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The Standing of the Fetus
| Article
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20510 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1992 |
5,070 Words |
| Author
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Daniel N. Robinson
Daniel N. Robinson is chairman of the Department of
Psychology at Georgetown University. His latest book is
Aristotle's Psychology (Columbia University Press, 1989). |
The fate of Roe v. Wade is unclear and its underlying logic remains so even if, as many legal scholars and students of the Supreme Court predict, the landmark decision itself is overturned. The chief consequence of rejecting Roe entirely, or of dismantling it piece by piece, will be to transfer the problem from the adjudicative to the political arena. Instead of nine justices attempting to reconcile the competing interests and claims at the core of Roe, thousands of legislators will take on the burden of writing different statutes, each of which will itself provide grounds for further litigation. On a certain well-known and compelling theory of constitutionalism, this is as it should be and as it should have been all along. The constitution, silent as it is on certain concepts so central to Roe as privacy and persons, is simply not able to resolve the issue. Accordingly, it must either be amended through the political process or bypassed as this same process works at the level of the individual states.
Whatever the merits or defects of this theory as it applies to the issue of abortion, it appears to be the one favored by the Court's current majority. Indeed, in the wake of Webster, state assemblies have become quite active again in defining the reach of the law in the matter of abortion. The "pro-life" position surfaces in statutory language that accords the law's protection to human entities regarded as persons from the moment of conception. The "pro-choice" alternative is echoed in the language of privacy rights, rights of self-determination, the right to the law's equal regard and equal protection. But very little of the continuing national debate makes explicit the psychological and scientific or quasi-scientific assumptions animating the rhetoric on each side of the issue. Perhaps embarrassed by the Court's own celebrated awkwardness in addressing viability, disputants in recent years have preferred to conduct the debate at the level of broad and abstract principle. This, of course, is the level at which the issue must finally be understood and settled. It is important, however, in reaching this level of understanding that the distractions or hidden assumptions of folk science be exposed.
'The Silent Scream'
It was only five or six years ago that Dr. Bernard Nathanson's film The Silent Scream caused a storm of protest and rallied the passions of combatants on both sides of the abortion issue. Nathanson, who had years earlier founded the National Abortion Rights Action League and had performed many abortions himself, had come to realize the complexity and psychological richness of the very fetal life ended by
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