'Roe' files to overturn high-court ruling

WorldNetDaily ^ | June 17, 2003 | Art Moore

[scripter]

The woman known as "Roe" in the historic Supreme Court case that legalized abortion is filing a motion in federal court today to overturn the 1973 decision.

The Roe v. Wade ruling should be set aside because of changes in law and new research that make the prior decision "no longer just," argues Allan E. Parker, Jr., lead attorney for the San Antonio, Texas-based Justice Foundation.

Norma McCorvey

Parker is representing the former "Jane Roe," Norma McCorvey, who has the right to petition for reopening the case because she was party to the original litigation.

McCorvey announced in 1995 she had become a Christian and now has a pro-life ministry called Roe No More.

"I long for the day that justice will be done and the burden from all of these deaths will be removed from my shoulders," McCorvey said in a statement. "I want to do everything in my power to help women and their children. The issue is justice for women, justice for the unborn, and justice for what is right."

McCorvey will ask for a reversal of the judgment today at the Dallas federal court.

In an interview with WorldNetDaily two years ago, McCorvey said she was "used" by pro-abortion attorneys in their quest to legalize the procedure.

Seeking an abortion at the age of 21, McCorvey made up a story that she had been raped. She was put in touch with two attorneys who aimed to challenge the Texas abortion statute.

"Plain and simple, I was used," she said. "I was a nobody to them. They only needed a pregnant woman to use for their case, and that is it. They cared, not about me, but only about legalizing abortion. Even after the case, I was never respected – probably because I was not an Ivy League-educated, liberal feminist like they were."

New evidence

Parker notes the Supreme Court has overturned its own precedents, citing the 1997 Agostini v. Felton decision in which the high court used a post-judgment motion by a party to overturn two 12-year-old precedents.

The legal question in the case, he said, is, "Is it just to continue giving Roe v. Wade future application?"

He asserts three major arguments for reopening and overturning the case:

• The Roe v. Wade decision deprived women of protection from dangerous abortions and exposed them to a much greater risk of being pressured into unwanted abortions. Studies, he says, indicate between 30 and 60 percent of abortions result from the pregnant woman submitting to pressure from her male partner, parents, physicians or others.

  Parker will present affidavits from more than 1,000 women who testify having an abortion has had devastating emotional, physical and psychological effects. This is 1,000 times more evidence than presented in the original case, he says. Also, new scientific evidence indicates abortion is associated with more physical and psychological complications for women than were known about in 1973. In contrast, there have been no scientific studies measuring any significant benefits abortion has produced in women's lives.

• While the question, "When does life begin?" was treated as an unanswered philosophical question in 1973, "an explosion of scientific evidence on human life" since then "conclusively answers the question that life begins at conception," Parker argues.

• Under a 1999 law, Texas provides for any woman's unwanted child from birth to 18 years of age with no questions asked, which means women should no longer be forced to dispose of "unwanted" children by ending a human life, insists Parker. Forty states have similar "Baby Moses" laws.

"The result of granting the motion would be to set aside and annul Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, its companion case," Parker explained. "This would return the issue of protecting women and children to the people with Baby Moses laws serving as a safety net."

Parker and McCorvey will appear at a press conference in Dallas today along with women who will testify of abortion's harmful effects in their lives.

Ominous warning

Meanwhile, a leading abortion-rights group, NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, has launched a $3 million ad campaign to warn of a day when the Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade.

The group says the campaign coincides with recent passage of the partial-birth abortion ban by Congress and potential retirements by Supreme Court justices.

"Together these spots serve as a stark reminder of what could happen if we don't stop this tidal wave of anti-choice activity that is emanating right out of our own White House," said NARAL Pro-Choice America President Kate Michelman in a statement.

NARAL television ad

One 15-second television commercial opens with ominous music and a woman who looks in horror at a newspaper headline that reads: "Abortion outlawed, Court overturns right to choose."

The ads have begun airing on cable channels but will be shown on broadcast stations in three key states in two weeks. Iowa, Wisconsin and Oregon were chosen because they were narrowly decided in the 2000 presidential election.

During the 2000 presidential election campaign, then-President Bill Clinton said he expected Roe v. Wade to be overturned if George W. Bush won.

"If Gov. Bush gets elected, he'll appoint judges more like the ones appointed by the ... Reagan and Bush administrations," Clinton said in a National Public Radio interview. "And if they get two to four appointments on the Supreme Court, I think Roe v. Wade will be repealed."

Speculation has arisen in the last several years about departures by Rehnquist, 78, Sandra Day O'Connor, 73, and John Paul Stevens, 83.

Rehnquist has been the focus of most of the attention. But his recent decisions to hire staff for the court's next annual term, beginning in the fall, and to schedule an important hearing Sept. 8 suggest he will not be leaving soon.

[rwfromkansas]

We don't stand a chance with O'Connor on the court.

[Aric2000]

WHat's sad about that commercial is that it would be false.

It would NOT outlaw abortion ANYWHERE!!

It would allow the states to decide if they would allow it or not, and that is where it belongs!!

[rwfromkansas]

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that. When I read this article I had to REMIND MYSELF that overturning Roe just means the states get to ban it or allow it as they choose.

[rwfromkansas]

I wonder how many states would ban it today. Utah is a given. Any other states? I doubt it.

[rwfromkansas]

Couldn't she petition again once we get a new court?

[Mo1]

I'm so sorry to hear about your story. It upsets me when I hear of stories like yours ..

The NOW witches don't won't the public to hear them and will do everything in their power to stop the public from finding out the truth.

[Mo1]

When I read this article I had to REMIND MYSELF that overturning Roe just means the states get to ban it or allow it as they choose.

True .. but it is a start and it's better then nothing at all ..

[mvpel]

Ceausescu forbade birth control ...

Are you saying that that could never happen here? Connecticut forbade birth control too, prior to Griswold.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Texas might, given the recent rulings there.

[RobbyS]

Even jurists who favored the legalization of abortion, such as Ginsberg, saw the weakness of Blackman's arguments. its is proposterous that say that an Amendment intended to limit the power of the Federal government should strip the states of the power to regulate public health. As it is, a state can offer a dog more legal protection than it can an unborn child.

[Lady Eileen]

I'm so sorry to hear about your story. It upsets me when I hear of stories like yours ..

I too am sorry to hear all these stories ...I am very sad today : ( ...May God bless all of these women.

The NOW NOWAM (National Organization for Women against Motherhood) witches don't won't the public to hear them and will do everything in their power to stop the public from finding out the truth.

[TheAngryClam]

Casey.

Or the reinstatement.

[hattend]

Well, before all the casinos started popping up on Indian Reservations in justy about every state, people were going to Las Vegas/Reno/Nevada for gambling and unincorporated areas of Nevada for prostitution. Isn't that the same thing?

[Guenevere]

#166...I am so sorry.

One of my saddest memories working at the CPC was the lovely young professional woman who came in for a pregnancy test....hoping.....to be pregnant.

When told she wasn't, she broke down & through her tears told me her strongest fear.

...that because of a previous abortion, she would never be pregnant again.

I honestly don't know what happened to her....

..there were so many young women....

..we tried to comfort her the best we could.

[Bonaparte]

"The Fourth Amendment sets forth a central principle of our system of government - that government should mind its own damn business for the most part."

A central principle? Only in your own imagination. If the framers had wished to state the 4th in sweeping, general terms as you imply, they would have said so. They didn't. They very specifically stated the 4th in terms of the search and seizure of certain things.

[MHGinTN]

Is killing an already alive child in the womb a form of contraception? If Griswald is so limited in 'privacy' range to include only contraception, why is it now the foundation of the abortion holocaust? How did it get from right to practice contraception, to seek to prevent pregnancy, to right to hire a serial killer to off the alive womb-bound children?

[stands2reason]

Thanks for your kind words. You never know how something like that will be taken. I certainly don't blame this "Roe" woman; if not her, they would have found some other stooge. It's enough that she knows she was wrong and is taking steps to rectify it. It's the NARAL Ba***rds who should pay. They are literally ruining families' lives. I was going to write women instead of family, then I thought of the child my husband will never have. They hurt him, too.

[Uncle Miltie]

If you acknowledge that privacy is a "right," not a "privelege," and you acknowledge that the Ninth Amendment is binding, then you acknowledge that the Constitution reserves the right of privacy to the people regardless of whether it is specifically listed.

I do not believe privacy, food, or health care is a right in the Constitution. They could be, if we passed amendments saying so.

[RobbyS]

For the price of a bus ticket and a few dollars more in traveling money, Norma McCorvey could have had her abortion in California. The Texas law did not prosecute the mother, only the doctor. In fact the only one who got direct relief from the decision of the federal Court in Dallas was the abortionist who joined his case with hers.