From “The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government” by
Archibald Cox,
a set of lectures delivered at Oxford University and printed in 1976:
The opinion [in Roe v. Wade] fails even to think about what I might suppose to be an important compelling curiosity of the State in prohibiting abortion: the curiosity in sustaining that respect for the paramount sanctity of human life which has all the time been on the centre of Western civilization, not merely by guarding ‘life’ itself, nevertheless outlined, however by safeguarding the penumbra, whether or not at first, by some overwhelming incapacity of thoughts or physique, or at demise. . . .
The failure to confront the difficulty in principled phrases leaves the opinion to learn like a set of hospital guidelines and laws, whose validity is nice sufficient this week however shall be destroyed with new statistics upon the medical dangers of childbirth and abortion or new advances in offering for the separate existence of a foetus. Neither historian, layman, nor lawyer shall be persuaded that each one the main points prescribed in Roe v. Wade are a part of both pure legislation or the Constitution.
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Appeared within the May 4, 2022, print version as ‘Notable & Quotable: Roe.’
Source: www.wsj.com”