The most controversial of the civil rights cases is undoubtedly Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), which has been applied in a way that effectively establishes an unwritten constitutional right to have an abortion, though the opinion of Roe itself made no such assertion directly. Roe represents a twofold failure of judicial social engineering, since it (1) applied a uniform legal solution over all the states on a highly contentious issue that opens deep moral, religious, and philosophical fissures, and (2) was poorly reasoned and not grounded in law, giving it little intellectual legitimacy. We are only going to consider the second aspect of Roe, its failing as a legal argument. Roe’s intellectual inadequacies are well known and criticized among legal scholars, even those who personally favor a right to abortion. These criticisms have not reached a larger audience, however, due to the superficial coverage of legal matters by the mass media. Accordingly, we need to clear some common misconceptions before examining the opinion of Roe itself, which is often cited but seldom read.  Read more... (1688 words, 1 image, estimated 6:45 mins reading time)

The principal errors of law and reasoning in the verdict are as follows:  Read more... (1105 words, estimated 4:25 mins reading time)

• Viewing a woman’s interest in having an abortion as a “right of privacy” issue, when it is manifestly an issue of personal liberty, having nothing to do with privacy in the standard legal or common meanings of the term.
• Forbidding the state to infringe on this liberty, even if due process of law is applied. States in fact regularly limit the liberty of citizens, so “substantive due process” can only be applied selectively, for fundamental liberties the Court feels should not be denied, even with due process of law. It is unclear why abortion should receive this special status.