abortion

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.

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.