Gonzales V. Jr.

Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)

The ruling of Roe v. Wade included three key ideas. The first key idea was that women had the right to choose to have an abortion during the stage of pregnancy when the fetus had little chance of survival outside the womb and that women were able to obtain an abortion within unreasonable interferences from the state. The second idea confirmed a state’s power to restrict abortions when a fetus could live outside the womb, except in the case when the mother’s life was at risk. The final key idea that was decided in the ruling was that the state has interests in both the health of the women and the life of the fetus (Brannen and Hanes, 2001).

Gonzales v. Raich was a landmark case which determined the extent that Congress could regulate marijuana usage in California. More precisely, the case involves deliberation between the constitutionality of the Compassionate Use Act, voted on by the state of California in 1996, and the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), passed by Congress in 1970. Does the CSA, a policy which permits the regulation of certain drugs and chemicals by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), exceed the regulations set under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution? Does the Compassionate Use Act, which allows for the use of medical marijuana in California, protect citizen’s rights to use and distribute marijuana for medicinal purposes? The decision made by the Supreme Court would spark debate over these questions as well as similar topics such as federal abuse of power, doctor patient confidentiality, and the decriminalization of marijuana across America. In my paper, I will cover the events and influences leading up to the Supreme Court’s official decision, the significance of the outcome, and the questions and issues brought up in the aftermath of Gonzales v. Raich.

Regardless of the opinions surrounding abortion, a majority of people are familiar with the Supreme court cases of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. These two cases have played a tremendous role in regard to the abortion debate. In 1973, the Roe v. Wade case was ruled in favour of Roe and stated the stringent criminalization of abortion in Texas was deemed unconstitutional under the fourteenth amendment. The law violated the right of privacy, which implied the privacy of a woman’s decision to an abortion. Although the courts agreed with Roe, they also recognized the rights to an abortion are not absolute. Limitations to the right was based on the trimesters of pregnancy with the first trimester protecting the woman’s choice and the third trimester being acceptable for states to regulate or even ban abortions outside of therapeutic reasons.

In the case of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas v. Abbott (2014), The American Civil Liberties Union, The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and a Texas law firm filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of several women’s health-care providers in Texas for seeking to enforce their rights and those of patients for declaratory judgment and pertaining to the regulation of surgical abortions and abortion-inducing drugs by enjoining two provisions of the 2013 Texas House Bill No. 2. (Planned Parent Hood v. Abbott, 2014). To many, Planned Parenthood challenges the state of Texas abortion law as it places an unconstitutional restriction on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. It also

In 1973, the Supreme Court made a decision in one of the most controversial cases in history, the case of Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)), in which abortion was legalized and state anti-abortion statues were struck down for being unconstitutional. This essay will provide a brief history and analysis of the issues of this case for both the woman’s rights and the states interest in the matter. Also, this essay will address the basis for the court ruling in Roe’s favor and the effects this decision has had on subsequent cases involving a woman’s right to choose abortion in the United States. The court’s decision created legal precedent for several subsequent abortion restriction cases and has led to the development of legislation to protect women’s health rights. Although the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was a historic victory for women’s rights, it is still an extremely controversial subject today and continues to be challenged by various groups.

In Roe v. Wade, in 1973, the Supreme Court held a case that a pregnant woman has the full privacy right to have an abortion. The right to abortion is not guaranteed and must be stable against the State’s countervailing benefits in keeping the health of the woman and in protecting the life of the unborn child. The State’s belief in protecting the health of the woman becomes definite, therefore greatly enough to support state ruling of abortion under the strict scrutiny standard of judicial review; after the first trimester, which is the stage of pregnancy when abortion becomes dangerous to the mother carrying the child to term. The State’s concern in protecting the life of the unborn child becomes irresistible, after possibility, the stage of pregnancy when the unborn child is capable of independent life. Because neither interest is irresistible before the second trimester, the State may not regulate abortion in the first trimester either to reserve the woman’s health or to protect the life of the unborn child. After the first trimester the State may control the act of an abortion, but only for the purpose of protecting the woman’s health, not for the purpose of protecting the life of the unborn child. After viability, the State may regulate, and even forbid, abortion to protect the life of the unborn child, except when the act of abortion is needed to

One July 10, 1994 a woman was abducted by two men from her apartment building when she went downstairs to see who was ringing her buzzer; when she opened the door the men grabbed her and forced her into their car. These men then drove to a backyard that was several miles from her home and raped her before letting her go to find a seven-eleven for assistance. She described the two men as Hispanic, twenty-five years old, roughly 5’7”, with dark hair and average weight; driving a late model, four-door sedan, dark colored with tinted windows. It was the victim’s boyfriend who identified Angel Gonzalez’s car and stated that it pulled out of a parking lot on the opposite side of the building. Angel’s car was a late modeled sedan with tinted windows;

Abortion is a controversial topic that has plagued the country for decades. Even after the 7-2 Supreme Court trial (Roe vs. Wade) made it legal for women to choose to get abortions. This decision was based off the right of privacy coupled with the agreement between the woman and the state. Due to this decision abortion rights vary from state to state, in fact, about 85% of United States counties do not provide abortion services. Even though, abortion is ten times safer than the actual process of giving birth and 68,000 women died from resorting to “back-alley abortions.” Knowing all this, there are still two main groups arguing

The issue of abortion was debated amongst the American public but was not successfully addressed by the Supreme Court until the 1973 case, Roe v. Wade. In this landmark case, it was decided that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to privacy, which includes a woman 's right to terminate her pregnancy. The case of Griswold v. Connecticut and the case of Roe v. Wade go hand in hand to guarantee women the right to privacy and therefore, the right to have an abortion. Further, pro-choice activists argue that not allowing a woman to control her own body violates her right to equal treatment under the law. In the 2007 Supreme Court case of Gonzales v. Carhart, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, “…Un­due restrictions on abortion procedures…infringe upon a woman 's autonomy to determine her life 's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature”. Justice Ginsburg claimed that women should be free from state-imposed roles, meaning that some women know that they are not made to be mothers and denying those women an abortion denies them equal citizenship stature, seeing as men are not forced to become fathers. Many people believe that a baby should not come into the world unwanted; they argue that denying women abortions may sometimes lead to certain unwanted outcomes. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment backed this claim, they wrote,

4. In Planned Parenthood of S.E. Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), the Court placed parental involvement firmly within a broader set of legal principles governing a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. Parental involvement and other regulations were constitutional so long that they did not place an "undue burden" on a woman's ability to acquire an

The purpose of this memo is to provide an overview of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) constitutional challenges and the probability of a successful outcome. First, this memo will summarize the Supreme Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. Next, this memo will address the legal framework the court will apply to the ACLU’s constitutional challenges based on the three Setonia abortion laws. Finally, the memo will also address whether the ACLU’s constitutional challenge to each of the three Setonia abortion laws will

In 1992, Roe v. Wade was upheld in Casey v. Planned Parenthood. However, the Supreme Court had become significantly more conservative in that time, and this ruling favored the states‘ rights to establish tighter abortion restrictions. In Pennsylvania, women were only permitted first trimester abortions if they had been given information about the fetus’s gestational state and the dangers of having the procedure. A married women was also required to inform her husband prior to having the abortion, and minors had to seek approval from at least one parent unless given a legal bypass. On top of these restrictions, there was also a mandatory 24-hour waiting period (McBride, “Casey v. Planned Parenthood”).

As a result of the increasing congressional barriers put in place to limit women’s privacy rights, Congress proposed legislation to abolish these restrictions on abortion rights. In 1993, Congress proposed the Freedom of Choice Act, which sought to get rid of virtually all of the restrictions that had been in place since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. The Freedom of Choice Act aimed to get rid of restrictions trimester requirements, government refusal to pay for abortions, or the requirement for minors’ guardians to be notified. The act still however, aimed to uphold the need for physician requirements imposed if needed to protect the health of the mother attempting to undergo the procedure. This act has been reintroduced to

In today’s decision, this case was brought because Governor Mike Pence of Indiana signed House Bill 1337 making it illegal for women to seek an abortion on a discriminatory basis on the grounds of gender, race, or disability. Specifically, the law: Prohibited a person from performing an abortion if the person knows that the pregnant woman is seeking the abortion solely because of: (1) the race, color, national origin, ancestry, or sex of the fetus; or (2) a diagnosis or potential diagnosis of the fetus having Down syndrome or any other disability. The day after Governor Pence signed the law, Planned Parenthood challenged the law in a Federal District Court claiming it was unconstitutional. The District Court agreed and issued an immediate