Roe v wade

Editor's Note: On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, which overturned Wondering what happens now? Our Supreme Court blog has coverage of the Use these links to jump to different sections: • • Roe v. Wade • Roe v. Wade • • • • • At the time, In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decided two important things: • The United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy" that protects a person's right to choose whether to have an abortion. • But the abortion right is not absolute. It must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting health and prenatal life. Legal Arguments Each side of Roe v. Wade used several arguments before the Supreme Court. Below, we outline the main arguments. Texas Defends Abortion Restriction The state put forth three main arguments in its case to defend the abortion statute: • States have an interest in safeguarding health, maintaining medical standards, and protecting prenatal life • A fetus is a "person" protected by the 14th Amendment • Protecting prenatal life from the time of conception is a compelling state interest Roe Claims Absolute Privacy Rights Jane Roe and the others involved based their case on the following arguments: • The Texas law invaded an individual's right to "liberty" under the 14th Amendment • The Texas law infringed on rights to marital, familial, and sexual privacy guaranteed by the Bill of Rights • The right to an abortion is absolute - a...

An abortion rights activist stands outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 24, 2022. - The US Supreme Court on Friday ended the right to abortion in a seismic ruling that shreds half a century of constitutional protections on one of the most divisive and bitterly fought issues in American political life. The conservative-dominated court overturned the landmark 1973 "Roe v Wade" decision that enshrined a woman's right to an abortion and said individual states can permit or restrict the procedure themselves. (Stefani Reynolds / AFP) (Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) Roe v. Wade, the historic 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in the first trimester of a woman’s pregnancy, was struck down by the conservative majority on Friday, taking away for the first time a constitutional right that had been extended to Americans for half a century. States can now decide to ban abortion; Roe was overturned, and a number of other Republican-led states are expected to move to ban abortion as well. Norma L. McCorvey discovered that she was pregnant in June 1969. It was to be her third child, but McCorvey wished to have an abortion. At the time, Texas law allowed for abortion only in cases of rape and incest or to save the life of the mother. McCorvey was advised by her friends to falsely assert that she had been raped, but there was no police report to back up this claim. Instead, McCorvey attempted to have an illegal abortion, but she soon discovered t...

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in a 6-3 vote. Almost half a century ago, the Roe v. Wade ruling was the basis for establishing a constitutional right to abortion. Last week’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization demonstrates the increasingly conservative direction of the court and prompts questions about the implications for civil rights, American democracy and political polarization, and health policy. Several Harvard Kennedy School faculty members share perspectives below. • • • Seize back the political discourse on life • • • • • Erica Chenoweth In response to the Dobbs decision, some people have expressed skepticism about the power of protest in protecting or securing rights. But this perspective is misguided. First, sustained activism in support of choice and reproductive justice has led numerous states—including Massachusetts—to enshrine abortion access into law. This provides a powerful bulwark against the total removal of abortion access in the United States, regardless of Roe. Second, we need to think not only about what happened because of mass movements in the years preceding Dobbs, but also what was avoided due to movement mobilization and popular participation in democracy. The 2017 Women’s March, for example, was the opening salvo in a That said, this pro-democracy coalition—which included elements of the pro-choice and reproductive justice movement—was not powerful enough to defeat anti-abor...

Roe v. Wadeis the Roe and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (see entries on abortion for further details). Full text of Overview: The case involved a Texas The Court had applied the The Court had divided the pregnancy period into three trimesters. Originally, the Court asserted that during the first trimester, the decision to terminate the pregnancy was solely at the discretion of the individual. After the first trimester, the state could “ Justice White and Justice Rehnquist’s separate dissents emphasized that the people and the legislatures, not the Court, should weigh this matter. Justice White argued, “Its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court….” Justice Rehnquist believed that the majority had misconstrued “privacy” and argued that “[t]he Court’s sweeping invalidation of any restrictions on abortion during the first trimester is impossible to justify under the standard….” Abortion in the Supreme Court Post-Roe: The decision in Roe faced a great deal of controversy, and Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992). The Casey court had originally kept three findings made in Roe: • Individuals have the right to abort pre-viability without undue interference from the state • The state may restrict abortion post-viability • The state has a legitimate interest in protecting pregnant individual's health and life of the fetus In Roe that the Supreme Court upheld a ban on a t...

Summary At a time when Texas law restricted abortions except to save the life of the mother, Jane Roe (a single, pregnant woman) sued Henry Wade, the local district attorney tasked with enforcing the abortion statute. She argued that the Texas law was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court agreed, holding that the right of privacy, inherent in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, protects a woman’s choice to have an abortion. That right is limited, however, as the pregnancy advances, by the State’s interest in maternal health and in fetal life after viability. Amid national debate over this issue, this was the first time the Court took up this question and affirmed the “right to choose,” as it is often titled. Excerpt: Majority Opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, . . . the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment; in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments; in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights; in the Ninth Amendment; or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment. These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed ‘fundamental’ or ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,’ are...

Thousands of spectators waved rainbow flags as hour after hour of floats, performers, dancers and public officials marched along Fifth Avenue. Marchers braved temperatures in the high 80s as they moved from 25th Street down to the Stonewall National Monument and then on to Seventh Avenue to end the parade at 16th Street. Some powerful voices in the movement urge a measured approach guided by political realities post-Roe, seeking to ban the procedure after the first trimester in more moderate states and maintaining meaningful exceptions for rape and incest. Others view this as a once-in-a-generation moment and moral imperative to push for a complete end to abortion, especially in states where conservatives hold political power. The staunchest opponents want states to treat it as murder. WASHINGTON—Strategists in both parties acknowledge that abortion is now poised to play a larger role in the midterm elections than anticipated. The pivotal question is whether the issue will be front of mind for voters, as Democrats hope, or will pale in comparison to economic concerns, as Republicans predict. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs opinion, Democrats will try to win over new voters—and motivate core Democratic constituencies to turn out—with an argument that Republicans and the Supreme Court have been overtaken by extremists out of step with the public in their opposition to Roe v. Wade. That 1973 decision, which established a constitutional right to an abortion, ...