Candidates for electoral office have increasingly come under pressure to take a
public stand on abortion from pressure groups on either side, and some state
governments have continued to try to exceed theRoe v. Wadelimits on state
intervention. As the Supreme Court became more conservative over the years,
as the result of appointments by more right-wing presidents, the liberal
intentions of the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision have been increasingly
restricted in later rulings, but the basic principle has never been overturned.
The issue has become important in the new democratic republics of Eastern
Europe, and theconstitutional courtsof countries like Hungary have gone
to great pains to find a balance between protecting women’s rights and
allowing the new governments to interfere without restrictions. Ireland apart,
Germany is the only country in which a constitutional court has taken a firm
anti-abortion position as a matter of outright principle, but even there abortion
is relatively easily obtained. Islamic societies share much the same attitude as
that of Christian pressure groups in the West, and abortion is largely banned.
Absolutism
Absolutism describes a political theory which became popular during the 17th
century, its main theorists being Bodin (c. 1530–96) andHobbes. An
absolutist system is one in which there is no limitation on what a legitimate
government may legally do, where authority is absolute and unchecked. This is
not to say that a legitimate government can do anything whatsoever and get
away with it, but rather an assertion that a duly constituted government has a
right to absolute authority.
If, as some constitutional experts do, one takes the view that ‘the Crown in
Parliament’ is a single entity, then the United Kingdom has an ‘absolute’
government. The USA is not absolutist because Congress and the presidency
can check each other, and because the constitution prohibits certain executive
and legislative acts. The UK has no effectivebill of rightsand noseparation
of powers, and so its government could be described as unlimited and
therefore absolutist. However, recent developments, especially the UK’s entry
into theEuropean Union, may have started a process of legal limitation on
central government autonomy.
Another approach to absolutism is to ask whether the general ideology or
justification to which the government owes its power imposes any limits on the
use of that power. One might argue, withLocke, that as all rule is based on the
consent of the governed, there cannot be unlimited, and therefore absolute,
government. Other theories, especially some versions of Hobbesianism, would
deny that citizens can regulate government, which must therefore be legit-
imate and absolutist.
Absolutism