Roe v. Wade at 40: Deep divide is its legacy

FILE - In this Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 file photo, people with the group "Bound 4 Life" pray for an end to abortions outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on the 39th anniversary of the court's landmark Roe vs. Wade decision which legalized abortion. / File,AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

NEW YORK By today's politically polarized standards, the Supreme Court's momentous Roe v. Wade ruling was a landslide. By a 7-2 vote on Jan. 22, 1973, the justices established a nationwide right to abortion.

Forty years and roughly 55 million abortions later, however, the ruling's legacy is the opposite of consensus. Abortion ranks as one of the most intractably divisive issues in America and is likely to remain so as rival camps of true believers see little space for common ground.

Unfolding events in two states illustrate the depth of the divide. In New York, already a bastion of liberal abortion laws, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pledged in his Jan. 9 State of the State speech to entrench those rights even more firmly. In Mississippi, where many anti-abortion laws have been enacted in recent years, the lone remaining abortion clinic is on the verge of closure because nearby hospitals won't grant obligatory admitting privileges to its doctors.

"Unlike a lot of other issues in the culture wars, this is the one in which both sides really regard themselves as civil rights activists, trying to expand the frontiers of human freedom," said Jon Shields, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. "That's a recipe for permanent conflict."

On another hot-button social issue — same-sex marriage — there's been a strong trend of increasing support in recent years, encompassing nearly all major demographic categories.

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There's been no such dramatic shift, in either direction, on abortion.

For example, a new Pew Research Center poll finds 63 percent of U.S. adults opposed to overturning Roe, compared to 60 percent in 1992. The latest Gallup poll on the topic shows 52 percent of Americans saying abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, 25 percent wanting it legal in all cases and 20 percent wanting it outlawed in all cases — roughly the same breakdown as in the 1970s.

"There's a large share of Americans for whom this is not a black-and-white issue," said Michael Dimock, the Pew center's director. "The circumstances matter to them."

Indeed, many conflicted respondents tell pollsters they support the right to legal abortion while considering it morally wrong. And a 2011 survey of 3,000 adults by the Public Religion Research Institute found many who classified themselves as both "pro-life" and "pro-choice."

Shields, like many scholars of the abortion debate, doubts a victor will emerge anytime soon.

"There are reasonable arguments on both sides, making rationally defensible moral claims," he said.

Nonetheless, the rival legions of activists and advocacy groups on the front lines of the conflict each claim momentum is on their side as they convene symposiums and organize rallies to commemorate the Roe anniversary.

Supporters of legal access to abortion were relieved by the victory of their ally, President Barack Obama, over anti-abortion Republican Mitt Romney in November.

A key reason for the relief related to the Supreme Court, whose nine justices are believed to divide 5-4 in favor of a broad right to abortion. Romney, if elected, might have been able to appoint conservative justices who could help overturn Roe v. Wade, but Obama's victory makes that unlikely at least for the next four years.

Abortion-rights groups also were heartened by a backlash to certain anti-abortion initiatives and rhetoric that they viewed as extreme.

"Until politicians feel there's a price to pay for voting against women, they will continue to do it," said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a lightning rod for conservative attacks because it's the leading abortion provider in the U.S.

In Missouri and Indiana, Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate lost races that their party initially expected to win after making widely criticized comments regarding abortion rights for impregnated rape victims. In Virginia, protests combined with mockery on late-night TV shows prompted GOP politicians to scale back a bill that would have required women seeking abortions to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound.

"All these things got Americans angry and got them to realize just how extreme the other side is," said Jennifer Dalven, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project.

"This issue will remain very divisive," she said. "But I do see this as a sea-change moment... The American public wants abortion to remain safe, legal and accessible."

However, anti-abortion leaders insist they have reason for optimism, particularly at the state level.

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[eroteme2]

55 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. This is not so bad, really, with its popularity one would think there would have been far more, like maybe 100 million abortions.

[pammmmmm]

Holy cr**! one day we will look back on what we did to so many unborn citizens and weep! "Mark my Word's".

[littlemjs]

Personally, I do believe that an embryo is a human being. So I would never be able to abort/kill another human being myself. However, Pandora's box has been opened. The ship has sailed. There is no bringing it back. Abortions are now legal, and although I don't believe they are morally right...I don't have the legal right to tell someone else not to have one. I also believe that one of the unfortunate and reprehensible side affects of making abortions legal is that some women use them as a form of birth control after the fact.

[David Hoffman100]

Some women have biochemistry that is capable of significantly reducing the effectiveness of birth control prescription drugs. Pills, shots, patches end up in failure, unintended pregnancy. The women go from one drug type to another drug type and end up with the same result, an unintended pregnancy. These women should not be viewed as using abortion as a planned birth control strategy. They tried to use what is available but the substances do not work for them. Their doctors do not have the tools to predict the failures of the prescription drugs. These women eventually switch to other methods that are effective.

[alanrobisch]

David please tell me the percentage and what excuse is this to destroy a human life. I was watching a description of the roe v wade decision and the judges decided that unborn children have no rights yet said they could not say when life begins. It seems this is a total oxymoron. If they could not tell when life begins they should not have decided they have no rights since thye didn't decide the crucial issue of when life began and in the article it says the pro choice has a moral basis for its position. What a bunch of blather. Abortion is euthanasia without the consent of the individual's life that would be destroyed nor the consent of the individual who created the child by impregnating the women

The right to abort exists because women do not want the responsibility of their own actions. At very least the abortion of a child should require a hearing and allow the father of the child a chance to voice his opinion.

[marychgo]

Why is it so impossible for anti-abortion folks to understand that most Americans don't believe that a blastocyst or an embryo or a fetus is a "person" or a "baby" or "the smallest, weakest, and most unwanted" among us? It's a collection of cells that MAY become a "person," but until it's born, it's NOT a "person." That's what science tells us. We recognize that your religion tells you something different but, under the First Amendment, you don't have the right to impose your religion on others.
No one, including Planned Parenthood, wants women to use abortion as their primary means of birth control; that's why many of us have spent years trying to expand access to contraception and effective sex education (and no, I DON'T mean "abstinence only"). We'd be thrilled if we could eliminate ALL unwanted pregnancies, so that few abortions would be needed.
But until that happy day, some pregnancies ARE going to be unwanted, and some women ARE going to choose to terminate those pregnancies. And they shouldn't have to deal with stacks of laws built by people who think that THEIR beliefs should be imposed on those who don't share those beliefs!

[thprop]

I'm pro-choice but I also have a huge respect for the fight to survive---struggle to live and not die. This act is not cellular selective nor does is it give do overs. When you have seen life slip away from a living thing, this sad observation creates a simple test for what's life and what's not. You can turn your head away,and think what you may, but I can't help but think that people who say there's not life in the womb are asking me to believe them and not not my own eyes.

[Type_Z]

Mary you are stupid.

I'm pro choice but be real about it. Sticking your head in the sand in not healthy.

Nothing about religion, it is biological. What a miracle life is and development of it. So fragile in the beginning it is protected in the mothers womb. It's heart is beating at 20 weeks. It is nourished and gets oxygen through the umbilical cord.it is dependent before and after birth.

[DadoMac]

No mention about the woman at the center of the Roe vs Wade, who told the court she was raped? She later recanted her story, admitting it was a lie. Roe vs Wade was argued in the supreme court based on a lie.

[TPAULA]

The reason for a abortion doesn't matter, just the fact that she wants one is the only reason she needs.

[matt6052]

In California, the state teachers professional board said a teacher's dismissal was legal because she was unable to be a good role model. Her private conduct was not illegal though. She was no more a bad role model than a teacher who has an abortion or one who has a divorce. She starred in films. Not a film about Abraham Lincoln that was nominated for a dozen Academy Awards though. She starred in several porn films. Because the local community did not like the content of her legal artistic expression, it demanded that she be fired from her job. Because the state has no respect for federal law, it upheld her firing.

When evaluating the conduct of employees, governments can use only secular standards of legal conduct. Only laws have been tested and approved for constitutionality in our diverse society. Everything other standard of conduct evaluation is a trojan horse for religious belief.

[skeezix06]

"I can look back at those 40 years and say without a doubt, the world is not a better place because of abortion, women are not in a better place," she says. "What it has created is a world where you're almost expected to abort if you're pregnant at an inopportune time."

I would consider that crazy talk. It assumes that women are weak minded and need to be told what to think, say, and do. It's pretty much straight out of the neo-con handbook and has not actual basis in reality.

[littlemjs]

i think she's referring to her own abortion. She's talking about her first hand experience having an abortion and she's not an advocate.

[skeezix06]

I know she's not an advocate and the comment where she says you're almost expected to abort if you're pregnant at an inopportune time is both a lie and straight out of the neo-con handbook.