Embassy of the Juridic State of Nature

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His Excellency Eurica CALIFORRNIAA
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary

Questions 4, 5, 8

Questions 4, 5, and 8 revolve around typical exceptions sometimes made by alleged defenses of the unborn. In a footnote to the opinion for the court in Roe v. Wade, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Harry A. Blackmun raised the issue of these exceptions:

When Texas urges that a fetus is entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection as a person, it faces a dilemma. Neither in Texas nor in any other State are all abortions prohibited. Despite broad proscription, an exception always exists. (Ref. 1)

In his dissenting opinion to the court, William H. Rehnquist, at the time a fellow associate of Blackmun's and now chief justice, indicated his concurrence with such exception-taking:

If the Texas statute were to prohibit an abortion even where the mother's life is in jeopardy, I have little doubt that such a statute would lack a rational relation to a valid state objective... (Ref. 2)

Blackmun took advantage of this sort of exception-taking in his effort to demonstrate why the unborn should not have the right to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment:

The exception [made by Texas], for an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, is typical. But if the fetus is a person who is not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and if the mother's condition is the sole determinant, does not the Texas exception appear to be out of line with the Amendment's command? (Ref. 3)

In short, no justice of the U.S. Supreme Court has ever recognized the unborn in the law as what Blackmun called "persons in the whole sense." (Ref. 4) Instead, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied this recognition unanimously, in the sense that each justice has taken at least some exception to the full moral status of unborn members of society as persons before the law.

1. Have you ever felt ashamed because some people who support abortion may have been more knowledgeable about human reproduction than yourself?

2. Has it ever hurt to find out that a loved one or someone you trust feels abortion is a really woman's choice?

3. Did you ever get angry or frustrated because some people working to support or legalize abortion have made up arguments without really believing in them, just because they were trying to get you to think they were convinced?

4. Have you ever felt beaten at times to find that even some of the most prominent pro-lifers or pro-life groups have adopted views which fall short of recognition for the unborn as persons in the whole sense?

5. Did you ever feel your sense of decency being violated by legal professionals claiming to defend the unborn, after learning that their "exceptions" to the status of the unborn as persons in the whole sense have been treated in court as a degree of agreement with the opposition?

6. Have you ever been worried by the fanatical or psychotic image which the press has often given to pro-lifers in the abortion debate, to the point that earning a better press image may have seemed more important than concentrating on the unborn?

7. Did it ever embarrass you to think that at some point in your life you may have stopped for a moment to reflect on the question, "Could I be the one who is wrong about abortion?"

8. Did you ever humiliate yourself by tolerating a compromise which you anticipated would be for the sake of good, only to lose the compromise itself when opponents use it to show that even your position falls short of treating the unborn as persons in the whole sense, for failure to honor the unborn with the equal protection of the law?

9. Have you ever felt threatened by the prospect of having to bear arms to defend the unborn, simply out of respect for the general principle that innocent people have the right to defense using all necessary means?

10. Have you ever felt so deeply disturbed by the whole issue of abortion that at times you wished it would all go away without needing any of your help?

1. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), at 157 n. 54.

2. Id., at 173.

3. Id., at 157-8 n. 54.

4. Id., at 162.