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abortion

Editorial Staff

After Carlill v The Carbolic Smoke Ball Company (in 1892), possibly the most famous court case in the world is Roe -v- Wade (1973) which has been a constant battleground in the US, the Senate and the Courts for decades. The latest Supreme Court case does not directly affect that case but might have even greater consequences because while everyone is focussing on the abortion element of National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, the case was actually about something very different and that's how the US Supreme Court decided it.

Bryan Edwards

The issue of birth control takes on many facets. Some people argue that any form of birth control is wrong, others that abortion is wrong, others that abortion should be allowed in certain circumstances and yet others that (subject only to limited constraints on the nature and timing of abortion) it should be freely available. Pharmaceutical technology has reached the point where the line between prevention of pregnancy and abortion are blurred. There are psychological, societal, medical, philosophical and, of course, religious dimensions to most of the debates where the word "rights" is bandied about by everyone with an opinion to express.

The US Surpreme Court has granted an order of certiorari which sends back to the district court the case of National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Xavier Becerra for review. California's bizarrely named Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency (FACT) Act is defended by Becarram California's Attorney General. and the plaintiff is a campaigning group claiming that the FACT act is unconstitutional. The case has made a monumental decision, at federal level, about religion and abortion and contraception.

US President Donald Trump has reinstated an old policy that blocks foreign aid being passed to any charity that even discusses abortion, setting the stage for Boston Legal revisited. But, not all is quite as it first seems.