The Abortion Controversy in the United States: The Constitutional Dimensions
The text analyzes the constitutional evolution of abortion in the United States, highlighting the change initiated with Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), where the Supreme Court recognized a “right to privacy” not explicit in the Constitution. It is argued that this doctrine was the basis for the Roe...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 1991 |
| País: | Perú |
| Institución: | Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú |
| Repositorio: | Revistas - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú |
| Idioma: | español |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/6166 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/derechopucp/article/view/6166 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Constitution abortion right to privacy case law Supreme Court United States Constitución aborto derecho a la intimidad jurisprudencia Corte Suprema Estados Unidos |
| Sumario: | The text analyzes the constitutional evolution of abortion in the United States, highlighting the change initiated with Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), where the Supreme Court recognized a “right to privacy” not explicit in the Constitution. It is argued that this doctrine was the basis for the Roe v. Wade decision (1973), where it was established that a woman's right to have an abortion is part of that right to privacy, subordinating the protection of the fetus until viability (last trimester). In this line, the Court affirmed that the fetus is not a constitutionally protected “person” and that the rights of the unborn ‘child’ (seen as “potential life”) are always inferior to those of the mother. On the other hand, the author compares Roe v. Wade with the Dred Scott case (1857), which also denied rights to a human group - African Americans - asserting that both rulings excluded certain human beings from constitutional protection. Finally, he argues that the “right to privacy” was a judicial invention with no textual or historical basis and predicts that, like other extreme interpretations of the Constitution, Roe v. Wade will eventually cease to be the governing standard of law. |
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