ABORTION AND TEENAGE PREGNANCY
In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court issued an unprecedented ruling. Abortion, it said, is virtually a private
matter for the woman to decide. "This right of privacy . . . is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision
whether or not to terminate her pregnancy" (Roe v. Wade, slip opinion, pp. 37-38). Beginning in the fourth
month of pregnancy, the Court held, the state could impose some health restrictions on the performance of
abortion, if it chose to do so, and in the sixth or perhaps seventh month it could-if it so chose-extend some
protection to the "potential human life" in the mother's womb (full rights of human personhood are not to be
recognized by the law until at least birth). But, whether in the third, sixth, or ninth month of pregnancy, the
private right of the woman to obtain an abortion is always paramount.
The Court's tragic decision is based on two fundamental errors:
First, the life of the unborn child is assigned a moral value......
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