LET COMMON SENSE PREVAIL.(abortion rights)

It is now 35 years since the U.S. Supreme Court acted as an extra-constitutional super-legislature and invented a new "constitutional" right to abortion in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.

Both decisions are poorly reasoned, lack a constitutional justification, and are gratingly pompousyet they are "landmark decisions." They are landmark decisions because of their damage to our constitutional and social order: the "unalienable Right" to life is no longer "endowed by the Creator," but dependent on someone else's moods and feelings. As pro-abortion columnist Ellen Goodman put it: "Over the years, I've rejoiced at sonograms and picked names for what we call a baby when it's wanted and a fetus when it isn't."

Under this peculiar principle, one and the same unborn child could be a "baby" in the eyes of one parent and a "fetus" (to be aborted) in the eyes of the other. Or the mother could, under the varying moods of a stressful pregnancy, pick a name for the "baby" on one day and make arrangements to abort the "fetus" on another. In such a scheme, the notion of the inherent and permanent dignity of a human being evaporates.

Roe "constitutionalized" the new abortion right, thus making its ruling immune to ordinary legislative correction. Therefore, nullifying the fictitious abortion right requires either a constitutional amendment or, more practically, a judicial reversal of Roe and Doe by the Supreme Court itself. Hence, the pro-life movement must focus on getting Supreme Court justices appointed who are guided by the Constitution and amenable to undoing the extra-constitutional actions of previous justices.

Doe, often overlooked, was the Court majority's gift to the abortionist. First, the abortionist is given professional stature. Previously considered a despicable criminal, the abortionist is nowin the obsequious language of Justice Blackmun"the conscientious physician, particularly the obstetrician, whose professional activity is concerned with the physical and mental welfare, the woes, the emotions, and the concern of his female patients." In the grim reality of the abortion clinic, however, the woman typically sees the abortionist for the first and last time when the abortion is taking place.

Second, the Court created a right to abortion for any reason through a broad "health" exception because the abortionist may exercise his "medical judgment in the light of all factorsphysical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's agerelevant to the wellbeing of the patient. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment."

Third, by striking down Georgia's consulting committee and hospital requirements for abortions, the Court provided the legal basis for a new industry: the freestanding abortion clinic, operating singly or in large chains, such as Planned Parenthood's.