113 (1973)

STATEMENT OF THE CASE:

The Procedural Road from State Courts to the Supreme Court Appeal:

In 1970, Norma McCorvey, a pregnant single woman, sought to terminate her pregnancy however, she was unable to do so because in her home state of Dallas, Texas, abortion was illegal with the exception of extreme cases of medical necessity, not applicable to her. McCorvey, using the name “Jane Roe” as an alias, filed suit at the district level against Henry Wade, the District Attorney for Dallas County, Texas, challenging the constitutionality of the Texas state laws prohibiting abortions and seeking an injunction against its enforcement, (in other words, the Appellant asked the court to forbid the district attorney from prosecuting anyone else under the Texas abortion law in the future). The district court ruled in favor of McCorvey, but ultimately failed to resolve the matter in a practical sense by refusing to issue an injunction to prevent the existing legislation from being enforced. Due to the district court’s refusal to enjoin future prosecutions for abortion, Roe and her attorneys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and the case was granted certiorari. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court, however, McCorvey had already given birth, but the Court entertained the case anyway, reasoning that if the traditional standards of mootness and the exclusion of advisory opinions were upheld, no pregnant Plaintiff could ever successfully litigate a similar claim before being precluded by mootness.
Issues Presented: Do the Texas statutes improperly invade a right possessed by the Appellant, Jane Roe to terminate her pregnancy, embodied in the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause or among the rights reserved to the people by the 9th Amendment?

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

Firstly, should women have their own right to abortion or should this decision be left to the states? In using the term “all persons,” as stated in the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, applicable to the unborn? Is it the states responsibility to protect prenatal life? Does the Appellant have and/or possess standing in this case? If the Supreme Court were to reverse the decision founded by the lower court then wouldn’t the Court itself simply distort the purpose and the legal weight of state criminal abortion statutes? Was the Fourteenth Amendment not created with the intention of creating any kind of new rights?

ARGUMENT

Women should not have their own right to abortion and this decision should be left to the states. Although very vague and broad in its context, with respect to the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, it provides that, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Whereby, every unborn fetus, including a fetus that was just fertilized and one that consists of only four cells of human tissue is and should be protected as a person under the protection of the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution and all its incorporated Constitutional Amendments. It is the states responsibility to protect that prenatal life. A fetus, is a person and there is a compelling state interest in the safeguarding and protection of the life of an unborn child. Not only is it imperative for the state to obtain the responsibility of any child, born or unborn, but the state has a responsibility to the mother of that unborn child as well… that is to make sure that the mother is supplying the basic needs of the unborn child. In the case of Jane Roe, already a single mother of two children, by giving her approval to create life and then to destroy it, we are setting the same example for every woman to be able to engage in intercourse whenever she desires without understanding it’s unfortunate consequences, and that unfortunate consequence is the destruction of a life… a life that can be the next president, or even a life that can cure cancer. In further argument to the fourteenth amendment, the fourteenth amendment was certainly not intended to create any new rights, but instead, it was to secure all persons, (notably including freed slaves and their descendants), the rights and the liberties already guaranteed by the Constitution, whereby the fourteenth amendment was not created in order to protect a privacy interest in abortion. Secondly, in using the application of the case of Griswold v. Connecticut 381 U.S. 479 (1965), the landmark ruling on the ninth amendment and the right of privacy, wherein the issue here was the fear of government intruding into the marital bedroom by searching for evidence of contraceptive use, nevertheless, the landmark ruling cannot share a connection to this instant case due to the fact that however closely contraception and abortion may result in a cause and effect linkage, they are two completely different concepts, largely separated in terms of privacy. Contraceptives take place in the marital home whereas abortions do not. Abortions do not take place in a marital home and/or bedroom instead, abortions take place in medical facilities wherein the act of abortion is not between husband and wife and instead abortion involves medical personnel. To allow and/or apply a privacy right as big as abortion would essentially allow any action being done behind closed doors such as child abuse and the use of illegal drugs, giving people the excuse that it was done behind closed doors and the public was in no way harmed and/or affected by it. Thirdly, with respect to standing, this case should be dismissed in its entirety based on the mere fact that more than enough time has elapsed since the Appellant has given birth to the time this instant case was brought into suit. Moreover, there is no standing on this case because there is no personal injury that was placed upon the Appellant and the issues the Appellant had with respect to not having the responsibility to care for her child have been solved by means of the Appellant giving up her child for adoption. Lastly, if the decision of the lower court be reversed, then we would be stripping away the mere existence of laws and their purpose, particularly the foundation for which the abortion laws themselves were created in the 19th century. The sole purpose of the abortion laws alone were created in order to protect and to preserve a greater protection to unborn children, and to permit mothers to obtain an abortion only in particular situations, including but not limited to, extreme medical necessity (if the pregnancy possesses some type of danger to the mother), rape and/or incest. Therefore, if reversed, prior laws on banning abortion would have outlived their purpose.

CONCLUSION
In closing, the Appellees ask the Court to affirm the decision made by the lower Court for the aforementioned reasons.

WORKS CITED
Mason, Alpheus Thomas, and D. Grier. Stephenson. "Roe v. Wade." American Constitutional Law: Introductory Essays and Selected Cases. Upper Saddle River, [N.J.: Longman, 2012. Print.

O'Brien, David M. "Roe v. Wade." Constitutional Law and Politics. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2008. Print.

"Roe v. Wade: Information from Answers.com." Answers.com: Wiki Q&A Combined with Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Encyclopedias. Web. 02 Nov. 2011. <http://www.answers.com/topic/roe-v-wade-3>.

Roe v. Wade | The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law." The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law | A Multimedia Archive of the Supreme Court of the United States. Web. 01 Nov. 2011. <http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1971/1971_70_18>.

Hartman, Gary, Mersky, Roy, M., and Cindy L. Tate. Landmark Supreme Court Decisions, (New York: Checkmark Books, 2007).