If Roe v. Wade were overturned, would it be legal for state or local governments to force abortions?

Question

For example, if that court case were overturned, could a state implement a Chinese-style one-child-per-family law?

Answer 1

I think so, because Roe v. Wade was about the inherent privacy right in the Constitution for a woman to chose to have children or not. (It is not solely about whether there's a "right to an abortion," it's about whether the Constitution recognizes a privacy right in the most intimate details of a private life -- the right to bear children or not.)

To the extent that Roe is overturned, it would have to be on the grounds that there is no privacy interest in deciding to have children. Thus, the state is free to regulate the abortion procedure or ban it altogether, and such would be consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment.
By the same token, then, if there is no privacy right, the state could regulate the population through forced abortions, and the federal constitution would not prohibit it.

However, if the Court were to overrule Roe on the ground that human life begins at conception (something that I doubt any currently sitting justice would argue) and thus the fetus is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, we'd have a strange constitutional PROHIBITION on abortions to protect the "life" interest of the fetus. Then the goverment could not regulate abortions whatsoever (except for whatever exceptions provided by the Court in balancing the "life" interest of the fetus with the "life" interest of mom.) Then state governments probably couldn't do the Chinese-style regulations.

But remember, those on the Court who want to overrule Roe want to do so on the former ground (no inherent privacy right; state's rights; federalism) rather than the latter ground. So it's more likely that, under that scenario, a one-child-per-family law would be constitutional, if, of course, those conservative members of the Court were to remain consistent in their jurisprudence.

Answer 2

Your question make absolutely no sense!

What would the overturning of Roe V. Wade have to do with restricting the amount of children you have?

We don't have a population problem like China had, and even if we did, we live in a democracy.

There is no way anyone in their right mind who would vote for that!

Answer 3

Do you understand what Roe v. Wade means?

It only allows for people to elect to have an abortion. Overturning it would mean that people would not even be allowed to have an abortion even if they wanted to. There's no possibility of mandatory abortions connected with any of this.

Answer 4

Does-not-compute: there is no connection. The opposite of Roe v Wade is abortion is illegel, thus the killing of an unborn infant. Murder is an the books; Naziism in the history books.

Answer 5

No one can ever be forced to have an abortion, regardless of Roe's legality.

Answer 6

That might not be the worst idea, it seems like only stupid people are having tons of kids nowadays anyways.

There should be a two-kid limit per family, and you can trade yours with your neighbors sometimes (just to keep things interesting)

Answer 7

No. It would not be legal.