ROE V. WADE, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

Rugved Gambhir, Student, ILS Law College Pune

Case Details

Jurisdiction: US Supreme Court

Argued December 13, 1971

Reargued October 11, 1972

Decided January 22, 1973

Bench: –

Majority (7) – Blackmun (author), Stewart (concurrence), Douglas (concurrence), Burger (concurrence), Brennan, Marshall, Powell

Dissent (2) – White (author), Rehnquist (author)

Facts of the Case

Only in situations where the procedure was required to save the mother’s life was abortion legal in Texas. Norma McCorvey, a resident of Dallas, attempted to get an illegal abortion after claiming she had been raped when she learned she was expecting her third child. After neither of these attempts worked, she turned to Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, who submitted a claim on McCorvey’s behalf under the alias Jane Roe. (The Dallas County District Attorney, Henry Wade, was the other named party.)

Jane Roe (a fictitious name used in court documents to protect the plaintiff’s identity) sued Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, where she lived, in 1970 to overturn a Texas law that prohibited abortion unless performed on a woman’s life at the doctor’s command. Roe claimed in her case that the state statutes violated her right to personal privacy, which is guaranteed by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and that they were unconstitutionally ambiguous.

Issue Raised

Does the Constitution acknowledge a woman’s right to end her pregnancy through abortion?

Arguments

Before the Supreme Court, each side in Roe v. Wade presented a number of arguments. Those arguments can be summarised as mentioned below.

Texas Supports Restrictions on Abortion

In support of the abortion law, the state made three primary claims:

States have a stake in preserving medical standards, promoting health, and preserving fetal life.

As a “person” under the 14th Amendment, a fetus is also protected.

Prenatal life protection from the moment of conception is a strong state interest.

Roe asserts the right to complete privacy

The following arguments served as the foundation for Jane Roe’s and the other parties’ case:

The 14th Amendment’s guarantee of right to “liberty” was violated by the Texas law.

The Texas statute violated the Bill of Rights’ guarantees of marital, familial, and sexual privacy.

Abortion rights are unassailable; an individual can terminate a pregnancy whenever, however, and however they see fit.

Judgement

A Texas district court declared in June 1970 that the state’s abortion ban was unconstitutional due to its violation of the right to privacy guaranteed by the constitution. Wade then announced that he would keep bringing charges against abortionists. In the end, the matter was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. McCovey gave birth in the interim and placed the child for adoption. In a 7-2 ruling on January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court invalidated the Texas abortion restriction, therefore legalizing the operation across the country. The court ruled in a majority judgment authored by Justice Harry Blackmun that the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of privacy implicitly included a woman’s right to an abortion. “We . . . conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation.” – Justice Harry Blackmun (Majority).

The court categorized pregnancies into three trimesters and ruled that it was entirely up to the woman to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy in the first trimester. To safeguard the mother’s health, the government could restrict abortion in the second trimester but not outright forbid it. To safeguard a fetus that might survive outside the womb on its own, the state could forbid abortion in the third trimester, unless the health of the woman was in jeopardy.

Analysis

There is still disagreement among Americans on support for a woman’s right to an abortion, and several states have implemented restrictions that erode that right since Roe v. Wade. In the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the Supreme Court heard arguments against Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act. Although the court maintained the main decision in Roe v. Wade, it permitted states to impose further restrictions on abortion as long as they did not create a “undue burden.” Mississippi’s ban on abortions beyond 15 weeks was upheld by the Supreme Court. By doing this, it has essentially taken away millions of American women’s constitutional right to an abortion. States now have the authority to outlaw the procedure once more. It is anticipated that half of the US states will enact additional limitations or prohibitions. As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, thirteen states have already enacted so-called trigger legislation that will immediately ban abortion. New limitations are likely to be swiftly passed by several others. Six of the Supreme Court’s nine justices were chosen by Republican presidents. One of these, Judge Samuel Alito, had a draft judgment leaked in May 2022. The statement that the Roe v. Wade ruling is “egregiously wrong” was included in it.

Conclusion

Jane Roe, a pregnant single woman, filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the local district attorney responsible for enforcing the abortion act, during a period when Texas law limited abortions to those performed to save the mother’s life. The Texas statute, she claimed, was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court concurred, ruling that a woman’s decision to have an abortion is protected by the right to privacy guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. However, as the pregnancy progresses, the State’s interest in maternal health and fetal life after viability limits that right. This was the first time the Court addressed the matter and upheld what it called the “right to choose” amid a nationwide discussion on the subject. The lawsuit started in 1970 when Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, where the plaintiff, Norma McCorvey (1947–2017), lived, was the target of a federal action brought by “Jane Roe,” a fictitious name created to conceal her identity. Roe’s claim of an unassailable right to end a pregnancy in any manner and at any time was rejected by the Supreme Court. Rather, it sought to strike a balance between the state’s “compelling” interests in safeguarding pregnant women’s health and the “potentiality of human life” and what it considered to be a “fundamental” right to privacy. The Court did this by creating a schedule based on the concepts of fetal viability, or the “capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb,” and trimester. But now that the Roe vs Wade has been overturned so now the States are free to enact their own laws according to their position on the issue. There is still uncertainty when it comes to issue of abortion & surely there is no consensus in the political sphere.

References

Roe v. Wade: Decision, Summary & Background | HISTORY

Roe v. Wade | Constitution Center

Roe v. Wade | Summary, Origins, Right to Privacy, & Overturning | Britannica Roe v Wade: What is US Supreme Court ruling on abortion?