Wyoming Fetal Rights - Why the Abortion Albatross Is a Bird of a Different Color: The Case for Fetal-Federalism
![handle is hein.journals/lawlr28 and id is 641 raw text is: WYOMING FETAL RIGHTS-WHY THE ABORTION
ALBATROSS' IS A BIRD OF A DIFFERENT
COLOR: THE CASE FOR FETAL-FEDERALISM
I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of
Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon
principle, and making exceptions to it, where it will stop. If
one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say
it does not mean some other man? - President Abraham
Lincoln2
IT]he word person, as used in the Fourteenth Amendment,
does not include the unborn. - Justice Harry Blackmun3
Abortion is a subject which quickens the pulse of Americans like
no other. What a particular Presidential candidate campaigns and
says about abortion often becomes a determinative issue. Supreme
Court nominees are grilled ruthlessly on CNN regarding their views
on abortion.4 Protestors have sunk to levels of terror and intimidation
by bombing and blockading abortion clinics and murdering clinic doc-
tors, while abortion advocates spit and yell at anti-abortion propo-
nents.' Americans on both side of the issue are frustrated.6
With all the controversy surrounding the abortion issue, it must
be questioned why this civil liberty issue is resolved and decided in
the once hallowed halls of the United States Supreme Court.7 Ar-
guably, the Supreme Court's venture into abortion jurisprudence has
i. Albatross was the term for the abortion issue used by Professor John Hart Ely
in his article, The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade, 82 YALE L.J. 920,
946-47 (1973) (predicting that Roe would be a lasting decision because state legislatures wanted
to rid themselves of the albatross of the abortion issue). Albatross was also used by
David J. Zampa in his article, The Supreme Court's Abortion Jurisprudence: Will the Supreme
Court Pass the Albatross Back to the States? 65 NOTRE DAmE L. REV. 731 n.l (1989)
(predicting that the United States Supreme Court would use Casey v. Planned Parenthood to
reverse Roe v. Wade, and thus return the abortion issue to the states).
2. 2 TmE COLLECTED WORKS OF ABRAHM LINCOLN 500 (Roy P. Basler, ed., 1953).
3. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 158 (1973).
4. A Quota for Abortion Questions?, N.Y. TIMEs, Sept. 15, 1991, § 4 at 16.
5. Todd J. Gillman, Vigil Held for Slain Florida Doctor, DALLAS MoRNINo NEws, March
13, 1993, at 32A; Minnesota: Terry Attracts Counter-Demonstrators, Am. POL. NETWORK, May
5, 1992 (Pro-choice demonstrator pushed and spit on abortion opponent); Claudia Rosenbaum,
Protests at Clinics get 307 Arrested, WASL. Timws, Jan. 24, 1993, at A1; Gene Warner, Rescue
Leaders Promise to Fight - Jail Doesn't Deter Pastors from Anti-Abortion Work, BUFFALO
NEWS, Dec. 11, 1992, at 4 (Pro-Lifers want to welcome Clinton into office by predicting the
increase of bombing and burning of abortion clinics in the coming year).
6. See, e.g., Thomas Sowell, Judicial Policy-Makers Pander to Public at Expense of
the Law, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, Feb. 21, 1993 at 42.
7. Id.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/lawlr28&div=24&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Wyoming Fetal Rights - Why the Abortion Albatross Is a Bird of a Different Color: The Case for Fetal-Federalism
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