STUDENT NOTES AND COMMENTS ON THE CASE: I stand by the Court’s decision to uphold Roe v. Wade because I believe that whether a woman chooses to abort her fetus or not should ultimately be left up to her. The State should not have the authority to forbid abortions up until the fetus is able to live outside of the womb, at which point I believe that it is not moral nor should it be legal to abort the fetus. I agree with the decision made in the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey to uphold the requirements for informed consent and a 24-hour waiting period. In regard to the reporting requirements, I believe that it is important to keep such records for medical, scientific and statistical reasons. Without such records, medical research on abortions
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In the case of Casey v. Planned Parenthood, all four of these factors are relevant. The first factor, the state of the legal rules that the Court interprets, means that justices must interpret existing laws and we see this in Casey v. Planned Parenthood. The majority opinion adheres to the rule of stare decisis and this case upheld the Court’s prior ruling in Roe v. Wade. Each Justice, in his or her own way, interpreted past laws and cases to make their decision. The second factor, the justices’ personal views, is very surprising in this certain case. In the majority opinion, it is written, “Men and women of good conscience can disagree…about the profound moral and spiritual implications of terminating a pregnancy, even in its earliest stage. Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral …show more content…
By this definition, this case was not an activist decision because the case of Roe v. Wade was reaffirmed. Only the trimester framework was altered in that a new standard was to determine the validity of laws restricting abortions: the “undue burden” standard. Due to the adoption of this new standard, the spousal consent statute was declared unconstitutional. One could; however, argue that this case was an activist decision due to the Court’s use of the doctrine of substantive due process, which creates a right that is not found in the text of the Constitution. The US Legal Dictionary defines judicial activism as “…the view that the Supreme Court and other judges can and should creatively (re)interpret the texts of the Constitution and the laws in order to serve the judges' own visions regarding the needs of contemporary society”. By this definition of judicial activism, the belief and reliance on a living Constitution would mean that a decision was an activist decision. The majority opinion in Casey v. Planned Parenthood essentially relied upon notions of living constitutionalism because of the doctrine of substantive due process, as previously mentioned. The majority opinion in Casey v. Planned Parenthood wrote in reference to the Constitution of the United States, “That tradition is a
In the case of Casey v. Planned Parenthood, all four of these factors are relevant. The first factor, the state of the legal rules that the Court interprets, means that justices must interpret existing laws and we see this in Casey v. Planned Parenthood. The majority opinion adheres to the rule of stare decisis and this case upheld the Court’s prior ruling in Roe v. Wade. Each Justice, in his or her own way, interpreted past laws and cases to make their decision. The second factor, the justices’ personal views, is very surprising in this certain case. In the majority opinion, it is written, “Men and women of good conscience can disagree…about the profound moral and spiritual implications of terminating a pregnancy, even in its earliest stage. Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral …show more content…
By this definition, this case was not an activist decision because the case of Roe v. Wade was reaffirmed. Only the trimester framework was altered in that a new standard was to determine the validity of laws restricting abortions: the “undue burden” standard. Due to the adoption of this new standard, the spousal consent statute was declared unconstitutional. One could; however, argue that this case was an activist decision due to the Court’s use of the doctrine of substantive due process, which creates a right that is not found in the text of the Constitution. The US Legal Dictionary defines judicial activism as “…the view that the Supreme Court and other judges can and should creatively (re)interpret the texts of the Constitution and the laws in order to serve the judges' own visions regarding the needs of contemporary society”. By this definition of judicial activism, the belief and reliance on a living Constitution would mean that a decision was an activist decision. The majority opinion in Casey v. Planned Parenthood essentially relied upon notions of living constitutionalism because of the doctrine of substantive due process, as previously mentioned. The majority opinion in Casey v. Planned Parenthood wrote in reference to the Constitution of the United States, “That tradition is a