Interim Staff
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a motion by Norma McCorvey, known to legal history as “Roe” of Roe v. Wade infamy, to overturn the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion in America. More than 5,000 pages of evidence including affidavits from more than 1,000 women damaged by abortion were submitted by McCorvey who said that Roe should be reconsidered in light of evidence that abortion harms women. McCorvey’s lawyers said they plan to appeal the decision.
Judge Edith Jones said that the knowledge and social conditions that now exist have effectively changed the landscape on abortion. “If the Courts were to delve into the facts underlying Roe’s balancing scheme with present-day knowledge, they might conclude that the woman’s ‘choice’ is far more risky and less beneficial, and the child’s sentience far more advanced, than the Roe Court knew,” she said. Although Jones is pro-life she said it is unlikely the Supreme Court would allow the re-criminalization of abortion. She said, “That the Court’s constitutional decision making leaves our nation in a position of willful blindness to evolving knowledge should trouble any dispassionate observer about the abortion decisions.”
