Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1967
Publication Information
2 Val. U. L. Rev. 94 (1967-1968)
Abstract
The issue in abortion "reform" is whether existing criminal sanctions against doctors and pregnant women should be abolished or liberalized. From one point of view this is the question presented in any discussion of the criminal law—whether people should be put in jail for doing something. From another viewpoint, it is the question presented in any discussion of existing law—whether the reformers, who presumably have the burden of proof, have made a case. The controversy will be especially interesting to Indiana lawyers, who last winter saw an abortion-reform proposal pass both houses of the General Assembly and then die (abort?) at the hands of the Governor.
This biased commentator believes that the proponents of reform fail to make a case. It is a reasonable impression, though not one intended by either Professor Smith or those of his essayists who are not clergy, that the decisions in three states to leave the life or death of unborn children in the hands of physicians and pregnant women have come too hastily, too emotionally, and with too little consideration of the possibility that the statutes involve millions of human lives. The loss of 10,000 mothers from badly-performed clandestine abortions in this country is mentioned repeatedly, without any suggestion that the loss of a million babies is worth considering.
Recommended Citation
Thomas L. Shaffer,
Abortion, the Law and Human Life,
2 Val. U. L. Rev. 94 (1967-1968).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/337
Comments
Reprinted with permission of Valparaiso University Law Review.