Abstract

PIP: Efforts begun in 1977 as a 1-year project to ensure that Roe vs. Wade was implemented and enforced in the US continue today. Roe recognized that women must have the ability to make autonomous decisions about childbearing in order to be equal participants in society and that the government must remain neutral before the period of fetal viability. This breakthrough in women's rights was quickly threatened by anti-abortion forces that espoused "fetal rights" and demonized women seeking abortion. The 1992 Casey decision, while not overturning Roe, eradicated the key element of state neutrality and reinstated the stereotype that a woman should not be trusted to make an abortion decision on her own. This decision runs counter to court decisions that resist sexual stereotypes in every other area of American life. The latest threat is found in the "partial birth" abortion bans enacted in 17 states and blocked, in most cases, by Federal judges. It is time for the US Supreme Court to abandon sexual stereotypes and recognize that there is no real difference between women who have an abortion and women who choose to give birth.