CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES:
ABORTION AND SEGREGATION
Hi! We are Caroline, Wana, Josh and Maria from Political Science 111, Section 005. In our discussion-term paper we will examine civil liberties, the courts and political parties and their relevance in the issues of abortion and segregation.
Caroline Tran
In the past, having an abortion was illegal and dangerous. Many women died because abortion was illegal. So they have to go to unliscensed doctors. Until the case Roe v.Wade that helped legalized abortion in 1973. Jane Roe was a unmarried pregnant woman. She couldn't get a legal abortion in Texas. Roe claim that Texas laws were unconstitutional because the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourtheenth Amendments gives her the right ti privacy. A doctor who had been arrested for violating the law had the permission to "intervene" in the action. He said that the law was " unconstitutionally vague" and it violated the right to privacy and doctors right to practice the procedure producted by the Constitution. A three-judge district court decided that the statute was unconstitutional and "infringing upon the right to privacy". But the application for an injunction was dismissed.
On appeal, the case went to the Supreme Court. The Court allows Roe to terminate her pregnancy because the Court agreeds with Roe that constitutional right to privacy allows her to make a decision to end her right to end her pregnancy. The state have a greater right to regulate a decision on abortion when pregnancy reach the later stages.
The Court divided pregnancy into three trimester. The Court decides which point during
the pregnancy will the state begin to emerge. For the first trimenster, the woman and her doctor have the right to decide to have an abortion. The abortion have to be done by a licensed doctor. During the second trimester, the state can safeguard the women's health. The state can regulate abortion procedures due to the women's health. During the tird trimester, abortion is illegal unless it threatens the mother's life.
Another case aroused after Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton was a case that challenged the procedural requirements. Mary Doe was a pregnant woman in Georgia. She said that the
procedural requirements restricted the woman's right to privacy and violated the Due Process Law and Equal Protection Laws. The District Court upheld the procedural requirements because of the "state's legitimate interest in the protection of health. the case was later past to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said that the procedural requirements violated the Fourteenth Amendement. As a result of these two cases, states started to liberalize the abortion laws in response to the Supreme Court decisions.
In 1976, the Supreme Court looked over the case Planned Parenthood v. Danforth. The Supreme court was deciding on mandating that the first two weeks of pregnancy a woman need to give a written conset to have an abortion. The wife need to obtain a husband's consent and a minor needs to have a parent's consent. The Court decided that the requirement of written consent by the a woman wanting an abortion during the first trimester was valid. All information are obtained from The Guide to American Law, Everyone's Legal Encyclopeedia Vol 1.
Wana Wu
This year is the twenty- fifth anniversary of the famous court case Roe vs. Wade. It influenced the Supreme Court to pass a law legalizing abortion. (Legal abortions not only protects women's lives, also protects their health.) It gave women the right to choose whether they want to keep the unborn child or abort it.
After 2 decades, one would feel that Abortion would be more accepted. However, that is not true. Many Americans are still against women having Abortions. Some feel it is wrong to take away a life without giving a chance at life. Others believe there are other alternatives besides Abortion. For example, giving up the baby for adoption. It is true as long as these women are healthy and the babies they are carrying are not in any danger. Likewise, if carrying the unborn child will cause great harm to the mother's health, she would consider getting an abortion. For example, if a woman has heart disease, kidney disease, sickle cell anemia, sever hypertension, and etc, legal abortion avert serious medical complications that could have result from child birth. Furthermore, what if some of these women are victims of rape or incest, should they have to bear the child as a constant reminder or are they exceptions?
In the most recent abortion case Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania vs. Casey (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/roead.html), the "U. S. Supreme Court in June of 1992 upheld the right of states to enact legislation designed to persuade a woman to choose childbirth over abortion."
According to Joan S. Coombs (http://www.aclu.org/news/newssearch.html), a client of the ACLU (the American Civil Liberties Union), she stated, "the real lesson of Roe vs. Wade is that the right to choose didn't always exist. If anything, this anniversary should serve as a reminder that we need to be vigilant to ensure that the right to choose is there for future generation."
Most recently, as early as 1995, the Senate proposed a bill to ban abortions performed after the first trimester twice. President Clinton has vetoed it twice. It is called the "partial-birth abortion" (a term that has no medical or legal meaning). Another name for it is "intact dilation and evacuation (or "intact D&E"). Any abortion performed after the first trimester would be considered criminal. One fact on abortion is that "only one percent of all abortions occur after 18 or more weeks from conception. Some physicians perform abortions on the second trimester because the fetus cannot survive outside the womb or "prenatal tests results revealing fetal abnormalities". Also, abortions occurring in the third trimester are extremely rare.
Ron Fitzsimmons, head of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, has admitted that he lied when he said, "Partial-birth abortions were rare and only performed for medical reasons". He confessed that "thousands of these abortions are widely performed as an electives procedure on healthy women carrying healthy babies". As a result, anti-abortion leaders oppose ideas and programs that can help women achieve equality and freedom. They also oppose programs that protect the health and well beings of women and their children.
A statement made by Elizabeth Symonds, legislative counsel at the ACLU's Washington National Office, "This bill is a direct and unprecedented attack on the fundamental right of women to choose, if this bill were passed, women across this country would be denied access to certain life-saving procedures. Congress should stay out of the operating room, and leave private medical decisions to patients and their physicians." She also stated, "The bill directly challenges the fundamental right to choose established in Roe vs. Wade, by selectively denying women the safest medical procedure for otherwise legal abortion, regardless of the health consequences to the woman."
If the bill is passed, doctors who perform these procedures will face fines and imprisonment of up to two years. According to Catherine Weiss, Director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, "despite its amendments, this bill is written so broadly that a doctor could be criminally charged for performing a wide array of safe and common abortion procedures. Congress has passed a measure that several courts have already said is harmful to women's health and in violation of the Consitution".
The first state to ban an abortion procedure was Ohio, back in 1995. The courts decided that the "partial-birth abortion bans" were unconstitutional. Also, in other states like "Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio and Rhode Island", courts have declared the laws illegal.
In closing remarks, I believe a woman has the right to choose abortion over giving up the baby for adoption if she wants to because it is her body and nobody knows her situation better than her own self. No one has the right to force the woman to do something against her will. That includes government interference of any type.
Submitted by: Maria Vega
Although in today's America we enjoy the civil liberties afforded us by the constitution, and laws exist to protect every person regardless of race, color or creed, this wasn't always the case. As we endeavor to examine the history of segregation in our nation, we will bring into perspective the roles of the Republican and Democratic parties and their relevance to the Civil Rights Movement on this issue .
With the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the Republicans firmly established themselves as a major party. The Republicans worked to deal the death blow to slavery with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and passage; the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery. Hoping to turn back the Democratic advance in the South immediately after the Civil War, the Republican Congress continued to push legislation to extend the full protection of civil rights to blacks. First the Republicans passed a Civil Rights Act in 1866 recognizing blacks as citizens. The Republicans then proposed the 14th Amendment, which provided blacks equal protection of the laws. Moreover, the Republicans proposed and passed the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed voting rights regardless of race, creed or previous condition of servitude. However, despite the Republicans' efforts to foster equality, blacks continued to suffer due to segregation and discrimination.
Some Southern states passed laws which restricted the rights of blacks, these were known as "Black Codes". For example, in Mississippi one black code barred interracial marriage, the punishment for such an act was death. Another code restricted the area in which Blacks could live. Furthermore, blacks were not allowed to own or rent land outside of an incorporated town. The purpose of this code was to undermine the efforts of the federal government in giving forty acres of land to former slaves. These actions by the Southern states angered congress. Led by the "Radical Republicans", congress passed sweeping legislation during the Reconstruction years. Republican congressmen Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens led the fight and first passed an act to establish the Freedmen's Bureau. Its purpose was to provide education and training for Blacks in their transition from slavery to freedom. Despite the efforts of democratic president Andrew Johnson to stop all legislation in assisting blacks, several significant bills were passed. However, segregation continued to plague the black's quality of life.
In the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, [ where a Black man by the name of Adolph Plessy sat in a white-designated section of a train, and was arrested upon refusing to move to the black-designated area] the Supreme Court ruled that "separate-but-equal" was constitutional; the South contended that this practice was necessary to maintain order in society. Housing, education, transportation and everything else was indeed separate for blacks, but far from equal.
Moving at the pace of snails, quality of life for blacks began to change. In 1954 one black family challenged the segregation policies of the Topeka, Kansas school district. While living just two blocks from a local area school, Linda Brown had to travel twenty-one blocks to an all-black school. The case was taken to court, and the previous ruling "separate-but-equal" was declared unconstitutional. Due to the Brown vs. Board of Education, for the first time in the nation's history, blacks were to be admitted to Southern white schools, at least in theory. The school segregation issue had been a long withstanding endeavor of NAACP [ National Association for Advancement of Colored People ]. Once again the Republicans under the administration of President Eisenhower made efforts to enforce the Brown vs. Board of Ed. Supreme Court decision. President Eisenhower, charged with upholding the rights of blacks, appointed a Civil Rights Commission and created a civil rights division in the Justice Department. Inasmuch as these efforts culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the struggle continued.
Many protests during the 1950's and 1960's were spontaneous reactions to white mistreatment, these non-violent demonstrations became known as the Civil Rights Movement. One such incident occurred in Greensboro, North Carolina when a student was refused service at a bus terminal lunch counter. After the incident, Joseph McNeil and three other students decided to go to the local Woolworth store and remain there until they were served. The waitress refused to serve them, so the four young men just sat there until they were arrested. Each day the protesters returned and grew in numbers. Black adults soon joined in, and a boycott of downtown area stores began.. When the stores were near financial ruin, the decision was made to break with tradition and desegregate the lunch counters . After much hardship and struggle, the effectiveness of the Civil Rights Movement led ,among others, by Dr. Martin Luther King was evident. In 1953 the Supreme Court banned segregation in Washington D.C. restaurants, and in 1955 the Supreme Court banned segregation in public recreational facilities. Years of sacrifice culminated in the passage of legislation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This bill was the most significant piece of legislation to date, and has had a lasting effect in the elimination of discrimination and segregation. The act included 11 titles that covered a variety of issues; some of the more significant titles are as follows:
· Outlaws arbitrary discrimination in voter registration …
· Bars discrimination in public facilities such as restaurants and hotels.
· Authorized government to bring suits to desegregate public facilities and schools.
· Extends the life and expands the power of the Civil Rights Commission
· Provides for federal financial assistance to be terminated or from educational institutions and programs that practice racial discrimination.
· Prohibits private employers from refusing to hire or from firing or discriminating against any person because of race, color, sex, religion or national origin.
In retrospect, it is evident that on the issues of segregation the role of the Republican party was instrumental in the development and fulfillment of the Civil Rights Movement. This is not to discount the efforts of the Democratic party in civil rights issues. However, according to research, the role of the Republican party was historically the most relevant on the specific issue of segregation.
Web sites used:
· http://www.ghgcorp.com/hollaway/civil/civil62.htm
· http://members.aol.com/JohnEngler/history.html
· http://www.blackfacts.com/results.asp
· http://www.ghgcorp.com/hollaway/civil/civil42.htm
· http://www.ghgcorp.com/hollaway/civil/civil17.htm
· http://www.democrats.org/party/convention/landmarks/
Josh Weiner
In the spring of 1961, newly inaugurated President John F. Kennedy brought with him high hopes for civil rights leaders and activists with his statement that "the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans."
It was widely recognized that Kennedy's narrow victory was due in large part to his political move to pull strings in order to free Martin Luther King Jr. who was being held in a Georgia prison after a sit-in. This led to King's endorsement of Kennedy and with it the majority of the African-American vote.
However, Kennedy then failed to follow through on a campaign promised executive order to "wipe out housing discrimination in federally funded housing projects." Many worried how far Kennedy would go on behalf of civil rights laws.
Years earlier, in 1946, the Supreme Court case of Irene Morgan declared that segregated bus seating was unconstitutional. After that decision, in 1947, 23 activists from the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation tested it with an interracial bus ride. The white members sat in the areas reserved for blacks and the black members sat in the areas reserved for whites. They called it a "Journey of Reconciliation." It was an unsuccessful effort. They were arrested in North Carolina, found guilty, and several of them served time on a chain gang as well. In the South, prejudice existed to an extent that often such Supreme Court decisions on civil rights and liberties were not enforced by the government bureaucracies, with even the reverse occurring.
Back in December of 1960 activists were victorious in another similar Supreme Court case ordering the integration of bus stations serving interstate travelers. Soon after, in order to test newly elected Kennedy's commitment to civil rights enforcement, again led by CORE and it's new National Director Mr. James Farmer, who was among the 1947 group, the same tactic was used. An interracial group of activists would ride on buses through the South, again with blacks in the white seats and vice versa. The first two buses of these rides were on May 4th, 1961. They became known as "The Freedom Rides."
These first two buses, a Greyhound and a Trailway bus, were met with open hostility by some southern whites and worse. The Greyhound bus is stoned as it is entering Anniston, Alabama. A mob of 200 attacked the bus, slashing its tires. The driver pulled away from the mob, and a few miles outside of town, stopped to fix the tires. The mob caught up with the bus and firebombed it, the passengers barely exiting in time.
The Trailway bus was attacked by a mob in Birmingham. Many complained that the FBI offered no protection. Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor said later that he posted no protection because of the Mother's Day holiday. Yet later it was learned that the FBI was told in advance that the riders would be attacked and that the city police knew as well. Here we find an example of law enforcement neglecting its duty because of its sympathy with the racist mentality of the mob in this community.
After these horrific events, many thought that the rides would end, but they continued when a new group of students, mostly from the Nashville sit-ins, came forward to continue the Freedom Rides. This second wave of people, also an integrated group of mostly students faced attacks in Montgomery and were jailed in Jackson, Mississippi. Throughout the summer of 1961 many riders rode into Jackson - over 300 were arrested.
In September 1961, another legislative victory occurred when attorney General Robert Kennedy petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission who then issued regulations banning all segregated seating in interstate vehicles and terminals. Soon the federal government started enforcing these laws banning segregation of buses and terminals, sending troops to these southern towns and giving protection to the freedom riders.
As word spread across the nation of the violence toward and arrests of the riders, Robert Kennedy tried to please both African Americans and those sympathetic to the Freedom Riders and also please the Democratic Southern voters. He stressed that the focus for the future of civil rights should be voter registration among blacks. He started the Voter Education Project, and with the help of federal funding also enlisted many civil rights leaders. This emphasis for working within the system through voter registration was supported in widespread newspaper editorials across the nation.
The summer of the Freedom Riders will be remembered as a brave battle of non-violent civil disobedience as well as a racially integrated event during the 50's - 60's civil rights movement. It also illustrates the need for struggle even when legislation of civil rights and liberties for minority groups has been passed into law, because of majority mob rule or bureaucratic agencies that can abuse their powers and inhibit the execution of such laws.