Roe v. Wade Question
There's a good article in this month's GQ about Phill Kline, the Attorney General of Kansas who's zealously pro-life. In it, the author makes the following observation:
"Roe came at a time when abortion was being hashed out in the country's state legislatures. If it had remained there, our nation's laws would have reflected what polls have shown year after year- that most Americans want to keep abortion legal but restricted.....Instead, Harry Blackmun and his concurring justices stopped that democratic process in its tracks and imposed a national solution that went beyond what all but the most fanatically pro-choice Americans were wishing for..."
Is this a valid description of Roe v. Wade? I was not alive when it was decided, and most of the discussion about it today is useless. I was under the impression that it was a controversial decision, but one that came with a groundswell of support; this article makes it sound like judicial activism at its worst. The article also implies that abortion was a relative non-issue (at least when compared to today), and this decision basically created our present controversy.
Do any pro-choicers feel that Roe v. Wade was a poor decision, and/or would they support overturning it if it were replaced by measures that could keep abortion legal (by, say, making it a state issue instead of a federal one)?
Any replies are appreciated. Thanks.
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