• DOI:10.2307/3479846
• Corpus ID: 38796884

Abortion and the Constitution: the need for a life-protective amendment.

@article{Destro1975AbortionAT,
  title={Abortion and the Constitution: the need for a life-protective amendment.},
  author={Robert A. Destro},
  journal={California law review},
  year={1975},
  volume={63 5},
  pages={
          1250-351
        }
}

• R. Destro
• Published 1 September 1975
• Law
• California law review

As a result of the recent congressional hearings held on proposed constitutional amendments designed to overturn the rulings of the United States Supreme Court concerning abortion, the abortion controversy has once again become a major topic of public interest. The author seeks to identify the two distinct areas of debate involved in the issue and to discuss, in particular, the central topic raised by many of the proposals-the rights of the unborn. It is a misfortune if a judge reads his conscious or unconscious sympathy with one side or the other prematurely into the law and forgets that what seem to him to be first principles are believed by half of his fellow men to be wrong . . .1 Abortion, the right to privacy, the right to life-these topics have been in the public eye since the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade2 and Doe v. Bolton.3 These decisions have not settled the abortion controversy: it continues in Congress, 4 in the courts,5 and in the media. 6 The subject matter is complex and may be debated at many levels. However, without a focus or common ground of discussion, efforts toward resolution inexorably lead to more debate, more confusion, and ultimately, frustration and anger for the parties involved.7