[1] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed. 2d 147 (1973).
[2] "Roe fanned into life an issue that has inflamed our national politics in general, and has obsured with its smoke the selection of Justices to this Court in particular, ever since." Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, __U.S. __, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 120 L.Ed. 2d 674 (1992)(Scalia dissenting).
[3] Lawrence Tribe, The Clash of Absolutes, 115 (W.W. Norton, 1990).
[4] Celeste Michelle Condit, Decoding Abortion Rhetoric, 61 (University of Illinois Press, 1990).
[5] Rosalind Petchesky, Abortion and Woman's Choice, 253 (Longman, 1984).
[6] "When the human features of the embryo become recognizable with the naked eye (end of the eighth week) the developing individual is referred to as a fetus." Principles and Practice of Obstetrics and Perinatology at 127.
[7] Roe v. Wade, Brief for Appellee, 41 in Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States: Constitutional Law - V.75 ( Philip Kurland and Gerhard Casper eds., 1975).
[8] Id. at 41.
[9] "Examination of human embryos [...] shows that structural characteristics recognizably human to the lay person are present by at least twelve to thirteen weeks of development. This is at the end of the first trimester, the time at which it has been traditional to change the term embryo to fetus as the designation for the developing human. Although the fetus at this stage has a lot of developing to do and is by no means a miniature person needing simply to be scaled up by growth, a number of critical features for recognition are present. The head is disproportionately large and the legs are tiny, but the general body configuration is recognizably human. In contrast to earlier stages, a definite face is present, a critical characteristic for human recognition. Also, hands and feet, including fingers and toes, are well defined and unquestionably human. It is also important to note that responsive movements at this stage are quite strong and that spontaneous movement is beginning. Although the fetus is still very small, almost any observer is likely to regard it as human and at least a person-to-be." Clifford Grobstein, From Chance to Purpose: An Appraisal of External Human Fertilization, 102 (Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1981).
[10] Sarah Weddington, A Question of Choice, 115-116 (Penguin Books, 1993).
[11] Weddington at 261.
[12] Charles Gardner, "Is the Embryo a Person?", Nation, 558 (November 13, 1989).
[13] Lennart Nilsson, A Child is Born, 69 ( Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1990).
[14] Id. at 70.
[15] Raymond Gasser, Ph.D., Embryology and Fetology, in, Principles and Practice of Obstetrics and Perinatology, 127, 154-161 (Leslie Iffy, M.D. et. al. eds., 1981)
[16] Fetal Viability Overlaps the Legal Abortion Line, Boston Globe, 5/20/85.
[17] " The forceps is utilized to grasp fetal parts in what is essentially a blind manner. The physician must proceed simply by touch, and skill in this technique can be gained only by experience. Tissues too large to pass through the cervical canal can usually be made smaller by tightening the ratchet and then twisting or rotating the forceps. Care must be taken to avoid undue traction so that the fetal tissues will not lacerate the cervix. The fetal spine and calvarium [skull] are especially likely to cause this complication. " William F. Peterson, Dilatation and Evacuation: Patient Evaluation and Surgical Techniques, in Pregnancy Termination - Procedures, Safety, and New Developments, 186 (Gerald Zatuchni, MD et. al. eds., 1979).
[18] "Calvaria Sign. As the calvaria [skull] is grasped, a sensation that it is collapsing is almost always accompanied by the extrusion of white cerebral material from the external os [opening of the vagina]." Warren M. Hern, M.D., M.P.H., Abortion Practice , 142 (J.B. Lippencott,1981).
[19] "[T]he onset of sentience is far more problematic and controversial. Scientists disagree about which neurological structures and events are essential for the capacity to feel pain...So long as there are these debates, it is not possible to say with any certainty precisely where sentience occurs." Bonnie Steinbock, Life Before Birth, The Moral and Ethical Status of Embryos and Fetuses, 85 (Oxford University Press,1992).
[20] Frances Olsen, Comment: Unraveling Compromise, 103 Harvard Law Review 105, 128 (1989).
[21] " Completion of the external human actually occurs long before the fetus is capable of prolonged extra-uterine survival. Mother-child relationships may also form long before viability. There is, however, a more fundamental flaw [...] viability is not a single event in the fetus' development. It can refer to a variety of points in such a life, depending on such variables as the environment into which the fetus would hypothetically be born and the imagined duration of survival." Fost et. al., The Limited Moral Significance of Fetal Viability, 10 Hastings Center Report 12 (1980).
[22] "Comparative biologists like Adolph Portmann have expressed incredulity at the 'peculiarity of our early development.' What in the world, Portmann wonders, are we doing out of the womb so early? Considering our superior brain development, we are all born pre-mature. He contrasts us with our fellow mammals who seem to be born with well-developed limbs and are able to move almost immediately after birth -- young deer, calves, foals, elephants, giraffes, whales, dolphins, seals." Williard Gaylin, M.D., Adam and Eve and Pinocchio, 38 (Viking, 1990).
[23] "As one great biologist, S. Tax, put it: 'Culture is part of the biology of man...even though it is passed on socially and not through genes. It is a characteristic of our species, as characteristic as the long neck of the giraffe.' " Id. at 38.
[24] "This co-existence [of generations in a family] assures that a powerful Lamarckian mechanism - whereby acquired characteristics can be transmitted - will co-exist along with the Mendelian mechanisms that support all animal genetics. We are capable of passing on acquired characteristics. We are not dependent on mutation to introduce change; we do not need to reinvent the pulley, nor do we need to have some specific pulley-inventing capacity fixed into our genetic nature." Id. at 37.
[25] "The government interest at issue is in protecting those who will be citizens if their lives are not ended in the womb. The substantiality of this interest is in no way dependent on the probability that the fetus may be capable of surviving outside the womb at any given point in its development, as the possibility of fetal survival is contingent on the state of medical practice and technology, factors that are in essence morally and constitutionally irrelevant. The State's interest is in the fetus as an entity in itself, and the character of this entity does not change at the point of viability under conventional medical wisdom. Accordingly, the State's interest, if compelling after viability, is equally compelling before viability." Thornburgh v. American College of Obst. and Gyn., 476 U.S. 747, 795 (1985) (White, J., dissenting).
[26] John Napier, Hands, 55 (Princeton University Press, 1993).
[27] Stanley Kubrick, 2001, A Space Odyssey.
[28] Marlise Simons, Prehistoric Art Treasure is Found in French Cave, N.Y. Times, January 19, 1995, at A1.
[29] J. Bronowski, The Ascent of Man, 56 (1973).
[30] "Thus in terms of the issues raised by external human fertilization and bitterly debated in connection with abortion, we cannot say with any reliability exactly when personhood appears in the course of development. We cannot even be sure what meaning to attach to the question. [...] The obscurity is not due to lack of attention. Over the centuries few subjects have inspired more cogitation. There appears to be an inherent difficulty in the problem, partly the result of the complexity of the substrate of self and partly, perhaps, because it is self studying self. [...] It is even possible that self - standing as it does at the intersection of subjective and objective reality - will never be identically comprehended by the myriad selves who have and will experience it." Clifford Grobstein, From Chance to Purpose: An Appraisal of External Human Fertilization, 76 (Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1981).
[31] John M. Goldenring, M.D., The Brain-Life Theory: Towards a Consistent Biological Definition of Humanness, 11 Journal of Medical Ethics 198, 200 (1985).
[32] Id. at 200.
[33] "The question of when life ends is in a strict sense as unanswerable as that of when life begins, but measuring the phenomenon by a standard of brain activity has gained a popular acceptance unknown to the viability standard of Roe v. Wade. Utilizing a standard of brain activity for determining the beginning of life would provide consistency in an area of law which cannot appeal to the certainty of scientific measurement." Joel Cornwell, The Concept of Brain Life; Shifting the Abortion Standard Without Imposing Religious Values, 25 Duquesne Law Review 471, 475 (1987).
[34] Sarah Weddington, A Question of Choice, 67 (Penguin Books, 1993).
[35] "Reflex activity has been observed by as early as seven weeks as a result of tactile stimulation of the midface area (citations omitted). Such stimulation causes contralateral body flexion. Spontaneous whole-body movements occur during the tenth week and become more refined and localized to specific regions by the fourteenth week. Grasp and Babinski reflexes have been observed before the end of the first trimester. However, it is usually not until the sixteenth or seventeenth week, when the total mass of the fetus is considerably larger, that the mother experiences fetal quickening movements. Breathing, sucking, and swallowing have all been observed in three month fetuses as well as refined facial movements such as squinting, frowning, and mouth opening." Raymond F. Gasser, Ph.D., Embryology and Fetology in Principles and Practice of Obstetrics and Perinatology, 154 (Leslie Iffy, M.D. et al. eds., John Wiley and Sons, 1981).
[36] "What is suggested by this accumulating evidence is that self does not arise at a given moment but rather is the product of processes of continuing genesis, beginning in utero but continuing well after birth. Self almost certainly is not actually present during the first two months of development, although it becomes increasingly imminent. In these terms the period of reasonable certainty that no semblance of self exists ends with the appearance of spontaneous and responsive behavior. Beyond this point scientific judgment must be progressively more qualified, depending upon what assumptions are made." Clifford Grobstein, From Chance to Purpose, An Appraisal of External Human Fertilization, 100 (Addison-Wesley, 1981).
[37] "In man the most precise function that the hand is capable of is to place the tip of the thumb in opposition to the tip of the index finger so that the pulps of the two digits make maximum contact. In this position, small objects can be manipulated with an unlimited potential for fine pressure adjustments or minute directional corrections. Opposition, to this degree of precision, is a hallmark of mankind. No nonhuman primate can replicate it." John Napier, The Roots of Mankind, 181 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970) .
[38] "I considered what I had just read [ Blackmun's trimester scheme in Roe ]. Never in any of our briefs had we suggested anything about a trimester approach to pregnancy. Never in any of the State's briefs or in the amicus briefs was there anything like that. Nothing like that had been spoken of directly in oral argument. Almost never do attorneys find a concept for the first time in the opinion in their own case. But here exactly that had happened. I wondered where the concept had come from." Weddington at 162.
[39] "The right protected by Roe is not necessarily a right to end the life of the fetus. That is simply an outcome that cannot be avoided prior to fetal viability if the woman is to exercise the right to terminate her pregnancy." Tribe at 115.
[40] International Handbook on Abortion, Table 32.8, 492 (Paul Sachdev, ed., 1988).
[41] Roe v.Wade, Brief for Appellee, 29-54 in Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States: Constitutional Law - V.75 ( Philip Kurland and Gerhard Casper eds., 1975).
[42] Roe v. Wade, Amicus Brief - Fellows of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 6-26 in Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States: Constitutional Law - V.75 ( Philip Kurland and Gerhard Casper eds., 1975).
[43]Roe at 156.
[44] Roe at 159,
[45] Roe at 163-164.
[46] 492 U.S. 490 (1988).
[47] Webster at 518.
[48] Webster at 519.
[49] Webster at 552.
[50] 120 L.Ed. 2d 674 (1992).
[51] Casey at 694.
[52] Casey at 710.
[53] Casey at 710.
[54] Casey at 710.