Your Honor,

I agree that Ms. McCorveys Constitutional right to privacy was violated by the Texas

law that makes having or attempting to have an abortion a crime unless it is by medical

advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother. That conclusion is based on a

number of relevant factors:

1) The Constitution protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons,

houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. I argue

that if a person is to be secure in their person, that is to say, have control over

their own body, that the choice to terminate a pregnancy can also not be seized

from them. The simple fact that something, such as a personal decision, is not

tangible does not exclude it from protection against unreasonable seizures.

2) The fourteenth amendment guarantees equal protection under the law. Without

access to abortion, the law allows men to walk away from a pregnancy that could

turn their lives upside down but forces women to put their life on hold and risk

losing their job, facing unaffordable medical bills, raising a child they dont have

the means to provide for, or put education on holdfrequently permanentlyto

carry, deliver, and either raise a child or make other arrangements for that child.

In order to give men and women equal protection from the upheaval caused by

an unplanned pregnancy, abortions need to be legal and accessible.

3) Griswold v. CT establishes the decision whether or not to use birth control to be

an intimate one between the woman, her husband, and her physician; that decision
 can no more be seized from her without reason than any physical property, so

why should the decision to terminate a pregnancy not be considered as personal a

choice?

4) Eisenstadt extended the Griswolds ruling to include unmarried couples. Griswold

recognized that contraception also prevents the spread of STIs. Between

Griswold and Eisenstadt, the court has established that birth control is a personal

choice about which the government has no business meddling; the situation of the

woman has no bearing upon her right to contraception; allowing contraception has

health benefits as well as life benefits. The protection from unreasonable search

and seizure protects personal decisions, and the fourteenth amendment prohibits

the inherent disadvantage women would face compared to men in terms of being

forced to deal with an unplanned pregnancy.

5) Between the fourth and fourteenth amendments and the establishments of

Griswold and Eisenstadt, it stands to reason that abortion, the logical extension of

birth control, is a personal decision that the government has no business in, that

whether a woman is married, single, or has been sexually assaulted should have

no bearing on her access to abortion, that, as mortality is not the only health risk

of pregnancy, it should not be the only one protected. The two cases have

established that a woman should not have to be pregnant if she doesnt want to be.

6) If one believes, as I do, that a fetus is not alive until the point of viability, than the

legality of abortion, at the very least to that point, should be the logical outcome.

7) If one believes that a fetus is a living child from the moment if its conception

the third amendment forbids the forced quartering of soldiers. If one combines the
 illegality of forcing someone to quarter a soldier and the right to privacy within

the house and body, than it stands to reason that one cannot be forced to quarter

anyone, not even a child in their own body.

8) Currently, abortions are illegal, but they but not only do they exist; they are

prevalent. The only difference between the current situation and one in which

abortion is legal and accessible is the number of women who suffer

complications, including death, from botched procedures.

Your Honor, the legally, morally, and healthy decision is clearly to allow easily

accessible abortion, at least until the point of viability. I have said my piece. The case is

in your extremely qualified hands now.

Sincerely,
Annie Daley