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Lawyer says Bush seeks to overturn Roe-Wade
djournal.com ^ | 4/11/02

Posted on 04/12/2002 2:12:13 PM PDT by nickcarraway

Lawyer says Bush seeks to overturn Roe-Wade

The Associated Press

COLUMBUS -- An attorney who won the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case says she fears President Bush will appoint judges to the U.S. Supreme Court with a goal of overturning the decision.

Sarah Weddington spoke Tuesday at Mississippi University for Women in Columbus.

Weddington said possible retirements of sitting Supreme Court justices and appointments of replacements by Bush could tilt the judicial scales against the ruling she won on Jan. 22, 1973. The decision made abortion a legally protected right in many circumstances.

"Bush has said that he will appoint conservative judges to any vacancies," Weddington said. "I think that is his code for somebody against Roe v. Wade ... Attorney General John Ashcroft has said if he does anything, he wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade. I'm very worried."

Weddington said Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas want to overturn the ruling. Justices Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stephens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg wish to keep the ruling in effect, she said. The other justices, Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter, want to keep the ruling but weaken it, Weddington said.

Roe v. Wade was a class action lawsuit filed by Weddington on behalf of Norma McCorvey, who was listed in the suit as Jane Roe. McCorvey sought to overturn Texas law that allowed abortions only to save the life of a mother at a time when birth control was not as easily available as today. The suit was filed against Henry Wade, Dallas County district attorney, who was charged in that capacity with enforcing the abortion law.

Weddington said her involvement was almost an accident.

"If you had asked me, I wouldn't have said that I would be arguing before the Supreme Court," Weddington said. "I had never practiced in trial law. But I was asked to help, and I knew how to research."

In 1995, McCorvey converted to Christianity, renounced her previous pro-abortion stance and became an activist in the pro-life movement.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections; US: Ohio
KEYWORDS: abortion; law; prolife
The last paragraph is somewhat misleading. McCorvey became pro-life before she became a Christian. Weddington's statements also appear to be misleading.
1 posted on 04/12/2002 2:12:13 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway
Bush may not but maybe these two can:

The two women who were the original plaintiffs in the 1973 Supreme Court cases that made abortion legal in the U.S. throughout all nine months of pregnancy, Norma McCorvey (former "Roe" of Roe v. Wade) and Sandra Cano (former "Doe" of Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe)... ... are preparing to bring suit to REVERSE Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton!

2 posted on 04/12/2002 2:19:21 PM PDT by mdittmar
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To: nickcarraway
Attorney General John Ashcroft has said if he does anything, he wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

When and where did the AG say this? Anybody?

3 posted on 04/12/2002 2:22:40 PM PDT by Bigg Red
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To: mdittmar
I am curious how this is progressing, or if it has even started.
4 posted on 04/12/2002 2:48:28 PM PDT by rwfromkansas
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To: nickcarraway
Wishful thinking.
5 posted on 04/12/2002 2:50:37 PM PDT by Saundra Duffy
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To: nickcarraway
Lawyer says Bush seeks to overturn Roe-Wade -Good for Bush!
6 posted on 04/12/2002 2:59:01 PM PDT by Free_at_last_-2001
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To: rwfromkansas
Here's the latest I could find, may have to ask for an update by email.
7 posted on 04/12/2002 3:03:33 PM PDT by mdittmar
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To: nickcarraway
The biggest reason ROE V WADE is wrong is that it is a FRAUD on the Constitution

There is absolutely nothing in the document that gives a woman a right to an abortion nor is there anything that prohibits it.

Just as there is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits MURDER

Those laws were reserved for the STATES
8 posted on 04/12/2002 4:02:52 PM PDT by uncbob
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To: mdittmar
Seems like I remember Sarah Weddington has a baby out of wedlock prior to Roe v Wade. Thus the vendetta.
9 posted on 04/12/2002 4:12:30 PM PDT by dix
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To: uncbob
Here is the constitutional basis for Roe v Wade:

AMENDMENT IX

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The right to privacy, to control ones own body is "retained by the people."

One of fallacies of Justice Blackburn's logic, in his penned majority opinion, is that he arbitrarily decided that life begins after the first tri-mester and thus the fetus was not human life until after that time period.

I emphasize "arbitrary."

This declaration is preposterous. What else can the combination of a woman's egg and a man's sperm be? A horse? A rat? A chesseburger? Fecal matter?

No, the combination can only be a "human" embryo, which can only be a human being.

The other fallacy was Blackburn's declaration that this non-human embryo was part of woman's body, in which she has exclusive control over.

Again, it does not take much logical ability to deduce that an embryo, a human, cannot be produced, exclusively by a woman, and that the developing embryo is only a "temporary" inhabitant of woman's body, not a permanent part of her body, such as a kidney, lung, arm, eye, etc., in which she would have exclusive control.

10 posted on 04/12/2002 5:34:00 PM PDT by tahiti
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To: nickcarraway
I wish...
11 posted on 04/12/2002 7:40:15 PM PDT by splach78
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To: nickcarraway
Lawyer says Bush seeks to overturn Roe-Wade

On this issue I live to be proven wrong, but I don't think the "uniter, not a divder" has any thought, clue, or intention regarding the reversal of Roe.

12 posted on 04/12/2002 8:09:41 PM PDT by Old Fud
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To: tahiti
Agree wholeheartedly w/ your post...don't mean to nitpick, but wasn't it Blackmun? (from Minn., now presumed burning).

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Regards.

13 posted on 04/12/2002 8:14:28 PM PDT by Old Fud
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