Lies That Keep Abortion Legal
Since at least 1975, American abortion advocates have claimed that reversing the 1973 Roe and Doe Supreme Court decisions would make women criminals subject to prosecution for murder and/or homicide—not only for procuring or undergoing an illegal abortion or self-aborting but also for using the contraceptive pill or IUD or suffering a spontaneous miscarriage. For decades these baseless and hysterical assertions have been employed to effectively veto efforts to secure for preborn children the same legal protection they were entitled to before Roe v. Wade (1973). While nothing in the public record before the Roe decision supports such outlandish claims, should Roe and Doe be successfully challenged legally, these contrived objections to overturning Roe must be addressed.
OBJECTION 1: “Women will be prosecuted if they use the Pill or IUD.”
This objection from abortion supporters recognizes that the Pill and IUD can actually end the life of a new human after conception. In fact, in l952, before the era of the Pill, Planned Parenthood’s Medical Director wrote: “. . . any biologic method that would prevent ovulation or fertilization merely prevent(s) life from beginning. Measures designed to prevent implantation fall into a different category. Here there is a question of destroying a life already begun.”1
A 1963 U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare survey noted: “All the measures which impair the viability of the zygote at any time between the instant of fertilization and the completion of labor constitute, in the strict sense, procedures for inducing abortion.”2
Still, proponents of legal abortion have absolutely no evidence to claim that women would be prosecuted for using the Pill or an IUD if Roe and Doe were to be overturned, because even before Roe and Doe, no woman was prosecuted under abortion laws for using either. The contraceptive pill had been approved in 1960, over a decade before abortion was legalized nationwide in January 1973—plenty of time to allow for such a prosecution, but none occurred. As ACLU and Planned Parenthood lawyer Harriet Pilpel told the Supreme Court in a 1971 amicus brief on the abortion cases: “Moreover, states through their criminal laws have neither equated abortion with murder nor made any effort to outlaw the use of the intrauterine device which may in fact function to prevent implantation after fertilization has occurred.”3
Planned Parenthood’s brief cited a law review article to support Pilpel’s statement: “There is no reported case specifically deciding whether the use of pre-implantation means of fertility control violates abortion statutes containing an express requirement of pregnancy.”4
Why weren’t women prosecuted for using drugs or devices that acted as early abortions? Pilpel answered that question in 1976 congressional testimony: “Since it is not possible scientifically to determine either when fertilization or implantation occurs . . . it would be impossible in cases of early pregnancies to know when and whether it was being violated.”5
Despite these statements by abortion proponents, the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) in 2012 opposed “personhood” state legislative proposals claiming, “. . . some of the most effective and reliable forms of contraception, such as oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and other forms of FDA-approved hormonal contraceptives could be banned in states that adopt ‘personhood’ measures.”6 Having explained that contraception is not abortion, ACOG then labels it abortion when it helps advance their pro-abortion agenda.
To show that a drug or device is capable of interrupting the development or causing the death of a human being at the time of implantation, as ACOG acknowledges, is not the same as proving in court beyond a reasonable doubt that the particular death of a tiny human being took place at a particular time in the womb of a particular woman caused by a particular drug. For such cases an impossible level of proof would be needed to prosecute abortion as a crime.
The liberal media have no interest in questioning ACOG’s claims, since they are predisposed to support any argument that seems to strengthen legalized abortion and the sexual behavior that may require it as a backup.7 Nor would TV news anchors ordinarily be interested in investigating the dangers of the Pill or IUDs—unless, perhaps, one happened to have a close friend who died from blood clots associated with them.8
Finally, principled and astute pro-life legal advocates such as the late prolife Notre Dame Law Professor Charles Rice have written:
Early abortifacients are beyond the effective reach of the law. It will usually be impossible to prove that life was terminated in an early abortion; prosecution for abortion therefore would be practically impossible. Since “contraceptive” drugs are licensed for legitimate uses, it is practically impossible to prevent their use for abortion. The legal obliteration of the distinction between contraception and abortion has put chemical abortion beyond the practical reach of the law.9
OBJECTION 2: “Women will be prosecuted as criminals for spontaneous miscarriage.”
In a 2014 Colorado state senate race, the spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado claimed that the Republican candidate “. . . has supported personhood measures. . . . If a woman were to lose that pregnancy . . . any actions she takes in regards to that pregnancy could be investigated as a potential felony or a manslaughter claim ”10
More recently, in reaction to Georgia Governor Kemp’s May 2019 signing of HB 481, a Heartbeat anti-abortion bill, an author at Slate claimed that under the law, “a woman who self-terminates will have killed a human— thereby committing murder. The penalty is life imprisonment or capital punishment.”11 This claim, while imaginative, is uninformed and complete nonsense.
HB 481 applies Georgia’s existing criminal or civil penalties to the physician, not the woman, and designates abortion after heartbeat as “unprofessional conduct.”12 The Slate author points to a 1998 Georgia Supreme Court case which actually held the reverse of what he was claiming. That case concluded “that the Georgia criminal abortion statute does not criminalize a pregnant woman’s actions in securing an abortion, regardless of the means used.”13
Furthermore, no jury could convict a woman under these circumstances because no case could be made beyond a reasonable doubt that the Pill or IUD caused the death of a specific, tiny human. After all, early pregnancy loss has been reported to be “. in the order of 50%”14; subfertile women have early pregnancy losses of “. . . 70% compared with 21% in women without fertility problems ”15 Among the many factors implicated in miscarriages are heredity, age, health, environment, and employment. A criminal prosecutor would need the body (corpus delicti) of a very tiny, miscarried child to initiate a criminal trial; on top of that, to prove that the defendant intentionally caused the miscarriage would be impossible. A woman can miscarry from thrombophilia,16 obesity,17 low pre-pregnancy folate intake,18 long-term maternal cardiovascular complications,19 maternal history of ectopic pregnancy,20 imbalanced blood platelet distribution,21 endometriosis,22 thyroid dysfunction,23 chromosomal abnormalities in human embryos,24 lack of sleep, inactive lifestyle, exposure to cooking smoke, or physical trauma in pregnancy,25 to name just a few known causes of miscarriage.
Thus, the claim that anti-abortion laws would require women to undergo a monthly pregnancy test in order to prosecute women for miscarriage is political swamp fever. The late Fordham Law School professor Robert Byrn testified before a U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee in 1975 that such practices did not occur even when states had near-universal felony bans for induced abortion.26
Byrn discussed whether a pregnant woman would be civilly liable for an inadvertent miscarriage for her failure to follow her doctor’s recommendation. He noted that physicians differ on appropriate treatment during pregnancy: “If doctors can disagree, the likelihood of finding negligence on the part of the woman is a bit more than remote.”27
He said a pregnant woman’s reckless negligence toward her unborn child “would have to be so egregious that incrimination should offend no one.”28 Such prosecutions have already occurred for illegal cocaine use that damaged a “wanted” child in the womb without anti-abortion legislation.29
OBJECTION 3: “Women who abort will be prosecuted for capital murder.”
Professor Byrn testified that: “The law recognizes ‘degrees of evil’ and ‘a state is not constrained in the exercise of its police power to ignore experience which marks a class of offenders or a family of offenses for special treatment ”30
Byrn cited New York State’s experience:
. . . for the legislative judgment to downgrade the crime from the highest degree of homicide is not grounded in any finding that the victims or class of victims are less than human persons Given the pressures that surround the decision to abort, a legislature may determine that a jury would typically be unwilling to convict the offender of the highest degree of homicide 31
OBJECTION 4: “Women who abort will be prosecuted and jailed.”
Pre-Roe abortion penalties were applied to abortionists, not pregnant women. Abortionists wanted women prosecuted to prevent their own prosecution for performing an abortion. In order to obtain evidence against an abortionist, a woman would have to testify against the abortionist. But she would be highly unlikely to testify if she risked prosecution herself. Therefore, witnesses are routinely given blanket immunity from future prosecution in exchange for testimony against the principal actor charged with a crime. For example, Oregon abortionist Ruth Barnett was prosecuted in 1968. Barnett tried to bring the woman she aborted into court as an accomplice, but was not allowed to do so, since declaring the woman an accomplice would have hampered the successful prosecution of the abortionist. Attorney Clarke Forsythe, of Americans United for Life explains the rationale for not prosecuting women: “. . . the point of abortion law is effective enforcement against abortionists, the woman is the second victim of the abortionist, and prosecuting women is counterproductive to the goal of effective enforcement of the law against abortionists.”32
Americans United for Life has found only two cases in which a woman was charged for participating in her own abortion: one in Pennsylvania (1911) and one in Texas (1922). “There is no documented case since 1922 in which a woman [undergoing an abortion] has been charged in an abortion in the United States.”33
“Procuring an unlawful abortion upon any woman always involves an assault in law, even when it is done with her consent and connivance, because no one can consent to an unlawful act.”34 This view is explained by Villanova Law Professor Joseph Dellapenna in his truly monumental book Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History. He noted that in both the 19th and 20th centuries:
Courts rationalized their view of women as victims of abortion . . . by declaring that a woman “was not deemed able to assent to an unlawful act against herself.” This attitude was reinforced by the reality that generally no conviction of the abortionist could be obtained without the testimony of the woman who underwent the abortion . . .”35
Dellapenna also points out that states like New York, in which women were also criminals for having abortions enacted immunity statutes
. . . to protect women from prosecution if they would testify against their abortionists. This highlighted the . . . view in most states that women were victims of the crime of abortion rather than accomplices, removing any possible impediment to their testifying against the abortionists.36
Before Roe, at least 30 states did not consider the woman as an accomplice to felony abortion.37 While roughly 20 other states did treat the woman as an accomplice to felony abortions, as observed above there is no record of any woman being prosecuted since 1922.38
OBJECTION 5: “Women will be prosecuted for self-abortion.”
Could a woman who used drugs to abort herself be prosecuted? In 1963 Michigan’s Supreme Court held that state law:
. . . declares one guilty of a felony who, under certain circumstances, performs an abortion upon a woman. It does not provide that the woman herself shall be guilty of an offense. At common law she was not guilty of a crime even though she performed the aborting act upon herself or assisted or assented thereto. The majority view is that not only may she not be held for abortion upon herself but neither as an accomplice.39
Attorney-researcher Paul Linton has pointed out that while “. . . more than one-third of the States . . . had statutes prohibiting a woman from aborting her own pregnancy [self-abortion] or submitting to an abortion performed on her by another, no prosecutions were reported under any of those statutes.”40 The Fifth Amendment provides immunity against being required to testify against yourself, “nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Therefore, a woman could not be required to testify against herself in a criminal abortion proceeding.
A Pennsylvania court ruled (1911) that, “in the absence of clear statutory authority, ‘the woman who commits an abortion on herself is regarded rather as the victim than the perpetrator of the crime.’”41 A Kentucky court (1955) held that a woman consenting to an abortion “shall be a competent witness for the prosecution . . . she shall not be considered an accomplice.”42
Based upon his review of abortion laws in all 50 states, Linton concluded, “. . . no American court has ever upheld the conviction of a woman for selfabortion or consenting to an abortion. ”43
OBJECTION 6: “Abortion does not kill a human being or person.”
This particularly egregious lie is directly traceable to Justice Henry Blackmun’s authorship of and influence in the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions. Both of these decisions are based on a multitude of lies. First, Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe, told “columnist Carl T. Rowan in 1978 that she had lied when she told reporters in 1970 that her pregnancy had been the result of a gang rape. She thought that the lie would help her get an abortion.”44 Ultimately, she had her baby.
Justice Blackmun claimed in Roe that “the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.”45 That claim is ludicrous, and the phrase “whole sense” is the tell. In support of this, Blackmun cited William Blackstone’s Commentaries, the most widely used law book from colonial times. However, Blackstone did in fact classify abortion under offenses against persons.46
Both before and at the time of Roe, a number of states and territories had clearly classified abortion as manslaughter, which is the “unlawful killing of a human ”47 However, Justice Blackmun’s Roe fiction was never seriously challenged. Justice Blackmun went so far as to reference several times a long article in the Georgetown Law School Journal by attorney Eugene Quay, an in-depth survey of state laws that protected unborn children and criminalized abortion. But Quay pointed out that state criminal laws did in fact classify abortion as manslaughter, or even murder. Blackmun must have felt secure thinking that no one would critically examine his footnotes.
Quay pointed out that in 1961 several states, including Alaska (which had become a state in 1959) penalized abortion of a preborn child as manslaughter for any period of gestation.48 Wisconsin law (1958) provided that, “Any person, other than the mother, who intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child may be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than 3 years or both. In this section ‘unborn child’ means a human being from the time of conception until it is born alive.”49 And a century earlier the Minnesota Territory (1851) stipulated, “The willful killing of an unborn infant child, by any injury to the mother of such child, which would be murder if it resulted in the death of such mother, shall be deemed manslaughter in the first degree.”50
State laws also criminalized abortion of a woman “quick with child”—or from “quickening” or similar description—as manslaughter. A “quick child” meant, “One that has developed so that it moves within the mother’s womb.”51 States that enacted such restrictions included Pennsylvania (1860, 1945),52 Tennessee (1883, 1955),53 North Dakota (1943),54 Oklahoma (1958),55 Mississippi (1956),56 Nevada,57 and Michigan.58 Florida (1944) expressly provided that, “The willful killing of an unborn quick child, by any injury to the mother of such child which would be murder if it resulted in the death of such mother, shall be deemed manslaughter.”59 According to Kansas law (1859), “The willful killing of any unborn quick child which would be murder if it resulted in the death of such mother, shall be deemed manslaughter in the first degree.”60
The following states, among others, referred to a “child” in the language of their criminal abortion laws: New Jersey law stated (1849) “intent to cause and procure the miscarriage of a woman then pregnant with child . . .”61; West Virginia law provided (1955) “. use any means, with intent to destroy her unborn child.”62; South Carolina law stipulated (1883, 1952) “Any person who shall administer to any woman with child ”63; Maine law provided (1857) “who administers to any woman pregnant with child, whether such child be quick or not, any medicine ”64; Arkansas law indicated (1947) “It shall be unlawful for anyone to administer or prescribe any medicine or drugs to any woman with child, with intent to produce an abortion ”65
A few states, including Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, protected both the mother and her child equally by allowing abortion (described as the removal of the child from the womb) only to save the life of the mother and/or her child.66 In those states, abortion did not entail the death of the child, but rather the induced delivery of the child if necessary in order to save the life of the mother and/or the child.
The criminal abortion laws of New Mexico and Wisconsin held that human life began at conception and that a woman was pregnant from the point of conception to the birth of her child.67 The New Jersey and Kentucky abortion laws included criminal sentencing in the state prison for the abortionist that was comparable to the penalty for second degree murder.68
The above references to state laws classifying abortion as manslaughter or a class of murder all are found in the study “Justifiable Abortion—Medical and Legal Foundations,” by Eugene Quay (Georgetown Law School Journal, 1961).
To reiterate, Justice Blackmun referenced Quay’s work in six different footnotes in his majority opinion in Roe. Because he cited Quay, Blackmun presumably knew that state criminal codes recognized the unborn child as a person, because manslaughter or murder are terms which only apply to human beings or living persons. Yet, Blackmun wrote in Roe that, “In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.” Anyone familiar with the above criminal abortion statutes knew Blackmun was not telling the truth. Blackmun himself could not have been ignorant of Quay’s compelling documentation. Acknowledging it would have undermined his intent to rewrite history and legalize abortion. At a minimum, Blackmun’s assertion was and still is false.
Paul Linton pointed out there were at least 58 state abortion prosecution cases which directly or indirectly concluded that protecting the life of the preborn child was the primary legislative purpose of 19th-century state criminal abortion statutes: “The Court . . . overlooked thirty-one decisions from seventeen jurisdictions expressly affirming that their nineteenth-century statutes were intended to protect unborn human life, and twenty-seven other decisions from seventeen additional jurisdictions strongly implying the same.”69
Conclusion
In common usage, the term, “person” means “human being.” Indeed, Noah Webster’s famed 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language defines a person as “An individual human being consisting of body and soul. We apply the word to living beings only, possessed of a rational nature; the body when dead is not called a person. It is applied alike to a man, woman, or child.”70
The schizophrenic treatment of the preborn child as either fully human with protectable constitutional rights or not protectable when abortion is considered surfaced at a February 2000 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. The proposed federal law stated, “The terms ‘a child who is in utero’ and ‘unborn child’ are defined in this proposal to be ‘a member of the species Homo sapiens at any stage of development.’” Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) observed that the bill sought to make “it a separate Federal offense to kill or injure an unborn child during the commission of certain already defined Federal crimes committed against the unborn child’s mother. . . . The only reason for opposition . . . is that some in the pro-choice movement believe that our bill draws attention to the effort to dehumanize, desensitize, and depersonalize the unborn child. It does not permit the prosecution for any abortion to which a woman consents.”
Legal abortion supporter Senator Feinstein responded, “Mr. Chairman, I was delighted by what you said that this bill really has nothing to do with the right of a woman to control her own reproductive system, but really has to do with someone who assaults and/or murders a woman and then also assaults and possibly kills her unborn child.”71 (sic!)
Even the pro-abortion Obama Administration recognized children in the womb as “persons.” Changes to federal law completed in 2010 by the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services governing State Plans for Child Health Insurance Programs (CHIP) specified that: “Applicant means a child who has filed an application through the Children’s Health Insurance Program . . . for health benefits. Child means an individual under the age of 19 including the period from conception to birth.”72
In addition, non-human primates are not eligible for Medicaid Services under State CHIP Plans. Human infants before birth are eligible for CHIP assistance, unless, of course, a mother ended the life of her child by so-called “safe, legal abortion.”
Every one of the false claims that abortionists have used or will use in the future to deny restoring legal protection to the lives of children before birth must be appropriately challenged at all levels of government: school boards, city and county councils, state legislatures, and Congress.
Realizing that our government sanctions the shedding of the blood of innocents under color of the law, those of us who are able to speak and act on behalf of preborn children must not give tacit consent to these killings by our silence or inaction. At the end of our earthly lives, how will any of us be able to explain to the Lord that we were too busy to defend our preborn brothers and sisters? Mother Teresa said, “God has not called me to be successful. He has called me to be faithful.”
Abortion will remain legal unless those blessed with the light of truth who work in government, medicine, law, and the media constantly challenge the false claims and assumptions of our adversaries. We must bring to light the facts and the historical record as we work to dispel the false narrative and contrived horror stories about what would happen if Roe and Doe were overturned, unborn children had their inalienable civil rights restored, and their lives were protected by law. Our preborn brothers and sisters literally depend upon our prayers for God’s mercy, conversion of our adversaries, and enlightenment of those in power. Our determination and our actions to right the wrong of discrimination against the weakest among us, the unborn child, must never cease.
NOTES
1. Abraham Stone, M.D., “Research in Contraception: A Review and Preview,” presented at the Third International Conference of Planned Parenthood, Bombay, India, Report of the Proceedings, November 24-29, 1952, Family Planning Association of India, 101.
2. “A Survey of Research on Reproduction Related to Birth and Population Control” (as of January 1, 1962), U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Public Health Service, publ. No. 1066, Washington D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963, 27.
3. Harriet Pilpel & Nancy Wechsler, attorneys for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Association of Planned Parenthood Physicians, filed, U.S. Supreme Court, October 12, 1971, p. 44.
4. Sybil Meloy, “Pre-Implantation Fertility Control and the Abortion Law,” Chicago-Kent Law Review, Vol. 41 (1964): pp 191, 205.
5. Harriet Pilpel, Oral Testimony, Proposed Constitutional Amendments on Abortion, Hearings, House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, 94th Congress, Serial No. 46, March 22, 1976, Part 1, p. 192.
6. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, ACOG Statement on Personhood Measures, referenced in footnote no. 1, https://www.acog.org/-/media/Departments/LARC/ TalkingPointsonPersonhoodMeasures.pdf?dmc=1(Original ACOG press release of 2/10/12 is no longer available but is referenced at http://www.acog.org/About-ACOG/News-Room/NewsReleases/2012/Personhood-Measures).
7. Brian Clowes, “Is the Media Really Biased in Favor of Abortion?”, May 17, 2019, https://www. hli.org/resources/mainline-media-really-biased-abortion/ (accessed November 3, 2020).
8. Meredith Engel, “Ricki Lake and producing partner Abby Epstein talk about birth control’s scary side effects in new documentary,” New York Daily News, July 8, 2015 (accessed November 3, 2020).
9. Charles Rice, The Winning Side, St. Brendan’s Institute, Mishawaka, Indiana, c. 1999, p. 73. “Chemical abortion” as used in this context does not refer to later drugs such as mifepristone and ulipristal acetate, which do induce abortion and were not developed at the time Prof. Rice wrote.
11. Mark J. Stern, “Georgia Just Criminalized Abortion. Women Who Terminate Their Pregnancies Would Receive Life in Prison,” Slate, May 7, 2019.
12. HB 481, section 10, line 257, http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display/20192020/ HB/481
13. Hillman v. State, 1998, https://casetext.com/case/hillman-v-state-21
14. Benagiano G, Farris M, Grudzinskas G., Abstract: “Fate of fertilized human oocytes,” Reprod Biomed Online. 2010 Dec; 21(6):732-41. doi: 10.1016/j.rbmo.2010.08.011. Epub 2010 Sep 6. PubMed, PMID: 21050816.
15. Hakim RB1, Gray RH, Zacur H., “Infertility and early pregnancy loss,” Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1995 May; 172(5):1510-7.
16. Flores-Alatriste JD, Jacobo-Nájera S, Segura-Rodríguez R, Stern-Colin y Nunes JJ., “Patients with inherited trombophilia and recurrent pregnancy loss: incidence,” Ginecol Obstet Mex. 2014 Jun;82(6):383-8. PMID: 25016897.
17. Boots CE1, Bernardi LA2, Stephenson MD, “Frequency of euploid miscarriage is increased in obese women with recurrent early pregnancy loss,” Fertil Steril. 2014 Aug; 102(2):455-9. doi: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2014.05.005. Epub 2014 Jun 4. PMID: 24907916, PubMed.
18. Gaskins AJ1, Rich-Edwards JW, Hauser R, Williams PL, Gillman MW, Ginsburg ES, Missmer SA, Chavarro JE., “Maternal prepregnancy folate intake and risk of spontaneous abortion and stillbirth,” Obstet Gynecol. 2014 Jul;124(1):23-31. doi: 10.1097/AOG.0000000000000343, PMID:24901281, PubMed.
19. Kessous R1, Shoham-Vardi I2, Pariente G1, Sergienko R2, Holcberg G1, Sheiner E3., “Recurrent pregnancy loss: a risk factor for long-term maternal atherosclerotic morbidity?” Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2014 Oct;211(4): 414.e1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2014.05.050. Epub 2014 Jun 3. PMID: 24905415, PubMed.
20. Kårhus LL1, Egerup P, Skovlund CW, Lidegaard, “Impact of ectopic pregnancy for reproductive prognosis in next generation,” Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand. 2014 Apr;93(4):416-9. doi: 10.1111/ aogs.12332. Epub 2014 Feb 19. PMID:2465506, PubMed.
21. Mete Ural U1, Bayoğlu Tekin Y, Balik G, Kir Şahin F, Colak S., “Could platelet distribution width be a predictive marker for unexplained recurrent miscarriage?” Arch Gynecol Obstet. 2014 Aug;290(2):233-6. doi: 10.1007/s00404-014-3192-x. Epub 2014 Mar 12.
22. Hjordt Hansen MV1, Dalsgaard T, Hartwell D, Skovlund CW, Lidegaard O., “Reproductive prognosis in endometriosis. A national cohort study,” Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand. 2014 May;93(5):4839. doi: 10.1111/aogs.12373. PMID: 24617701, PubMed.
23. Führer D1, Mann K2, Feldkamp J3, Krude H4, Spitzweg C5, Kratzsch J6, Schott M7, “Thyroid dysfunction in pregnancy,” Dtsch Med Wochenschr. 2014 Oct;139(42):2148-52. doi: 10.1055/s-00341387300. Epub 2014 Oct 7: . PMID: 25289925, PubMed.
24. Hodes-Wertz B1, Grifo J, Ghadir S, Kaplan B, Laskin CA, Glassner M, Munné S., “Idiopathic recurrent miscarriage is caused mostly by aneuploid embryos,” Fertil Steril. 2012 Sep;98(3):675-80. doi: 10.1016/j.
25. Samaraweera Y1, Abeysena C. “Maternal sleep deprivation, sedentary lifestyle and cooking smoke: Risk factors for miscarriage: A case control study,” Aust N Z J Obstet Gynaecol. 2010 Aug;50(4):352-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1479-828X.2010.01190.x. PMID: 20716263, PubMed.
26. Robert Byrn, Abortion—Part IV, Hearings before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, S. J. Res 6, S. J. Res 10 & 11, S. J. Res. 91, March 10, 1975, 94th Congress, 1st Session, prepared statement, p. 118.
27. Robert Byrn, Abortion Hearings, p. 117.
28. Robert Byrn, Abortion Hearings, p. 118.
29. Slip Opinion, delivered by Justice Parker, In re: Hope Elisabeth Ankrom v. State of Alabama, Coffee County Circuit Court, CC-09-395; Court of Criminal Appeals, CR-09-1148, October Term, 2012-13, pp. 10, 11, 46 http://alabamaappellatewatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Ex-parteHope-Elisabeth-Ankrom.pdf.
30. Robert Byrn, U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee prepared testimony, March 10, 1975, Abortion, Part IV, Hearings, on S. J. Res 6, etc., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976 94th Congress, 1st session, p. 111.
31. Robert Byrn, U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, p. 112.
32. Clarke Forsythe, “Why the States Did Not Prosecute Women for Abortion Before Roe v. Wade, Americans United for Life,” http://www.aul.org/2010/04/why-the-states-did-not-prosecute-womenfor-abortion-before-roe-v-wade/ April 23, 2010.
33. Clarke Forsythe, “Why the States Did Not Prosecute Women,” etc., Crissman v. State, 93 Tex. Crim. 15, 245 S.W. 438 (Tex. Crim. App. 1922). Hatfield v. Gano, 15 Iowa 177 (1863).
34. State v. Farnam, Oregon Supreme Court, December 12, 1916, 82 Oregon 212, 215. (161 Pacific 416).
35. Villanova Law Professor Joseph Dellapenna, Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, North Carolina, copyright 2006, pp. 299, 300.
36. Joseph Dellapenna, p. 545.
37. Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia; Clarke Forsythe, “Why the States Did Not Prosecute Women,” etc., http://www.aul.org/2010/04/why-the-states-did-not-prosecute-women-forabortion-before-roe-v-wade/ April 23, 2010.
38. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, Clarke Forsythe, “Why the States Did Not Prosecute Women,” etc., http://www.aul.org/2010/04/why-the-states-did-not-prosecute-women-for-abortion-
before-roe-v-wade/ April 23, 2010.
39. In Re Vickers, 123 N.W.2d 253, 371 Mich. 114, 117-118 (1963).
40. Paul Benjamin Linton, The Legal Status of Abortion in the States if Roe v. Wade is Overruled, 23 Issues in Law & Medicine 3, 6 n.15 (2007), footnote on Pennsylvania, p. 17.
41. Paul Linton, The Legal Status of Abortion, etc., p. 17.
42. Eugene Quay, “Justifiable Abortion, Medical and Legal Foundations,” The Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 49, 1961, p. 518, reprinted by the Family Life Bureau, National Catholic Welfare Conference, Washington, D.C., p. 475.
43. Paul Linton, The Legal Status of Abortion, etc., p. 17.
44. Robert D. McFadden, Norma McCorvey, “‘Roe’ in Roe v. Wade, Is Dead at 69,” New York Times, 2-18-17
45. Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 162.
46. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Vol. 1, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1765, Facsimile Edition, p. 125.
47. Henry C. Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, c. 1891 & 1957, West Publishing, Fourth Edition, St. Paul, MN, MANSLAUGHTER-definition, p. 1116.
48. Eugene Quay, “Justifiable Abortion,” etc., p. 448.
49. Eugene Quay, “Justifiable Abortion, Medical and Legal Foundations,” The Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 49, 1961, p. 518, reprinted by the Family Life Bureau, National Catholic Welfare Conference, Washington, D.C.
50. Eugene Quay, “Justifiable Abortion,” etc., p. 486.
51. Henry C. Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, QUICK CHILD, citing State v. Timm, 244 Wis. 508, p. 1415.
52. Eugene Quay, “Justifiable Abortion,” etc., p 506.
53. Eugene Quay, p .513.
54. Eugene Quay, p .503.
55. Eugene Quay, p. 505.
56. Eugene Quay, p. 448.
57. Eugene Quay, p. 492.
58. Eugene Quay, p. 482.
59. Eugene Quay, p. 457.
60. Eugene Quay, p. 474.
61. Eugene Quay, p. 496.
62. Eugene Quay, p. 518.
63. Eugene Quay, pp. 510, 511.
64. Eugene Quay, p. 479.
65. Eugene Quay, p. 449.
66. Eugene Quay, “Justifiable Abortion,” etc., Appendix at p 453, 457, 485, 489, 492, 510, 517, 518, 520.
67. Eugene Quay, p. 498.
68. Eugene Quay, p. 495, 475.
69. Paul Linton, “Planned Parenthood v. Casey: The Flight From Reason In The Supreme Court,” St. Louis Public Law Review, Vol. 13:1, pp. 109-110
70. Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, c. 1828, New York, originally published by S. Converse, G. & C. Merriam Company, 23rd printing, Foundation for American Christian Education, Chesapeake, VA, Vol. 2, p. 33.
71. Hearings on S. 1673, Senate Judiciary Committee, “Protecting Our Silent Victims: The Unborn Victims Of Violence Act,” February 23, 2000, Serial No. J-106-65, pp. 6, 34.
72. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 42, Volume 4, Revised as of October 1, 2010, From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access, CITE: 42CFR457.10, pp. 426-428.
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Original Bio:
Robert G. Marshall served as a member of the Virginia General Assembly for 26 years. His most recent book is Reclaiming the Republic: How Christians and Other Conservatives Can Win Back America. Email him at robertgbobmarshall@gmail.com.
