Post-Abortive Women To Overturn Roe v Wade

Springfield, IL (May 3 2001)–The Elliot Institute has joined a national effort to give post-abortive women a voice in the federal courts. According to Dr. David Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute and a nationally recognized expert on post-abortion complications, “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.”

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. These affidavits will be used in a series of legal challenges in state and federal courts. They are being collected by several cooperating organizations, including the National Foundation For Life and the Texas Justice Foundation.

The affidavits will be used as part of a new woman-centered legal challenge to Roe v Wade. According to Allan Parker, an attorney who founded the public interest law firm Texas Justice Foundation, “The federal law on abortion dictated by the Supreme Court has been a disaster for women. 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. Both of these ladies, 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.

“I encourage women, ” says Reardon, “especially those who feel they were exploited, hurt, or misled about their abortions, to take the time to fill out one of these affidavits. It can even be filed with only their initials, if they need to remain anonymous. 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.