Post-Abortive Women to Overturn Roe v Wade

The Elliot Institute has joined a national effort to give post-abortive women a voice in the federal courts, where they will seek to challenge the legality of Roe v. Wade.

"This is a great opportunity, through legal affidavits, for women to provide testimony to the federal courts, and ultimately to the Supreme Court, regarding the devastating effects abortion has had on their lives," said Dr. David Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute.

Thousands of affidavits from post-abortive women are being gathered in which women describe how they were either pressured into unwanted abortions, misinformed about risks, or suffered emotionally or physically after their abortions.

The affidavits are being collected by several cooperating organizations, including the National Foundation For Life and the Texas Justice Foundation. They will be used in a series of legal challenges in state and federal courts, including a challenge to Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that overturned state laws prohibiting abortion.

"The federal law on abortion dictated by the Supreme Court has been a disaster for women," said Allan Parker, an attorney who founded the Texas Justice Foundation, a public interest law firm. "Rather than advancing the rights of women, it has actually made it easier for women to be pressured or misled into undergoing unnecessary and unsafe abortions."

As part of this court challenge, the Texas Justice Foundation is also representing Norma McCorvey, who was the "Roe" of Roe v. Wade, and Sandra Cano, who was the "Doe" of Doe v. Bolton. McCorvey and Cano, on whose behalf the Supreme Court struck down all state laws governing abortion, will be petitioning the High Court to reverse its rulings in these cases.

Women who have had abortions are being encouraged to join in this effort by filing an affidavit. To protect women's privacy, they can file the affidavit with their initials only.

"I encourage women, especially those who feel they were exploited, hurt, or misled about their abortions, to take the time to fill out one of these affidavits," Reardon said. "These affidavits, combined with new research documenting abortion's complications, will expose the myth upon which Roe v. Wade was built: the myth that abortion helps women."

Blank copies of the affidavits and instructions are available on the Internet at www.operationoutcry.org or by calling (toll free), 1-877-247-7582. Women who have not had abortions are also encouraged to join in a friend of the court brief in support of other women. That form is also available at the same web site.