Abortion is a highly debated topic over pro-life or pro-choice being right or wrong. Abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy. It is a medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the death of a fetus. There are many reason why a woman may choose to have an abortion. Of the women who reported having an abortion, 21 % said they made the choice because of inadequate finances, 11% were too young and/or immature, 3% was due to the baby having possible health problems and less than 1% said they made the decision because of being raped or because of incest. There were also other reasons given. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 730,322 abortions reported in 2011. …show more content…
She may have been raped or there might be a health risk affecting the mother and/or baby. In other words, women need to have the choice to proceed with their pregnancy or not. Roe vs. Wade In 1973 “Roe vs. Wade is a historic Supreme Court decision overturning a Texas interpretation of abortion law and making abortion legal in the United States. The Roe v. Wade decision held that woman, with her doctor, could choose abortion in earlier months of pregnancy without legal restriction, and with restrictions is in later months, based on the right to privacy.” This decision was made on January 22, 1973. (Lewis, 2015). The decision was based on the right to privacy based on the Fourteenth Amendment The case was originally filed by Norma McCorvey (“Jane Roe”) in 1971, stating that the abortion law in Texas violated her constitutional rights and the rights of other women. She was suing Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County. He had enforced a Texas law prohibiting abortion, except to save a woman’s life. Financial
In the controversial case, Roe v. Wade, a pregnant woman who was given the name Jane Roe to hide her identity attempted to get an abortion but they were illegal in Texas so she sued the state for invasion of privacy. Roe's real name is Norma McCorvey; she was an ex-carnival worker who was raped and became pregnant. In 1969, when she moved back to her home state, she was denied and abortion on grounds that her health was not threatened. She started to look for other options, such as an abortion clinic out of the country, but those were too risky. She had given up searching for a safe, clinical abortion when two lawyers contacted her about her story. These lawyers were Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington. Weddington had herself been through
The court decision that designed abortion law in the United State. In this case, Roe v. Wade (1973) verdict, the Supreme Court ruled that women had a constitutional right to abortion. Moreover, this right was based on an implied right to personal privacy from the Ninth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment. According to the court that a fetus is not a person, but "potential life." Therefore, the fetus does not have constitutional rights of its own.
In the court case Roe v. Wade, Jane Roe (false name to protect her real identity) wanted an abortion. However, in some states like in Texas (where this all took places) abortion was illegal unless it was to save the woman’s life. In 1970, Roe and her team of lawyers were fighting to protect her and all of the women in the world to have a say in what’s right and wrong if them. Roe’s team of lawyers were suing Henry Wade, the district attorney of dallas county, Texas. Her team of lawyers and er wanted to obtain an injunction, which would stop Wade from enforcing the law against abortion. The Federal court ruled in favor of Roe, stating that the Texas law against abortion was unconstitutional. Wade appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Roe 7-2. They stated that “with Roe’s assertion that woman had the absolute right to end pregnancy in anyway and at any time...woman’s right to privacy had to be balanced with a state’s interest in regulating abortion”(Encyclopaedia Britannica). This statement means that it the choice of whether to have an abortion or not is up to the woman, but the state has a right to protect the fetus.
During the years leading up to and after 1973, there were numerous events and situations that occurred. Before 1965, the idea of right to privacy was barely used, but Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) changed that. “The case involved a Connecticut law forbidding the use of contraceptives” (Edwards III, Wattenberg, and Lineberry 131). A doctor and a family-planner were arrested for distributing the use of contraceptives for couples in need. They were eventually brought to court by the state and were convicted. The case was taken to the Supreme Court and was later decided that everyone is entitled to their “right to privacy.” This set the precedent for Roe v. Wade because without Griswold v. Connecticut, the decision might be completely different than what it is now. A court case called Rust v. Sullivan was related to abortion. It specified that “family planning services receiving federal funds could not provide women any counseling regard abortion” (Edwards III, Wattenberg, and Lineberry 131). This decision created public scrutiny as the decision would violate the First Amendment. President Clinton eventually lifted the ban on abortion counseling as it
Norma McCorvey who was the plaintiff took on “Jane Roe” as her alias to protect her real identity. The case was originally filed on Roe’s behalf but it was transformed into a class action suit so that McCorvey could represent all pregnant women. The defendant was Henry B. Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas. Roe had two major hurdles to get over:
Have you ever wondered how abortion came to be legal? It was decided in the Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade. The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was a major landmark in not only the abortion issue, but also in American government.
Alternatively, McCorvey’s friends encouragingly suggested she lie and say that her pregnancy was the result of her being raped. McCorvey was not able to provide evidence of which would prove her claim of rape to be true so she was not granted the right to abort her fetus. She then was left with a limitation of options, one being an illegal abortion clinic that she soon found out had been shut down by the police, and the other option being an old abandoned building where McCorvey stated "dirty instruments were scattered around the room, and there was dried blood on the floor.” McCorvey believed it was against the constitutional rights of american citizens to restrict the rights of abortion. These restricting laws were believes by many women to trap them into unfavorable alternatives such as self abortion or abortions performed by unlicensed beings with unsanitary surroundings and equipment. Desperate, McCorvey agreed to participate in a lawsuit against Henry Wade in efforts to make a difference for women around the world with the hopes of retaining her anonymity. An article on encyclopedia.com concerning the Roe v Wade case and it’s background states, “McCorvey chose to remain anonymous for several reasons: she feared publicity would hurt her five-year-old daughter, her parents were against abortion, and she had lied about being raped” (p.9) thus Norma McCorvey was known as Jane Roe in the now infamous case of as Roe v.
January 23, 2000 marked the twenty-seventh anniversary of the Roe v. Wade case. It all started out in a small town in Texas where a woman under the alias Jane Roe filed a case in district court for a woman’s right to choose abortion. At this time law in Texas prohibited abortion. Eventually the case moved to Supreme Court.
The case of Roe vs. Wade was an example of an individual’s rights and privacy against long held doctrines based on religious beliefs. In 1973, a woman by the name of Norma L. McCorvey, using an alias of Jane Roe, was single and living in Texas. She got pregnant and wanted an abortion, but it was illegal. The case eventually made its way to the United States Supreme Court. The Court recognized in a 7 to 2 decision that the Constitutional right to privacy should include a person’s choice to terminate their pregnancy. This case became not known as one of a person’s right to privacy, but rather the case that legalized abortion (Roe v. Wade).
Wade, which recognized that women have the rights and secrecy if they want to make on their own personal medical decisions, such as abortion. According to “Abortion: Roe v. Wade, 2001” in all started in 1969 when Jane Roe also known as, Norma McCorvey, who at the time was twenty-one and single parent of a five year old daughter who she could barely manage for, so her mother had taken full custody of. So as a result, she made a decision in which she wanted to get an abortion, but the only problem was that time in Texas, you were only allowed to get an abortion if the mother life was in danger due to the pregnancy which it was not. Ms. McCorvey tried her best to seek out help if there was any way to get an abortion, but sadly there was not, she had even contacted a lawyer, unfortunately her lawyer could not help her but she did agree with
Then in 1973, the Supreme Court made the decision that abortion would be legal. The NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation believes, “In the years since Roe v. Wade was decided, thousands of American women’s lives have been saved by access to legal abortion.”
There are many reasons as to why a woman may want to get an abortion, but those reasons may not make having an abortion ethical. Some reasons include rape, incest, not being financially able to support a child, having a disabled child, the pregnancy causing dangers to the woman’s health or simply not wanting to care for a child. If the woman has the child it may interfere
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy resulting in the death of the embryo or fetus.
Another reason why some women have abortions is due to medical problems that they think or know they can’t handle. The fetus might have been hurt by exposure to high levels of toxic chemicals, medications that might be dangerous to the fetus, alcohol, drugs, etc. They may cause the fetus to be genetically damaged. Some girls become pregnant at a very young age, when pregnancy can be dangerous. The fetus has a genetic defect or other health problem. Virtually all of the couples who find that the fetus suffers from Down's Syndrome, or a similar defect, elect to have an abortion. The woman may develop
Roe v. Wade (1973) 410 U.S. 113, was a landmark Supreme Court abortion case. It all started when a 22-year old young woman by the name of Norma McCorvey learned that she was pregnant but later wanted to terminate her pregnancy. In 1969 in Texas it was illegal to give an abortion if the mother wasn’t at risk of dying, the only other way was for her to leave Texas. In other states such as New York, California, Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington did not have these exceptions but Norma was not financially stable enough to travel to any of these places to have the procedure done McCorvey was about five months pregnant when she found two lawyers by the names of Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee. These ladies have also been fighting the abortion law in Texas but neither one of them was pregnant so they couldn’t file a lawsuit to fight the law. Luckily that’s where Nora McCorvey comes in, they used her to file the lawsuit against Henry Wade which was the District Attorney of Dallas, Texas. To protect her identity during the case she was referred to as, Jane Roe.