The semiotics of Roe v. Wade are some of the most vehemently contested political objects in modern U.S. history. The initial judicial ruling did not lend itself to a political reading – the majority opinion was comprised of three republican justices (Blackmun, Burger, Stewart) and four democrats (Brennan Jr., Douglas, Marshall, Powell); the dissent, one republican (Rehnquist) and one democrat (White)1. Most heavily contested Supreme Court decisions are decided 5-4. Roe’s initial 7-2 indicates a significant shift in the meaning of abortion in the U.S. from the decision of the case to the present, and the presence of justices from each major political party in both the majority opinion and dissent indicate a significant politicization of abortion in the U.S. since 1973.
The establishment and erosion of abortion rights in the U.S. is structured by the bounds of the constitution. As such, there is no possibility of a medically informed decision – the fight instead proceeds by associations of movements and opinions with pro- or anti-constitutional stances, which themselves are connotatively equivalent to pro- or anti-Americanism. The lifetime of Roe saw a significant revival in conservative rhetoric, pioneered by Reagan and brought to its logical conclusion by Trump.
Legal Privileges of the Unborn and their Mothers
Rhetoric of abortion discourse in the U.S. is structured by the status of an unborn fetus as living or not. However, in the legal sphere, abortion rights were affirmed with respect to the rights of mothers, not fetuses. In his majority opinion, Blackmun affirmed that “The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment undoubtedly does place a limit… on legislative power to enact laws such as [the Texas criminal abortion statutes of 1970].”2
The names of the factions, pro-life and pro-choice, imbue a sense of opposition between the life of a fetus and choice of its mother, and implicitly affirm the view that fetuses are living beings. It is unsurprising, then, that these terms originated from the pro-life faction soon after the ’73 Roe decision. These terms’ lasting impact introduced a moral element to public opinion on abortion which has dragged debate on the issue to a standstill – the determination of the start of the life of a child became the deciding factor in public opinion on abortion, but this designation is arbitrary. Different possibilities for the “beginning” of a fetus’s life have implicit political implications which often go unacknowledged.
Jane Roe: Indeterminate Symbol of the Abortion Debate
Norma McCorvey, anonymized under the pseudonym Jane Roe, was the plaintiff in Roe. She represented an often-overlooked class; poor women in the South. She constituted a powerful image for the abortion debate when she shed her anonymity in the early 80’s. McCorvey was initially on the side of Roe defenders,2 necessarily so, considering her role in the landmark decision. In 1995 she was approached by Philip Benham, an Evangelical and polemic figure of the Christian right.3 Benham baptized McCorvey on film that same year, giving the new right a powerful image in its arsenal: the metaphorical cleansing of pro-abortion opinions in the woman who was ultimately responsible for the most significant advancement in abortion accessibility in U.S. history. McCorvey shifted her position again during her self-proclaimed “deathbed confession” in the 2020 documentary AKA Jane Roe. She felt used by pro-lifers and claimed to “always” have supported pro-choice stance.3 However, her image at this point was well-utilized by the new right to reinforce the moral obligation of Christians to resist abortion. This intentional creation of an image demonstrates the power narrativization holds to change historical floes, and the malleability of historical memory.
The Evangelical Revival and Ronald Reagan
The Evangelical Revival of the 1970’s grounded its rhetoric in a novel popular interpretation of the Christian Bible by Evangelicals, a reaction to the ’73 Roe decision. The Bible says nothing explicit concerning abortion, which explains why no homogenous Christian opinion on abortion emerged until the biblical reinterpretation catalyzed by Roe. This reinterpretation was accomplished in a variety of ways, most of which employ a generous reading of Exodus 21:22-25: “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm… he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then [he] shall pay life for life.”4 Glaringly, this passage concerns the practice of incidental abortion, having nothing to do with the choice of the victim. The content of the message is irrelevant; sermons based on this passage quickly mobilized a near-unanimous condemnation of abortion among Christians in the early 80’s.
In his essay Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation, Ronald Reagan criticizes the rhetoric of pro-abortion actors as eugenic, comparing it to “‘quality control’ to see if newly born human beings are up to snuff.”5 Notably, Reagan makes no appeals to the Christian god in his paper. He addresses the portion of Republicans not moved by the shift in biblical understanding.
Between biblical reinterpretation and the concerted efforts of Reagan, restricting abortion access on moral and religious grounds became the default Republican position just ten years after Roe. Contrastively, the abortion rights camp did not establish any new arguments to defend abortion access. The leading narrative in support of abortion rights temporarily adopted rhetoric of population control, which when defeated in the public sphere fell back on the justification of the original Roe ruling.
Final Opinion on Roe
Roe was overturned in the 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.6 This decision reflects the narrativization and politicization of abortion in America. In contrast with the ’73 Roe decision, the majority opinion in Dobbs was held exclusively by Republican justices; the dissent, exclusively Democrats. Roe was overturned with a 5-3 vote (effectively 5-4 considering the absence of one Democratic Justice).
The life and death of Roe reflect the power of images in U.S. cultural memory. Few in the U.S. consider abortion access an apolitical topic today, but the forces responsible for its politicization were set in motion deliberately and permanently transformed the cultural memory of abortion in the U.S.
References
- Craig, B. H., & O’Brien, D. M. (1993). Abortion and American Politics. Chatham House Publishing.
- Blackmun, H. A. & Supreme Court of The United States. (1972) U.S. Reports: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113. [Periodical] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep410113/.
- Sweeney, Nick. (2020). AKA Jane Roe. Vice Studios.
- Exodus 21:22-25. (2001). English Standard Version Bible. ESV Online. https://esv.literalword.com/
- Reagan, Ronald. (1984). Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation. Self-published.
- Dwyer, Devin. (2022). Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in landmark case on abortion rights. ABC News.https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-overturns-roe-wade-landmark-case-abortion/story?id=85160781
The comparison between the partisanism of the Roe decision vs the Dobbs decision really powerfully demonstrates how politicized abortion has become. It is growing further away from a medical and personal decision and more of a tool used for politcal means. This seems highly reflective of what was disccused in lecture concerning the growing trend of people aligning with a party and allowing the partisan identity to dictate opinions rather than forming fact-based perspective.
The evangelical path that abortion has taken is an interesting one. From a ruling that was not closely contested, to a very controversial ruling. Now many of the justices and politicians are shaped by their religious views on the subject. It is interesting that the separation of church and state is not talked about more. From the biblical text in Exodus, it is quite clear that the bible considers the unborn a life. However, many politicians are religious, like Joe Biden, and have different views on abortion.
This was interesting to read because of how the Christian Bible was reinterpreted by Evangelicals in response to the Roe v. Wade decision in the 1970s, which led to a mass condemnation of abortion among Christians in the 1980s. Especially given that there was no clear Christian consensus on abortion before this reinterpretation