Roe V. Wade as a Counter revolutionary Manifesto: A Retrospective View

Abstract

The abortion dispute is commonly understood as a diametrically opposed conflict between proponents of different world-views. The pro-choice forces espouse radical individualism and moral relativism while the pro-life forces embrace radical communitarianism and moral absolutism—so goes the conventional depiction of the “abortion wars.” There is, however, at least one fundamental belief shared by both sides in this warfare—a belief that contemporary America is not a reliably nurturant society where vulnerable people can trust that their neediness will be sympathetically met. The two sides disagree about whether America was ever reliably nurturant. The pro-life forces typically maintain that there was such a golden age, and one path to finding our way back there is to honor the nurturance needs of vulnerable fetuses. Among the pro-choice forces many feminists, in particular, assert that America was never reliably nurturant, that patriarchal authority disguised itself in a benevolent cloak but was always abusive and exploitative toward its subordinates. Self-reliant individualism—including the right of every woman to decide her own needs regarding abortion—is the answer endorsed by these pro-choice forces as the way toward establishing a new Jerusalem, an unprecedented America where vulnerable people are respected rather than abused.