Compelling Interest: The Real Story behind Roe v. Wade by Roger Resler

Author:Roger Resler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Compelling Interest, Roe v. Wade, abortion debate, baby, fetus, Robert Flowers, Jay Floyd, beginning of life, Cyril Means Jr., John T. Noonan, National Right to Life Committee, personhood, pregnancy, pro-life, pro-choice, William Rehnquist, reproductive freedom, Norma McCorvey, Texas Penal Code, U.S. Supreme Court, Sarah Weddington, women, zygote, Dr. Mildred Jefferson, Dr. Carolyn Gerster, Randy Alcorn, Dr. William Brennan, Dr. Gerard Magill, Dr. Jim Thorpe, Michael Clancy, Hand of Hope
Publisher: eChristian, Inc.
Published: 2012-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30: Because the Law Says So: The Edelin Case

[T]hat was a very stomach-turning kind of existence.

—Dr. Anthony Levantino (former abortionist)

From the perspective of Roe v. Wade, desirability coupled with location is the critical dynamic in determining the legal status of the entity in the womb. But, practically speaking, even remaining alive outside the womb does not necessarily guarantee protection for the survivor of abortion. Unfortunately, cases like Gianna Jessen’s, in which the abortion survivor is allowed to continue living, are rare. More often, abortion victims who refuse to die in the womb end up being killed either directly or indirectly through neglect outside the womb.

Babies who don’t cooperate with abortionists by dying in the proper location create a dilemma for abortion advocates for the simple reason that birth was defined as the peg on which personhood was legally, though certainly not logically, determined to rest. According to the post-Roe interpretation of the law, when abortion is desired, any action that kills a fetus in the womb is viewed as a necessary part of the abortion liberty. A legal quagmire resulted, however, when an action designed to kill the fetus in the womb succeeded after a live birth. Since defining personhood at birth completely lacks any physiological basis in terms of the life being extinguished by abortion, courts have been forced to confront the question of infanticide in cases resulting from unsuccessful abortions.

In an effort to protect doctors from prosecution, the laws covering infanticide had to be reconsidered after Roe v. Wade went into effect. What it currently boils down to is that any wanted child who is killed outside the womb is, by definition, a victim of infanticide whose killer will surely be prosecuted, while an unwanted fetus who manages to survive an abortion—while, in theory, obtaining a legal right to retain life by virtue of emerging from the womb alive—in practicality is rarely granted the opportunity.

A key case that set the stage for this involved Dr. Kenneth Edelin, who would later go on to become president of Planned Parenthood. In 1975, Dr. Edelin was the chief resident in obstetrics and gynecology at Boston City Hospital. While there he became embroiled in a legal battle which involved manslaughter charges resulting from an abortion he had performed on a baby who refused to cooperate.

Of course, most cases of babies surviving abortion only to subsequently die are simply not made public. But through an unusual set of circumstances, the body of a black baby boy was discovered in Boston’s Southern Mortuary during the course of an investigation into experiments conducted on unborn children believed to have been carried out at Boston City Hospital.

Dr. Mildred Jefferson, who became the first witness called by the prosecution (led by District Attorney Newman Flanagan) in the court case that followed, explains:

There were two doctors who had gone on trial. The trials grew out of the fact that we had determined through an article in the New England Journal of Medicine that experiments were being done on pregnant women and girls using very strong antibiotics.

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