Roe v. Wade

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) was a landmark United States Supreme Court case establishing that most laws against abortion violate a constitutional right to privacy, overturning all state laws outlawing or restricting abortion. It remains one of the most controversial decisions in Supreme Court history.

Controversy over Roe

The Roe decision sparked nationwide protest, including a massive letter-writing campaign to the Supreme Court. Many Americans, including many Catholics and evangelical Protestants, believe that abortion is morally equivalent to infanticide. Others believe that life begins upon conception, and thus the right to life of the fetus trumps any other rights. Widespread protest over the decision resulted in the creation of the Pro-Life Movement, which organized large protest rallies outside the Supreme Court. Pro-life protesters frequently picket abortion clinics, distribute literature and other forms of persuasion to women considering abortion, and have promoted adoption efforts to steer women away from abortion. More extreme variants of the movement have also developed; abortion doctors have been the targets of harassment and even murder by individuals who claim that by taking the life of an abortion doctor they are actually saving the lives of many fetuses. However, activists who advocate or practice violence against abortion providers or recipients are consistently denounced by virtually all prominent pro-life groups. Some abortion opponents have claimed that there exists a link between abortion and breast cancer, and Texas has enacted a law requiring literature advancing this theory be distributed to women considering abortion; more credibly, abortion has been linked to persistent guilt feelings and other psychological problems, and to a higher risk of future infertility. Every year on the anniversary of the decision, protesters continue to demonstrate outside the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

Related Topics:
Catholics - Evangelical - Protestants - Infanticide - Conception - Breast cancer - Psychological - Infertility - Washington, D.C.

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In response to Roe v. Wade, several states enacted laws limiting the right of abortion, including laws requiring parental consent for minors to obtain abortions, parental notification laws, spousal consent laws, spousal notification laws, laws requiring abortions to be performed in hospitals but not clinics, laws barring state funding for abortions, laws banning the so-called "partial-birth abortion" procedure, laws requiring waiting periods before abortion, laws mandating that women read certain types of literature before choosing an abortion, and many more. The United States Congress in the 1970s passed the Hyde Amendment, barring federal funding for abortion. Abortions are currently prohibited in overseas military hospitals, and the U.S. is barred from aiding international family planning organizations that might advise abortions. The Supreme Court struck down several state restrictions on abortions in a long series of cases stretching from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, but consistently upheld restrictions on funding, including the Hyde Amendment, in the case of Harris v. McRae (1980).

Related Topics:
Partial-birth abortion - Family planning

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Some academics also criticized the decision. In his 1973 article in the Yale Law Journal, "The Wages of Crying Wolf," Professor John Hart Ely criticized Roe as a decision which "is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be." Left-leaning Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and other liberals such as Massachusetts congressman John F. Tierney and editorial writer Michael Kinsley, have criticized the court's ruling in Roe v. Wade as terminating a nascent, democratic movement to liberalize abortion laws which she contends might have built a more durable consensus in support of abortion rights.

Related Topics:
John Hart Ely - Ruth Bader Ginsburg - John F. Tierney - Michael Kinsley

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Some academics supported the decision, including Judith Jarvis Thomson, who before the decision had offered an influential defense of abortion in "A Defense of Abortion," printed in Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1 (1971), pp. 47-66. Supporters, such as Justice Harry Blackmun, have praised Roe as essential to women's equality and reproductive freedom.

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Several groups have also emerged dedicated to Roes defense. Many Americans vigorously support abortion rights as necessary to women's equality and personal liberty. Most prominent is the National Abortion Rights Action League, as well as EMILY's List, a pro-choice Political Action Committee. During his lifetime, Harry Blackmun, author of the Roe opinion, also was a determined advocate for the decision, making speeches across the country in support of Roe. During the 1980s and 1990s, pressure grew from these groups for the Democratic Party to take a unified stand in favor of Roe.

Related Topics:
National Abortion Rights Action League - EMILY's List - Political Action Committee

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Fueled by the intensity of feelings in both its supporters and critics, the controversy over "Roe" shows no sign of abating. Justice Stephen Breyer delineated the positions of the two camps in his opinion for the Court in 2000's Stenberg v. Carhart:

Related Topics:
Stephen Breyer - Stenberg v. Carhart

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: "Millions of Americans believe that life begins at conception and consequently that an abortion is akin to causing the death of an innocent child; they recoil at the thought of a law that would permit it. Other millions fear that a law that forbids abortion would condemn many American women to lives that lack dignity, depriving them of equal liberty and leading those with least resources to undergo illegal abortions with the attendant risks of death and suffering."

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