Roe v. Wade - Politics in the 1970's

            On December 17, 1971, a pregnant, single woman named Norma L. McCorvey (Jane Roe) challenged the constitutionality of Texas abortion laws, which proscribe procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother’s life ("Roe v. wade," ). She argued that the law was unconstitutional and that she could not afford to go out of state of Texas to have an abortion. The lawsuit was filed against the Dallas County District Attorney, Henry Wade. This case was filed in a Texas federal court, which ruled the law was a violation of the Constitution. Wade took this case to the Supreme Court.

Throughout the next two years, the Supreme Court reviewed this case. In 1973 the court ruled that the law was unconstitutional. Justice Harry Blackmun, who had previously been a counsel to Mayo Clinic, ruled that it violated Jan Roe’s privacy that is protected by the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Marriage, contraception, and child rearing activities are all protected by an individual’s zone of privacy. This zone of privacy also covers a women’s, in this case Jan Roe’s decision, to decide if she wants to terminate her pregnancy due to physical, psychological, and economic issues pregnancy causes for the mother. It forbade states from restricting any aspect of abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. It only gave the, the ability to regulate anything related to maternal health during the last two trimesters. It also gave them the ability to protect the fetus in the third trimester by setting abortion laws during that period. Prior to the court’s ruling, the majority of the states banned or regulated abortion. The zone of privacy is protected by the Constitution, not the states regulation. This makes it difficult to regulate any form of abortion law.

Roe v. Wade is one of the most recognizable of Supreme Court decisions because it split the nation politically. It caused what is known as the culture wars, violence, and political debates even today. It created more controversy than any other recent Court case before it, and the controversy has continued throughout the years, even now. You can see this in politics today, such as the Presidential debates today. This court case has had a lasting impact on America, and continues to be challenged. It is still intensely debated because no other Court case has dealt with ethics, religion, and biology all in one case. Critics say that the Court legalized the murder of human life, they also argue that Roe had poor reasoning and caused repercussion dealing with abortion rights. People who are in defense of the Court’s decision of this case agree that she was right in defending her personal freedoms and privacy rights.

           

Oil Energy Crisis of the 1970’s- Politics in the 1970's

            While the consumption of oil was on an incline in the 1970’s, the production of it was on a downfall.  People believe in one or two causes: “the Arab oil embargo and overconsumption of oil over flawed energy policies” ("The 1970’s energy," ).

The United States was resupplying Israel after the Arab-Israeli war, the Yom Kippur War. Anger arose through the Arabs and they cut the amount of oil production and put an embargo on the shipments going to the United States in 1973. Three months after the embargo starting, gas prices rose from three dollars to a whopping twelve dollars per barrel. This was a problem for the U.S. because it consumes three-fifths of what is imported, and sparked the energy crisis. Although the embargo only lasted six months, it had a huge affect on America as the oil prices remained high and its effects were long-term.

 This caused a price hike for Americans as well as shortages nationwide. Long lines were formed at gas stations and they were also forced to close on Sundays. Some gas stations had to close altogether. People were also asked to refrain from putting up Christmas lights to conserve energy. People began to realize that oil was a non-renewable resource. Americans began to look for domestic oil rather than relying so heavily and remaining dependent on imported oil. Gas rationing and controls over the price stayed throughout the decade. In addition, the nation enforced national speed limits. In 1974-1975, there was a year-round daylight saving time.

The crisis had a big impact on the automotive industry. Americans were producing big cars that used a lot of gas. Now that gas was so expensive, the competition grew greatly with Japanese and European, fuel-efficient cars. This put another damper on the American economy. Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPAEC) began to control our economy.

Environmentalism gained a big voice during this time, people began to take this idea seriously and it reached new heights. Earth Day, for example, was widely celebrated. People began to look for alternative energy sources such as the following: solar energy, wind and tidal power, ocean thermal conversion, biomass, geothermal energy, conversion of coal into gas, extraction of oil from tar sands,  as well as others. The energy crisis developed a social awareness, and conservation became a daily practice of many Americans.  Not only to be environmentally friendly, but also to save money.

Entertainment Technology

Gaming technology in the 70’s

         The 70’s was a decade of gaming revolution. The “Computer Space” game was the first game that could be played by putting coins into it (arcade game).“Pong” was the first mass-produced arcade game and the “Odyssey” by Magnavox was the first home console videogame system. The Computer Space game was created by Nolan Bushnell in 1971, and is considered the very first commercial arcade game. Bushnell based this arcade game off of another game called SpaceWar. He had high hopes, but the Galaxy Game did not meet its mark and turned out to be a failed attempt. Bushnell did not see this as the end however, and in 1972 he continued on and created a gaming company by the name of, Atari. That same year Magnavox came out with a gaming unit that was called the Odyssey. The Odyssey was built without a microprocessor and mainly consisted of a board with about four-dozen transistors and diodes that ran the console. It was a very simple and limited console, but turned out to be a success with total sales reaching around 100,000. The next year Atari came out with a game called “Pong”. Pong was highly favored and was a huge hit in most pinball arcades and bars. Although pong was a game of simplicity and not much quality skill, it was highly addicting and surely proved to be the most popular video game of this time. In 1975, Atari took another big step forward and created a home version of Pong. This was a great idea and turned out to be the breakthrough the gaming world was searching for. Pong opened the door for home gaming by showing what huge opportunities there were in this field, and how just a simple game could create so much talk. So with that in mind, Atari decided to take it up a notch and create the 2600 VCS gaming system. The 2600 used removable cartridges, so multiple games could be played at once while using the same hardware. Not only was the 2600 versatile but it was also very complex. It contained a MOS microprocessor, a custom graphics chip, 128 bytes of RAM, and 4kb ROM-based cartridges. The 2600 turned out to be incredibly successful and sold around 6 million consoles by 1980. The 70’s were huge to the gaming world and proved to be the take off point for arcade games and home videogame systems. 

Electronics Technology

Electronics Technology in the 70’s

              The 70’s experienced an incredible advancement in electronic technology. But, there was one invention that topped all others in this decade. The Intel 4004 was publicly introduced in November of 1971 as the worlds first single chip microprocessor. This was truly a remarkable invention that was engineered by Intel’s Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stanley Mazor. Years earlier there was talk of having a computer on a chip, but to many it was just a fantasy and did not really seem realistic at that point in time. However, not all were skeptics, Ted Hoff of Intel was sure he could create an invention that would revolutionize the industry of technology forever. Hoff was the first person to see the new silicon-gated MOS technology as a great opportunity in electronic advancement. After much research, software design, and work, Hoff and the Intel team created a chip that for the first time ever had a full central processing unit (CPU) built into it. But, that is not all it had, it contained a command register, decoder, decoding control, control monitoring of machine commands and interim register. This was incredible because this little chip was only an 1/8^th of an inch wide and 1/6^th of an inch long. The 4004 contained 2,300 metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors and contained as much power as the ENIAC (Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator), which covered an area of 1,800 square feet, weighed 30 tons, and consumed 160 kilowatts of electrical power. This chip was turning out to be quite an amazing invention and was in a complete league of its own.

Busicom, a Japanese calculator manufacturer, was actually the first client of the 4004 and had asked Intel to design and manufacture 12 separate chips that could perform the duties for keyboard scanning, display control, printer control, and some other functions for their calculator. Intel later came back with the idea of the 4004 microprocessor chip, which had all 12 separate chips in 1 single chip. It was incredibly fast and could even store up to 4KB of memory. This chip truly was a great breakthrough for electronic technology, also for the computer industry as well. The Microprocessor is actually the reason we are able to have home computers and laptops. Even today the microprocessor is based on the designs of the original 4004 and is the most complex mass-produced product ever. 

Medical Technology

Medical Advances in Technology in the 70’s

          One incredible invention in the field of science and medicine during the 70’s was the magnetic resonance imaging scanner (also known as the MRI). The MRI gave doctors and “inside look” without even having to perform surgery, harmful dyes, or x-rays. It was truly a wonderful invention that helped doctors and even patients get the results in a more safe and evidentially clear way. MRI is based on a discovery made by Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell, called nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). NMR is concept of magnetic fields and radio waves causing atoms to give off tiny radio signals. This phenomenon became the first dimension of spatial orientation and the foundation of the MRI. In 1970, a medical doctor and research scientist by the name of Raymond Damadian discovered the basis for using NMR as a tool for medical diagnosis. In his discoveries he found that cancerous tissue emits response signals that last much longer than non cancerous tissues. With this idea in mind he continued on the path of wanting to create this “tool” that could read the body by magnetic and radio waves.

In 1974, Dr. Damadian took his idea to the U.S patent Office with the name of, “Apparatus and Method for Detecting Cancer in Tissue.” He was granted a patent and it became the worlds first patent of the MRI. After working on the scanner for 3 years Damadian finally had a complete product, which he dubbed the “Indomitable.” As one can see Dr. Damadian was very confident in his invention, and rightfully so as it was a huge step for the world of science and medicine. One was now able to see clearly the whole human anatomy of a person. However, July 3, 1977 proved to be the real test day on whether it would work and work right. Dr. Damadian would be the first to get into the machine and try it out, since there were no other volunteers. After getting in he realized something terrible, it would not work. One of Damadians colleagues suggested though that he might be too big for the scanner. So, instead a svelte graduate student agreed to try it. This day would go down in history as the first day the “Indomitable” MRI scanner successfully worked. The process took almost five hours only to produce one image, but it was truly a great time for medicine technology. The MRI has been widely successful since then; a report says that by 2002 around 60 million MRI scans have been completed.