Letter to the editor: Roe v. Wade is a weak 'medical privacy' law

Roe v. Wade (RvW) majority opinion by Justice Harry Blackmun was rife with conjecture about the "human condition" and the overuse of sanctimonious and hyperbolic language such as "raw edges of human existence" and "population growth, pollution, poverty, and racial overtones tend to complicate and not simplify the problem" that in all, has no bearing on the constitutionality of the central premise of life, when life or human existence begins, at what stage of development considered to be privileged with the protections of the Constitution and what natural rights apply to unborn humans and when they begin to apply. It's a weak "medical privacy" law.

I'm not going to argue my position on abortion from the "rape and incest" or "health of the mother or child" angle because statically speaking those cases are less than a <.01% and better yet <.005% respectively. Those are fringe edges of the argument and do the greater debate no justice, so I'm going to focus my efforts on the 98.5% of abortions that are elective and unnecessary. Since RvW (1973) over 62,000,000 abortions were performed the U.S., and in 2018 614,820! Not one was considered "fetal death" and medically no different than having a wart removed from your finger or a tummy tuck.

This whole debate is NOT and never has been about a women's rights or if they are bodily autonomous, which by all accounts they are and would be a grave violation to their natural rights if someone or something infringed on it without proper due process, it's about life and does a developing American human being possess the right to life (even without sentience, is there an innate and subconscious desire to live) and should that right continue to be legally infringed upon in the most heinous and barbaric ways because of the flimsy "medical privacy" law that is RvW? That's what this is about.

It's about life and the right to it.

The abortion issue will remain largely unanswered until SCOTUS takes up and rules on "personhood," that is, when a developing fetus/baby is considered a human with the God-given and constitutionally codified natural and "inalienable" right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," as then all existing pro-choice laws will immediately be considered illegal as they are grave violations of one's human and civil rights.

It seems the only individual that isn't granted the right to due process or these natural rights is the unborn human being. Political actors and nefarious grifter-type individuals and organizations will use this emotionally sparking issue to garner votes, donations and will continue to divide us into voting blocs of a largely ignorant, subjective and uneducated population. We must immerse ourselves into the issue, as far as we can in history as we can to understand it and fight against it.

Don't expect too much from this case as we are seeing now, because the SCOTUS has been so polarized and politicized (just read nearly any of Sotomayor's opinions) and will likely obfuscate its intended design, that is to singularly and definitively determine if a bill, law or otherwise is constitutional or unconstitutional. That's it. SCOTUS' charge is of the simplest kind; to uphold constitutionality. Either uphold or send it back to the legislative branch, it's really that easy, and anything more or less is a violation of the creed and oaths these justices swear before God and the public to administer.

Pray SCOTUS has the discernment and understanding to de-conflate "medical privacy" from abortion and the courage to do what's right and overturn it.

It's time.

JEFF ZELL

Sumter