Abortion has long been a hot-button issue for the U.S. Supreme Court, and the topic has garnered attention lately during the process of filling vacancies on the court. But here’s a new take on the issue: Does a woman’s right to abortion extend to prison inmates?
The court this week determined that one woman serving a four-year jail sentence for a parole violation can have an abortion while imprisoned.
Missouri officials originally denied the woman’s abortion request, arguing that state citizens should not be required to fund an inmate’s abortion. A 1986 Missouri law makes it illegal to use public funds, employees or facilities for encouraging a woman to have an abortion not necessary to save her life.
The Missouri woman, referred to by the court as Jane Roe, sued the state after it denied her requests for an abortion, and U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple ruled that the Supreme Court has specified women have a constitutional right to abortion, according to news reports. He ordered the state to transport her to St. Louis to have an abortion.
We agree with the ruling in this case on several grounds.
Regardless of her position as an incarcerated citizen, Roe remains a citizen of the United States. Roe v. Wade made it explicitly clear that a woman’s body is her own domain under privacy rights granted by the 14th Amendment. Later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, it ruled that the right to an abortion is a “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
But how does Due Process apply to prisoners? It may seem that Roe gave up some of her rights by violating the law. Prisoners generally give up many rights to privacy. They can be searched, and they can only converse with outside people at certain times. Yet as mandated by the eight amendment, prisoners cannot be treated in cruel and unusual ways; the court has interpreted this to grant prisoners with rights to many types of medical treatment.
Moreover, in Turner v. Safley, the court decided that “when a prison regulation impinges on inmates’ constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.”
Preventing Roe from getting an abortion is clearly not based on a rationale that is content-neutral and aimed to achieve efficient and safe prison operation. Thus Roe’s constitutional right to have an abortion should stand.
It is clear that Roe was denied an abortion because of the personal or philosophical values held by Missouri officials. However, constitution law should always trump moral (read: religious) ideals of whatever government is currently in power.
As Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers moves closer to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, the constitutionality of abortions may become a key question. Should it prove true that Miers is, as some avidly claim, a sharply religious person with strong emotions against Roe v. Wade, the Senate should carefully consider what role she would play in any future abortion-related rulings.
We applaud the court for not reviewing this obvious case, and we hope it will retain the same logic should Miers be added to its ranks.