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Planned Parenthood of S.E. Pennsylvania v. Casey: The Rhetorical Battle over Roe
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Planned Parenthood of S.E. Pennsylvania v. Casey The Rhetorical Battle over Roe argued april 22, 1992 lyle denniston The Pennsylvania legislature amended its abortion control law in 1988 and 1989. Among the new provisions, the law required informed consent and a twenty-four-hour waiting period prior to the procedure. A minor seeking an abortion required the consent of one parent, although the law included a procedure for judicial bypass. A married woman seeking an abortion had to indicate that she had noti‹ed her husband of her intention to abort the fetus. Several abortion clinics and physicians, including Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, challenged these provisions. A federal appeals court upheld all the provisions except for the requirement that husbands be noti‹ed.| 42 To listen to passages from oral arguments indicated with , visit www.goodquarrel.com. ;)) november 7, 1991, was a day of remembrance and symbolism for the women’s rights movement in America. It was the seventy- ‹fth anniversary of the day that feminist Jeannette Rankin became the ‹rst woman to win election to Congress. Nadine Strossen, the president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), took note of that anniversary from the podium in the ballroom of the Washington Court Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. The year 1991, Strossen also remembered, was the two hundredth anniversary of the rati‹cation of the Bill of Rights. But she and the other feminist leaders holding a press conference that day were not in a celebrating mood. Said Strossen, “If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade,1 which it seems poised to do, it would be the ‹rst time in the nation ’s history that the U.S. Supreme Court would take away a fundamental individual constitutional right. What an ironic ‹rst to celebrate on the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights, and on Jeannette Rankin’s anniversary . What a sad thing if she could see that.”2 But amid the pessimism , the four women who took turns at the microphone on that day also expressed a hardheaded determination not to surrender. The ‹rst to speak, Kathryn Kolbert, an ACLU lawyer in Philadelphia , announced to reporters that a new appeal had just been ‹led at the Supreme Court in a Pennsylvania abortion case; the lawyers had put it on a fast track in hopes of getting it decided before the Court ‹nished its 1991 term the following summer. Kolbert commented, “We have presented one question and only one question to the nine justices: Has the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade?” It did not sound like the kind of question one puts before the Supreme Court. As a matter of pure fact, the Supreme Court had not overruled Roe. A single-word answer is not the kind the Supreme Court gives. But Kolbert had not misspoken. When ACLU aides passed out copies of the petition, there it was, on the page just inside the cover. The Rhetorical Battle over Roe | 43 1. 410 U.S. 113 (1973). 2. This quote and those that follow from the November 7, 1991, press conference are from the author’s notes of the event. [18.209.66.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:37 GMT) question presented 1. Has the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), holding that a woman’s right to choose abortion is a fundamental right protected by the United States Constitution? There was no question 2. “Some may argue,” Kolbert conceded, “that asking that question is a risky endeavor.” Indeed, Linda Greenhouse (1992) later wrote, “The strategy that the abortion-rights side brought to the Supreme Court . . . had every appearance of a high-stakes gamble.” But the other speakers clearly demonstrated that they all had embraced a strategy that was bold, even risky, an outright mix of law and politics. The speakers believed that the Supreme Court would be setting the stage for the 1992 presidential and congressional elections and for state ballot battles over at least a dozen anti-abortion referenda. Kate Michelman, then the executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League and perhaps the most politically attuned leader on the podium, soon threw down the political gauntlet: “With the Pennsylvania case before the Court, the 1992 election becomes ever more critical. . . . One year from now, Americans go to the polls. The Pennsylvania case creates ever more urgency for the right to choose—it is a key issue, a voting issue, a winning issue.” Added Faye Wattleton...