Roe v Wade PDF

Roe v Wade PDF Details
PDF Name	Roe v Wade PDF
No. of Pages	66
PDF Size	2.06 MB
Language	English
Category	English
Source	supremecourt.gov
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Roe v Wade

Hey guys, here we are going to provide the Roe v Wade PDF for all of you. Roe v. Wade is a legal case. Roe v. Wade is the name of the lawsuit that led to the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion in the United States. The majority opinion found an absolute right to an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy.

On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court, ruled (7–2) that unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional. The Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry A. Blackmun.

Jane Roe was a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, who was 22, unmarried, unemployed and pregnant for the third time in 1969 when she sought to have an abortion in Texas. By the time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in her favour, McCorvey had given birth to a girl whom she placed for adoption.

Roe v Wade PDF: Summary

Roe v. Wade is a 1973 lawsuit that famously led to the Supreme Court making a ruling on abortion rights. Jane Roe, an unmarried pregnant woman, filed suit on behalf of herself and others to challenge Texas abortion laws. A Texas doctor joined Roe’s lawsuit, arguing that the state’s abortion laws were too vague for doctors to follow.

He had previously been arrested for violating the statute. At the time, abortion was illegal in Texas unless it was done to save the mother’s life. It was a crime to get an abortion or to attempt one.

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 the 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 the 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 person is entitled to end a pregnancy at any time, for any reason, in any way they choose

How The Supreme Court Decided Roe v. Wade

The Court split the difference between the two arguments presented. First, the Court recognized that abortion does fall under privacy rights.

• The constitutional right to privacy comes from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Due Process Clause does not explicitly state that Americans have a right to privacy. However, the Supreme Court has recognized such a right going all the way back to 1891.
• Just one year before Roe, the Supreme Court held that “in a Constitution for a free people, there can be no doubt that the meaning of ‘liberty’ must be broad indeed.” In Roe v. Wade, the Court decided that this right to privacy extends to control over pregnancy.

The justices acknowledged that being forced to continue a pregnancy puts a lot at risk, such as:

• Physical health
• Mental health
• Financial burdens
• Social stigma

The Court was skeptical of the state’s argument that Constitutional protections begin at conception. The Constitution doesn’t provide a definition of a “person.” But, it does say that its protections cover those who are “born or naturalized” in the United States.

After examining other cases relating to unborn children, the Court concluded that “the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.” The Roe v. Wade decision also includes a discussion of the different views on when life begins. Many in the Jewish faith, for example, believe that life begins at birth.

But, the prevailing view in the Catholic faith is that life begins at conception. Doctor’s views vary, but they tend to lean toward the belief that life begins sometime before birth. But, the Court found that it is not up to the states to decide when life begins:

“[W]e do not agree that, by adopting one theory of life, Texas may override the rights of the pregnant woman that are at stake.”

However, as we mentioned above, the Court did not agree that the Constitution guarantees an absolute right to an abortion. In other words, the privacy right does not prevent states from putting some regulations on abortion.

The Court created a framework to balance the state’s interests with privacy rights. Acknowledging that the rights of pregnant people may conflict with the rights of the state to protect potential human life, the Court defined the rights of each party by dividing pregnancy into three 12-week trimesters:

• During a pregnant person’s first trimester, the Court held, a state cannot regulate abortion beyond requiring that the procedure be performed by a licensed doctor in medically safe conditions.
• During the second trimester, the Court held that a state may regulate abortion if the regulations are reasonably related to the health of the pregnant person.
• During the third trimester of pregnancy, the state’s interest in protecting the potential human life outweighs the right to privacy. As a result, the state may prohibit abortions unless an abortion is necessary to save the life or health of the pregnant person.

Significance of Roe v Wade

Many think of Roe v. Wade as the case that “legalized abortion.” However, that isn’t exactly true. What it did was change the way states can regulate abortion, and characterized abortion as something that was covered under constitutional rights of privacy.

It may come as a surprise that Roe did not have much of an impact on the number of abortions performed each year in the United States. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in the years before Roe was decided there were over one million illegal abortions performed in the U.S. annually.

After Roe, that number remains around one million, performed legally. Plus, the rate of deaths occurring as the result of abortions dropped dramatically in the years following Roe. Since the Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, judicial interpretation of the constitution is that abortion is legal.

However, after Roe, many abortion opponents have advocated for stricter abortion laws. The opponents haven’t been able to ban abortions outright, but have placed limitations on abortions. A number of states have placed restrictions on abortions in certain circumstances, including parental notification requirements, mandatory disclosure of abortion risk information, and restrictions on late-term abortions.

The issue is still a hotbed topic in presidential debates and across the nation. States continue to pass abortion regulations that are often challenged in federal courts. But, few make it to the Supreme Court.

This has led many to wonder: Could Roe v. Wade be overturned?

Interesting Facts

• Sarah Weddington was just 26 years old when she argued before the Supreme Court as one of Roe’s attorneys.
• Jane Roe is not the real name of the woman who filed the famous lawsuit. It’s an alias.
• As the Court points out, banning abortion is a relatively new concept. Laws like the one in Roe emerged in the United States in the late 1800s.
• Norma McCorvey (the real woman behind “Jane Roe”) became a prominent voice for the pro-life movement in 1995.
• In 1973, there were no female justices in the United States Supreme Court.

Public Reactions

• There wasn’t much public reaction to Roe when the Supreme Court first released its decision. However, in the decades that followed it became a significant issue in American politics.
• Some view the Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade as “judicial activism,” – meaning the judges based their decision on personal views rather than existing law. But, supporters of Roe say it is vital in preserving women’s rights.
• Many opponents of the decision argue that because the text of the Constitution doesn’t explicitly talk about abortion, it should be left up to the states to regulate. Others say that a person should be protected by the Constitution at conception. Under that logic, abortion violates the Constitutional rights of the unborn child.

The Supreme Court even recognized the polarizing nature of the abortion issue in its opinion:

“One’s philosophy, one’s experiences, one’s exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one’s religious training, one’s attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one’s thinking and conclusions about abortion.”

As Justice Harry Blackmun (who wrote the decision in Roe) points out, abortion will never be a simple issue. It remains a hotly debated topic because someone’s opinion on it depends on their view of the world, and when they believe life begins.

Related Cases

Roe would not be the last time the Supreme Court addressed abortion rights. In later cases, the Court upheld the privacy rights tied to abortion. But, they did modify some of the frameworks created in Roe.

What did the court decide in 1973?

The plaintiff alleged that Texas law was unconstitutionally vague and violated her constitutionally protected right to personal privacy. The question before the U.S. Supreme Court was: Does the Constitution recognize a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion?

Justice Harry Blackmun delivered the opinion for the 7-2 majority, finding that it did indeed — although that protection had to be balanced against the government’s interests in protecting women’s health and “the potentiality of human life.”

The conservative-leaning court said a woman’s decision to have an abortion during the first three months of her pregnancy must be left to her and her doctor.

What was the pre-Roe landscape in the U.S.?

At the time of Roe, abortion was broadly legal in just four states and allowed under limited circumstances in 16 others. Constitutional rights trump state laws, so the court’s decision nullified the bans in the remaining 30 states.

But it did allow states to impose certain regulations during the second trimester to protect the woman’s health and take steps to protect fetal life in the third trimester.

How have later decisions altered abortion rights in America?

Blackmun was still on the court in 1992 when it heard Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a challenge to Pennsylvania abortion laws that included a 24-hour waiting period. The conservative-leaning court unexpectedly upheld the right to abortion —while also making it easier for states to impose regulations.

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