As I said above, I disgree with a constitutional right to abortion. But it's not because of privacy as a right. I believe that a law precluding abortion should be subject to strict scrutiny as it impacts private, procreative rights. I feel that the state has a compelling interest in safeguarding the prenatal life.
This is a positive development. Sounds like a libertarian argument. The definition that Casey came up with, that the state may protect its "profound interest" in potential life so long as it does not do so in a way that has the intent or effect of posing an undue burden on the woman's right to terminate pregnancy prior to viability," is based on a misunderstanding of biology since the developing embryo/fetus is not a "potential life," but an actual one, although not capable of living independently. However the viability standard, which is interpreted to mean independence, could extend to infants since they are clearly not able to live independently either, nor for that matter, surgical patients, comatose patients, those with severe mental and developmental disabilities, etc.
Here is the argument from Libertarians For Life:
1. Human offspring are human beings, persons from conception, whether that takes place as natural or artificial fertilization, by cloning, or by any other means.
2. Abortion is homicide -- the killing of one person by another.
3. One's right to control one's own body does not allow violating the obligation not to aggress. There is never a right to kill an innocent person. Prenatally, we are all innocent persons.
4. A prenatal child has the right to be in the mother's body. Parents have no right to evict their children from the crib or from the womb and let them die. Instead both parents, the father as well as the mother, owe them support and protection from harm.
5. No government, nor any individual, has a just power to legally "de-person" any one of us, born or preborn.
6. The proper purpose of the law is to side with the innocent, not against them.
