25th Anniversary

This past Thursday was the 25th anniversary of when this movie premiered on NBC. I remember very well when it came on, I watched and taped it on our VCR, then taped some news stories following it. And I had taped some other news stories about abortion in the month before it, because that month, April of 1989, the Supreme Court heard a case that originated out of Missouri, Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, which sought to overturn Roe vs. Wade, or at least limit it. And this movie aired then partly because of this case. The Supreme Court then released its ruling on Monday, July 3, 1989, right after their term had ended. I also remember that very well, and again taped newscasts of it and saved newspaper stories of it. The court did not overturn Roe vs. Wade, but it did give states more authority to limit abortions if they so choosed. I am a definite liberal and have always been pro choice on abortion, though I do understand why pro lifers feel the way they do and can see their side.

I have also been, since the late 1980s, a student of the Supreme Court and have had a strong interest in it. When they released their ruling on Roe vs. Wade in January, 1973 it was a 7 to 2 decision stating that states may not prohibit a woman from having a medically induced abortion in the first trimester of a pregnancy. The majority consisted of Chief Justice Warren Burger and associate justices William O. Douglas, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, and Lewis Powell, with associate justices Byron White and William Rehnquist dissenting. Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion. Then in the 1989 case Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun again voted to uphold Roe vs. Wade, joined by associate justice John Paul Stevens, while Rehnquist (who had been promoted to Chief Justice in 1986) and White, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy voting to overturn it. Sandra Day O'Conner, who in 1981 became the first woman on the Supreme court, voted with Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens to not overturn Roe vs. Wade, but did vote with Rehnquist, White, Scalia, and Kennedy to limit it.

"I happen to be a vegetarian". Lex, from Jurrasic Park