VoteMatch

Abortion is a woman's unrestricted right

POSITIONS

This question is looking for your views on abortion rights in general.  However you answer the above question would be similar to your response to these statements:

How do you decide between "Support" and "Strongly Support" when you agree with both the descriptions above? (Or between "Oppose" and "Strongly Oppose"). The strong positions are generally based on matters of PRINCIPLES where the regular support and oppose positions are based on PRACTICAL matters. If you answer "No Opinion," this question is not counted in the VoteMatch answers for any candidate. If you give a general answer of Support vs. Oppose, VoteMatch can more accurately match a candidate with your stand. Don't worry so much about getting the strength of your answer exactly refined, or to think too hard about the exact wording of the question -- like candidates!

BACKGROUND

Basic terminology of the abortion debate

Roe v. Wade

The essence of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision is that Constitutional rights apply only after birth; hence abortion does not breach a person’s right to life. States cannot regulate 1st trimester abortions; states can regulate but not ban 2nd trimester abortions; and states can ban 3rd trimester abortions (as many have).

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

The “Casey” decision refers to the 1992 Supreme Court case, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. The Supreme Court upheld the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which established the right to an abortion, but allowed restrictions on abortion. The Court cited the right to privacy, as well as “stare decisis,” which means that a longstanding legal precedent should not be overturned without a good reason.

Fetal Viability

The debate on abortion generally focuses on when human life begins. The courts often focus on ‘viability’, the point at which the fetus could survive outside the womb.
- Viability naturally begins at about 6 months of pregnancy, but with modern medical advances the age of viability is pushed back substantially.
- Strong pro-life advocates believe that the fetus should be protected from the moment of conception.

Abortion Legislation

Stem Cell Research

Related Legislation

  • ‘Clinic Access’ laws refer to what pro-life protesters may and may not do at the entrances to abortion clinics, and how far away they must stay. Clinic access became an issue after several abortion clinics were bombed and several abortion doctors were shot in recent years.
  • ‘RU-486’ is a drug that induces abortion in early pregnancy. In September 2000, after 12 years of study, the FDA approved the use of RU-486 until the 7th week of pregnancy.
  • ‘Cloning’ is a rapidly advancing technology in which a fetus develops from only one parent. It has been successful in animals, and is entering trial stages with humans. Pro-life advocates generally oppose cloning on the same basis that they oppose abortion.

    Buzzwords in the abortion debate

    • Describing abortion as a health issue or as a women's rights issue is a pro-choice stance.
    • Describing abortion as a moral issue or as an issue of balancing the mother's rights with the fetus' rights, is a pro-life stance.
    • Both sides of the abortion debate attempt to define the playing-field in their favor by terminology. The pro-life name for pro-choice proponents is "pro-abortion", and the pro-choice name for pro=life proponents is "anti-choice". Using either of those charged terms defines the speaker as strongly one-sided (hence this website uses the more neutral terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice").
    • Any reference to "the rights of the unborn’ is a strong pro-life stance, as is defining life ‘from the moment of conception.’
    • Any reference to ‘the rights of the mother’ is a strong pro-choice stance, as is defining a ‘right to privacy" (between a woman and her doctor).
    • As mentioned above, the most obscure buzzword is that supporting ‘judicial activism’ implies a pro-choice stance, while supporting ‘strict constructionism’ implies a pro-life stance. In nominations for Supreme Court justices, asking this question is the archetypical ‘Litmus Test’ -- liberal Senators spent many hours questioning Clarence Thomas on whether he held a Strict Constructionist view of the Constitution (he did not admit so).
    • For serious policy wonks, the most important abortion buzzword is ‘Stare Decisis’ -- that is the basis upon which Clarence Thomas declined to rule against Roe v. Wade. Thomas meant that although he would have ruled against Roe v. Wade in 1973, he would not do so now because the 1973 Supreme Court ruling had been in force for a quarter century and hence has precedential weight.
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