Roe V. Wade Case Study

In the case of Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court outlawed any state laws to restrict a woman's right to an abortion at any point in her pregnancy.

In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, the U.S Supreme court ruled that the woman has the right to make a choice giving support to the pro-choice groups that support abortion. This meant that, the fetus has no rights and is at the indispensable mercy of the mother. The rights of the state and the fetus cannot overrule the choice that the mother has made. In another case in 1992, Roe in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the US Supreme Court maintained that a woman has the power and the right to commit an abortion (Knapp,

Many of these states have created harder restrictions for the process of receiving an abortion. States have tried to change the law that, “requires women to receive state-mandated counseling and an ultrasound at least 18 hours before the procedure, forcing women to make two separate trips to the clinic. It also prohibits women from choosing abortion if the fetus is diagnosed with a genetic anomaly, and mandates that fetal tissue be cremated or buried” (Huffington Post). These restrictions not only complicate the process of an abortion but also painfully affects the women trying to obtain them in these states. Many clinics have been forced to shut down in conservative states, forcing many women to travel far to undergo the procedures.

On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Roe v. Wade, a challenge to a Texas statute that made it a crime to perform an abortion unless a woman’s life was at stake. The case had been filed by “Jane Roe,” an unmarried woman who wanted to safely and legally end her pregnancy. Siding with Roe, the court struck down the Texas law. The Court argued that the Constitution's First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual's privacy rights against state laws and cited past cases ruling that marriage, contraception, and child rearing are activities covered in this "zone of privacy." The Court then argued that the "zone of privacy" was "broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the 1973 Roe v. Wade interpreted the constitutional right to privacy portion to entail a woman’s right to abortion. This case gave rise to the most intense and political debate in the U.S. today. This debate was further complicated in the 1992 decision in the Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, which allowed for states to enact legislation to restrict and regulate abortion. The dispute over abortion rights has remained constant over the last 20 years between 1973 and 1994 (Carmines, & Woods, 2002). Moreover, there is a sharp divide between Democratic and Republican parties. Democratic party elites have taken a pro-choice approach while Republicans are pro-life. According to a survey

wade. “Repeated challenges since 1973 narrowed the scope of Roe v. Wade but did not overturn it. In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), the Supreme Court established that restrictions on abortion are unconstitutional if they place an “undue burden” on a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus is viable” (). “Since the roe decision, anti abortion lawmakers have not been able to ban abortion outright. Instead, they have developed a very successful strategy of limiting a woman’s access to the procedure and restricting the procedures that physicians can use to perform it” (76). “The restrictions that were given made life harder for women. All of these laws are meant to dissuade a woman from going through with the abortion. Feminists oppose the restrictions. They view the laws as condescending to women, who they feel know how to make up their own minds about this personal, private decision” (77). “When they eventually make their way back to a clinic, they may be much farther along in the pregnancy, when the procedure becomes more invasive, potentially more dangerous to the mother, and much more expensive” (77). “For some clinics, the expenses brought on by TRAP laws are so high the facilities shut down. By the fall of 2014, only eight abortion clinics in Texas were still standing. Before the law, some 10,000 Texas women had to travel more than 200 miles

January 22, 1973, is when Roe v. Wade decision was declared. It has been called a “turning point in woman’s reproductive rights. In the ruling (7-2) excessive state restriction of abortion is unconstitutional. The alias Jane Roe had consulted with her doctor to have an abortion earlier months of her pregnancy without legal restrictions. The state laws had limited such thing for the restrictions were for the purpose for of protection the health of the pregnant woman. Roe v. Wade basically legalized abortion in the US.

Roe v. Wade 1973 was a landmark case where the United States ruled it unconstitutional that state law could ban abortion except to save the life of the mother. The Supreme Court ruling was that states were forbidden from outlawing or regulating any aspect of abortion performed during the first trimester of pregnancy and could only regulate abortions regarding maternal health in the second and third trimesters. States were only allowed to enact abortion laws to protect the fetus in the third trimester, but even in the third trimester an exception had to be made to protect the life of the mother (McBride).

Since Roe v Wade, there have been major advancements in the maternal-fetal world of medicine. Advanced technology and science have shown us that there is “life” to a fetus before the last trimester, leading to many regulations and laws to prohibit abortion for the life the fetus. Discussed in this paper are the policies, court cases, and executive decisions affecting legal abortion in the US and the ethical implications that debate them.

But in January of 1973, when the Supreme Court announced their decision in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court took on new life, as its decision pronounced the Court a maker of public policy. Through Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court created the blueprints for a national abortion policy. A policy that declared a woman’s right to an abortion unconditionally protected by the constitutional right to personal privacy. The framework, the general principle of Roe v. Wade was properly decided. The Constitutional right of personal privacy should be interpreted to include a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. However, some areas of the Court’s decision are flawed, particularly their decision to divide pregnancy into trimesters.

Before the 1973 ruling of the case of Roe v Wade, the estimated average number of illegal abortions every year ranged from 200,000 to 1.5 million. The methods used were violently dangerous including women ingesting toxic substances such as bleach and detergents which often times was ineffective. Women around the country were concerned that the anti-abortion laws conflicted with a person’s right to privacy and equal protection given by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. Gale University’s William Sullivan explains ”The right to abort unborn children is not specifically protected by the Constitution, and prior to 1973, abortion legislation had been understood to be limited to the power of the states per the Tenth

A previously stated with medical marijuana and marriage equality, each state has individual views on abortion depending on their location and history. Such as, the South tends to have more conservative views and be Pro-Life while Northeasters tend to be more liberal and Pro-Choice. The federal government has had “no challenge to the federal law against partial-birth abortion on this ground ever went to the Supreme Court” (Ponnuru 2015). The federal government has already declared abortion legal through the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973. “Roe v. Wade (1973)… ruled that the states were forbidden from outlawing or regulating any aspect of abortion performed during the first trimester of pregnancy, could only enact abortion regulations reasonably related to maternal health in the second and third trimesters, and could enact abortion laws protecting the life of the fetus only in the third trimester. Even then, an exception had to be made to protect the life of the mother” (The federal government should have the power because it is unconstitutional for certain citizens of the United States to have more rights than other citizens just because of state lived in.

Abortion is often debated as a women's rights issue or as a rights issue for the unborn. It is neither. It would be wrong to protect women's rights by simply ignoring the case for the unborn; and it would be wrong to protect the unborn rights by simply ignoring the case for women. The issue is not who has rights; both sides have some rights, or at least considerations to consider. The issue is not who

By the 1960’s, states began to reconsider the legalization of abortion in response to the high rate of hospital admissions resulting from illegal abortions and a change in public opinion (“Abortion in Law, History, and Religion”). By the early 1970’s, 17 states had altered their abortion laws towards liberalization (“Abortion in Law, History, and Religion”). In 1973, the Supreme Court declared in Roe vs. Wade that most existing state laws were unconstitutional. The case ruled out any legislative interference in the first trimester of pregnancy and put limits on what restrictions could be passed on abortions in later stages of pregnancy (Sauer).

Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)