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Originally Posted by gldstwmn
Take off the blinders.  You know who and what we're dealing with here. Check out "Connor's Law." I'm assuming you're unaware of it. |
I know that. I am just saying that this case does not violate Roe in the slightest. Will it be used to go into the first trimester. Who knows. I am sure the far religious right will try and do so.
Interstingly and in the abstract, it is a woman's right to choose that is the issue, then the state could call it murder if someone else terminates the pregnancy at any time via murder. The Court never said it was not a life during the first trimester - they actually dodged that exact question to wit:
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In view of all this, we do not agree that, by adopting one theory of life, Texas may override the rights of the pregnant woman that are at stake. We repeat, however, that the State does have an important and legitimate interest in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman, whether she be a resident of the State or a nonresident who seeks medical consultation and treatment there, and that it has still another important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life. These interests are separate and distinct. Each grows in substantiality as the woman approaches term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes "compelling."
With respect to the State's important and legitimate 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. This is so because of the now-established medical fact, referred to above at 149, that until the end of the first trimester mortality in abortion may be less than mortality in normal childbirth. It follows that, from and after this point, a State may regulate the abortion procedure to the extent that the regulation reasonably relates to the preservation and protection of maternal health. Examples of permissible state regulation in this area are requirements as to the qualifications of the person who is to perform the abortion; as to the licensure of that person; as to the facility in which the procedure is to be performed, that is, whether it must be a hospital or may be a clinic or some other place of less-than-hospital status; as to the licensing of the facility; and the like.
This means, on the other hand, that, for the period of pregnancy prior to this "compelling" point, the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, without regulation by the State, that, in his medical judgment, the patient's pregnancy should be terminated. If that decision is reached, the judgment may be effectuated by an abortion free of interference by the State.
With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling" point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.
Measured against these standards, Art. 1196 of the Texas Penal Code, in restricting legal abortions to those "procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother," sweeps too broadly. The statute makes no distinction between abortions performed early in pregnancy and those performed later, and it limits to a single reason, "saving" the mother's life, the legal justification for the procedure. The statute, therefore, cannot survive the constitutional attack made upon it here.
http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Roe/
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So, the state could legally charge someone with murder of a fetus and not violate Roe. In other words, all the Court protected in Roe was the right to privacy of the mother, it never flat out says in the first trimester the fetus is not a life nor does it give any right to provacy to a murderer as in the Peterson case
Note: I am not saying the far religious right will not misuse this. I am just saying that the law does not and cannot violate Roe in reality or in spirit.