Christopher's Apologies

In what could be a land mark decision, the Alabama Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, stated unequivocally the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade!

In the case, Amy Hamilton (individually and on behalf of her stillborn son) v. Dr. Warren Scott et al., the Alabama Justices had some scathing remarks on the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in this country, leading to the legal abortion of 53+ million children in America.

Last Friday (2/17/12) the justices published their decision in the Hamilton case.  You can read it here; however, I will be highlighting some of what I consider pertinent below.

The case stretches back all the way to 2004 and has a lot of interesting twists.  My attempt to succinctly describe the case is as follows:  Amy Hamilton was pregnant with her second child in December 2004 and sought pre-natal medical care from IMG.  Over the course of the next few months, she experienced several medical difficulties and attended several appointments at IMG.  However, on March 11, 2005, Amy Hamilton had labor induced and her child was delivered stillborn.

In April 2006, Ms. Hamilton “filed a complaint in the trial court, alleging that the defendants had caused the death of her unborn son.”  In June 2009 the defendants, citing previous case-law, filed a motion, stating: “The Supreme Court of Alabama has held that a plaintiff cannot maintain a wrongful death action for a fetus not viable to live outside of the womb.”

As the Hamilton case drug on, another case,  Mack v. Carmack, produced the following ruling (Sept 2011):

This Court recognized that a wrongful-death action is available for recovery of damages for the accidental death of a previable unborn child, specifically overruling [the cases cited by the defendants in Hamilton].”

The remaining specifics in the Hamilton case are interesting, but I want to get to the court’s ruling.  It is several pages long so I will be just grabbing small sections of it and highlighting key phrases.  Even the small amount I copied is a lot, but it is worth your time to read it!

• Today, this Court reaffirms that the lives of unborn children are protected by Alabama’s wrongful-death statute, regardless of viability. I write separately to explain why the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), does not bar the result we reach today and to emphasize the diminishing influence of Roe’s viability standard. Because Roe is not controlling authority beyond abortion law, and because its viability standard is not persuasive, I conclude that, at least with regard to the law of wrongful death, Roe’s viability standard should be universally abandoned.
• The most significant shift away from the viability standard, however, has been in the law of fetal homicide. At least 38 states have enacted fetal-homicide statutes, and 28 of those statutes protect life from conception.
• Alabama’s homicide statute, for example, defines “person” specifically to include “an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability.” § 13A-6 1(a)(3), Ala. Code 1975
• …the homicide statute “defines ‘person’ to include an ‘unborn child.’ The legislature has thus recognized under that statute that, when an ‘unborn child’ is killed, a ‘person’ is killed.
• Roe’s viability rule was based, in significant part, on an incorrect statement of legal history….However, scholars have repeatedly pointed to inaccuracies in Roe’s historical account since Roe was decided in 1973. “[T]he history embraced in Roe would not withstand careful examination even when Roe was written.”
• Roe’s adoption of the viability standard in 1973 did not reflect American law. Viability played no role in the common law of property, homicide, or abortion….  In fact, the viability standard was adopted in Roe without any evidentiary record and was not discussed in the briefs or arguments.
• Since Roe was decided in 1973, advances in medical and scientific technology have greatly expanded our knowledge of prenatal life. The development of ultrasound technology has enhanced medical and public understanding, allowing us to watch the growth and development of the unborn child in a way previous generations could never have imagined. Similarly, advances in genetics and related fields make clear that a new and unique human being is formed at the moment of conception, when two cells, incapable of independent life, merge to form a single, individual human entity.
• Of course, that new life is not yet mature — growth and development are necessary before that life can survive independently — but it is nonetheless human life. And there has been a broad legal consensus in America, even before Roe, that the life of a human being begins at conception. An unborn child is a unique and individual human being from conception, and, therefore, he or she is entitled to the full protection of law at every stage of development.
• Roe’s viability rule was based on inaccurate history and was mostly unsupported by legal precedent.  Medical advances since Roe have conclusively demonstrated that an unborn child is a unique human being at every stage of development. And together, Alabama’s homicide statute, the decisions of this Court, and the statutes and judicial decisions from other states make abundantly clear that the law is no longer, in Justice Blackmun’s words, “reluctant … to accord legal rights to the unborn.” For these reasons, Roe’s viability rule is neither controlling nor persuasive here and should be rejected by other states until the day it is overruled by the United States Supreme Court.

Wow!  That is some powerful language!  I’m not opening any bottles of champagne or anything, but last week’s holding by the Supreme Court of Alabama is something that is going to be looked at by a lot of legal scholars that reside in the pro-life camp.