Russell Hittinger, chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa Law School, said yesterday that Americans know little about abortion law, even though 25 years have passed since the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision.
Hittinger addressed an audience of about 30 students and community members in his speech "Twenty-Five Years After Roe vs. Wade: A Pro-Life Perspective" at Three Rockefeller Center yesterday afternoon.
"[The] abortion law is clearly defined. There is no excuse for Americans not to know the law of abortions, especially since abortion crosses all geographical, economic and social boundaries," Hittinger said.
According to Hittinger, America has the highest abortion rate in the western world as defined in number of abortions per thousand fertile women. The only countries that have higher abortion rates are communist and former communist countries.
Despite this, in a recent public poll, only 17 percent of Americans were able to correctly answer questions about America's abortion laws, while 62 percent responded incorrectly. The rest were partially correct.
With comparisons to slavery, contraception and the evolution of laws surrounding those issues, Hittinger examined three popular myths about abortion.
"The first myth is that abortion law followed culture," Hittinger said.
The popular perception that American culture was moving towards liberalization before Roe vs. Wade is wrong, according to Hittinger.
In a 1972 referendum, 61 percent of Michigan citizens voted down a repeal of an anti-abortion law. And that same year, the governor of New York vetoed a repeal of a 1970 anti-abortion law.
"Americans were reluctant to use the laws to ratify their own lifestyles," Hittinger said.
According to Hittinger, the second myth is that abortion issues are about privacy. He argued that the right protected by the Roe vs. Wade has evolved from privacy to autonomy.
"The issue has moved from reproduction to whether the state can resolve philosophical questions for a woman," Hittinger said.
"Abortion laws deprive a woman of her preferred lifestyle and force upon her a future," Hittinger continued, describing the reasoning of the Supreme Court judges in the Roe vs. Wade case.
"The State commits 'personacide' against a woman by taking away her right to autonomous action," Hittinger said. By this reasoning, according to Hittinger, the Supreme Court had to prevent infringement by the state on individual rights and protect abortion.
The third myth is that abortion is a permissive law. Hittinger argued that if abortion is a right, then laws against infringing on it are wrong.
But Hittinger avoided talking about the moral issues surrounding abortion, although he is personally pro-life.
Hittinger also argued that many of these myths resulted from the Roe vs. Wade ruling. "The Roe v. Wade ruling was a bad ruling," he said.
According to Hittinger, the Roe v. Wade ruling created a situation that cannot be easily solved. The only two ways to overturn that decision are either a constitutional amendment or another Supreme court ruling.
"This makes the issue hard to discuss," he said. "The politics of the abortion have become constitutional and overheated."
Hittinger was a Research Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, in Washington, D.C., where he worked on issues of law and religion from 1991 until 1996.
He has taught courses on law and philosophy at the Catholic University of America, Princeton University, Fordham University and at New York University.
The speech was sponsored by the Dartmouth Coalition for Life with support from the Committee On Student Organizations, the McSpadden Public Interest Forum, Aquinas House and the Daniel Webster Legal Society.
