ROE MUST GO
#RoeMustGo

(a thread)

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)

This case demonstrates the Court backtracking, not just to recognize the personhood of unborn children, but also to recognize a state government's right to interfere in abortion at an earlier stage. 1/?

In doing this, it destroys Roe's underlying logic. The Casey decision begins by claiming to uphold Roe, saying:

"We are led to conclude this: the essential holding of Roe v. Wade should be retained..."

Yet the Casey court did not leave Roe "essentially" intact. 2/?

The Roe court had decided what it felt was the proper time at which a state would be enabled to interfere with a woman's "right" to an abortion, thus: 3/?

"With respect to the State's important interest in the health of the mother the 'compelling' point, in the light of present medical knowledge, is at approximately the end of the first trimester." 4/?

The court continued:

"This is so because of the now-established medical fact... that until the end of the first trimester, mortality in abortion may be less than in normal childbirth." 5/?

In other words, the Roe court would allow no interference with abortion during the first trimester.

However, Casey overrules this, stating: 6/?

"A necessary reconciliation of the liberty of the woman and the interest of the State in promoting prenatal life, require, in our view, that we abandon the trimester framework." 7/?

In saying this (abandoning the trimester system), the Casey court recognized the medical advances that had changed the court's view of prenatal life:

"We have seen how time has overtaken some of Roe's factual assumptions... advances in neonatal care have advanced viability." 8/?

Thus, in one stroke, the court acknowledges changed assumptions about human life due to medical advances, and sets a new standard for a state's compelling interest in the unborn life. 9/?

It essentially says that:

(1) The state always has some interest in human life and,

(2) That the interest becomes especially important once the baby reaches the point of viability (the ability of the baby to survive outside of the womb). 10/?

The problem for pro-choice advocates is that this new standard is likely to continue pushing a state's 'compelling state interest in prenatal life' closer and closer to the point of conception. 11/?

This is because, according to the court itself, viability, and thus the point at which states can regulate abortion, will be pushed ever to earlier points in the pregnancy by the inevitable advances of medical science. 12/?

But the Casey court goes further than merely acknowledging a new ever-changing scale for abortion rights based purely on medical advances.

It essentially states that it is overruling the trimester framework *because it was wrong from the start.* 13/?

In doing so, it clearly overrules Roe, even thought the Casey court (as already noted) denies it is doing so.

This is the key passage from the Casey decision:

"... there is a substantial state interest in potential life throughout pregnancy."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/833 14/?

This is, by itself, a large step in the direction of acknowledging the personhood of the unborn child (or perhaps it even does tacitly recognize it) and, just as importantly, the right of states to recognize it. 15/15