Roe v.

Wade
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Roe v. Wade

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued December 13, 1971

Reargued October 11, 1972
Decided January 22, 1973

Full case name Jane Roe, et al. v. Henry Wade, District Attorney of
Dallas County

Citations 410 U.S. 113 (more)

93 S. Ct. 705; 35 L. Ed. 2d 147; 1973 U.S. LEXIS

159

Argument Oral argument

Reargument Reargument

Decision Opinion

Case history

Prior Judgment for plaintiffs, injunction denied, 314 F.

Supp. 1217 (N.D. Tex. 1970); probable jurisdiction
noted, 402 U.S. 941 (1971); set for
reargument, 408 U.S. 919 (1972)

Subsequent Rehearing denied, 410 U.S. 959 (1973)

 Holding

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.

Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy" that protects a
pregnant woman's liberty to choose whether to have an abortion. This
right is not absolute, and must be balanced against the government's
interests in protecting women's health and protecting prenatal life. The
Texas law making it a crime to procure an abortion violated this right.

Court membership

Chief Justice
Warren E. Burger

Associate Justices
William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan Jr.
Potter Stewart · Byron White
Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun
Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist

Case opinions

Majority Blackmun, joined by Burger, Douglas, Brennan,

Stewart, Marshall, Powell

Concurrence Burger

Concurrence Douglas

Concurrence Stewart

Dissent White, joined by Rehnquist

Dissent Rehnquist

Laws applied

U.S. Const. Amend. XIV;

Tex. Code Crim. Proc. arts. 1191–94, 1196

Overruled by

(partially) Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973),[1] was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme
Court concerning a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without
excessive government restriction. The decision struck down many U.S. federal and
state abortion laws.[2][3] Roe fueled an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about
whether or to what extent abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of
abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should
be. It also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in
constitutional adjudication.
The decision involved the case of Norma McCorvey—known under the legal
pseudonym "Jane Roe"—who in 1969 became pregnant with her third child. McCorvey
wanted an abortion, but she lived in Texas where abortion was illegal except when
necessary to save the mother's life. Her attorneys, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee,
filed a lawsuit on her behalf in U.S. federal court against her local district
attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional. A
three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled in her
favor. Texas then appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor ruling
that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution provides a "right to privacy" protecting a pregnant woman's right to choose
whether to have an abortion. But it also ruled that this right is not absolute and must be
balanced against governments' interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life. [4]
[5]
 The Court resolved this balancing test by tying the degree of state regulation permitted
to the trimester of pregnancy which is to be aborted.[5] The Court also required lower
courts to evaluate challenges to abortion related laws under the "strict scrutiny"
standard, the highest level of judicial review in the United States. [6]
The Court's ruling in Roe was criticized by some in the legal community, [7] and some
called the decision an example of judicial activism.[8] The Supreme Court revisited and
modified Roe's legal rulings in its 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
[9]
 In Casey, the Court reaffirmed Roe's holding that a woman's right to choose to have
an abortion is constitutionally protected, but abandoned Roe's trimester framework in
favor of a standard based on fetal viability and overruled the strict scrutiny standard
implemented in 1973.[4][10]

Contents

 1Background
o 1.1History of abortion laws in the United States
o 1.2History of the case
 2Hearing the case
o 2.1Postponement
o 2.2Oral argument
o 2.3Initial discussions
o 2.4Drafting the opinion
 3Supreme Court decision
o 3.1Opinion of the Court
 3.1.1Mootness
 3.1.2Abortion and right to privacy
o 3.2Concurrences
 o 3.3Dissents
 4Reception
o 4.1Support for Roe
 4.1.1Along with support for abortion rights
 4.1.2Support for Roe, but opposition to legalized abortion
o 4.2Opposition to  Roe
 4.2.1Opposition to Roe, but support for abortion rights
 4.2.2Opposition to both Roe and abortion
o 4.3Responses within the legal profession
o 4.4Later responses by those involved
 4.4.1Harry Blackmun
 4.4.2Norma McCorvey
 4.4.3McCorvey's third child
 4.4.4Sarah Weddington
 5Role in judicial decisions
o 5.1Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
o 5.2Planned Parenthood v. Casey
o 5.3Stenberg v. Carhart
o 5.4Gonzales v. Carhart
o 5.5Dubay v. Wells
o 5.6Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt
o 5.7Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
 6Role in politics
o 6.1Presidential positions
o 6.2State laws regarding Roe
 7Demographic effects and opinion polls
 8See also
 9References
 10Further reading
 11External links

Background
History of abortion laws in the United States
In 1821, Connecticut passed the first state statute banning abortion in the United States.
Every state had abortion legislation by 1900.[11]
Rose Fosco, who posed as a woman seeking an abortion during sting operations for the Chicago Police
Department. As an undercover officer she worked to break up illegal abortion rings. [12]

In the United States, abortion was sometimes considered a common law offense.
[13]
 Negative liberty rights from common law do not apply in situations caused by
consensual or voluntary behavior, which allowed for abortions of fetuses conceived in a
consensual manner to be common law offences.[14] In 1868, abortion by itself was not
legal before quickening in 26 out of 37 states. In all states throughout the 19th and early
20th century, pre-quickening abortions were always considered to be actions without a
lawful purpose, which meant that if the mother died, the individual performing the
abortion was guilty of murder. This aspect of common law regarded pre-quickening
abortions as a type of inchoate felony.[15] Abortion[16] and infanticide were common
practices in the Kingdom of Hawai'i, but infanticide was criminalized in 1835[17] and had
disappeared or became infrequent by at least 1846. [18] Abortion, except to save the
mother's life, was criminalized in 1850,[19] and the statutes continued in effect following
the adoption of English Common Law[20] and also following annexation by the United
States.[17] The majority opinion authored in Justice Blackmun's name would later claim
that the criminalization of abortion did not have "roots in the English common-law
tradition".[21]
One purpose for banning abortion was to protect the life of the mother, and another was
to create deterrence against future abortions. [22] Rather than arresting the women having
the abortions, legal officials were more likely to interrogate these women to obtain
evidence against the abortion provider in order to close down that provider's business. [23]
[24]
 This law enforcement strategy was a response to juries which refused to convict
women prosecuted for abortion in the 19th century. [25] In 1973, Justice Harry Blackmun's
opinion stated that "the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States
today are of relatively recent vintage".[26] Blackmun's opinion also cited differences
between permissive and restrictive abortion attitudes and laws throughout history and
among different professions to argue that there was no consensus about abortion. [27]
By 1971, elective abortion on demand was effectively available in Alaska, California,
Washington, D.C., Washington state, Hawaii, and New York. [28] Some women traveled to
jurisdictions where it was legal, although not all could afford to. [29] In 1971, Shirley
Wheeler was charged with manslaughter after Florida hospital staff reported her illegal
abortion to the police. She received a sentence of two years' probation and, under her
probation, had to move back into her parents' house in North Carolina. [23] The Boston
Women's Abortion Coalition held a rally for Wheeler to raise money and awareness of
her charges, and staff members from the Women's National Abortion Action Coalition
(WONAAC) spoke at the rally.[30] Wheeler was possibly the first woman to be held
criminally responsible for having an abortion.[31] Her conviction was overturned by
the Supreme Court of Florida.[23]
History of the case
Sarah Weddington (upper left) and Linda Coffee (upper right), were the two attorneys who represented the
pseudonymous
Norma McCorvey (lower left) against Henry Wade (lower right)

In June 1969, 21-year-old Norma McCorvey discovered she was pregnant with her third
child. She returned to Dallas, where friends advised her to falsely claim that she had
been raped, incorrectly believing that Texas law allowed abortion in cases of pregnancy
from rape and incest. She attempted to obtain an illegal abortion, but found that the
unauthorized facility had been closed down by the police. Eventually, she was referred
to attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington.[32][33] Ordinarily, lawyers are not allowed
to directly solicit clients without any prior relationship, but McCorvey's situation qualified
for a loophole in the no solicitation rule which allows lawyers to solicit new clients
for public interest cases.[34] McCorvey gave birth to a daughter at Dallas Osteopathic
Hospital on June 2, 1970; the baby was adopted by a couple in Texas. [35]
In 1970, Coffee and Weddington filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Texas on behalf of McCorvey under the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe". The
defendant in the case was Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, who
represented the State of Texas. McCorvey was no longer claiming her pregnancy was a
result of rape, and later acknowledged that she had lied about having been raped, in an
attempt to circumvent a Texas law that banned abortions except when the woman's life
is in danger.[36][37][38] "Rape" is not mentioned in the judicial opinions in the case.[39]
McCorvey's lawsuit was heard by a three-judge panel consisting of district court
judges Sarah T. Hughes and William McLaughlin Taylor Jr. and appellate judge Irving
Loeb Goldberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. On June 17, 1970, the
three judges unanimously[39] ruled in McCorvey's favor and declared the Texas law
unconstitutional, finding that it violated the right to privacy found in the Ninth
Amendment. In addition, the court relied on Justice Arthur Goldberg's 1965 concurrence
in Griswold v. Connecticut. The court, however, declined to grant an injunction against
enforcing the law.[40]

Hearing the case

Postponement
Roe v. Wade reached the Supreme Court on appeal in 1970. The justices delayed
taking action on Roe and a closely related case, Doe v. Bolton, until they had first
decided certain other cases. One case they decided first was Younger v. Harris. The
justices felt the appeals raised difficult questions on judicial jurisdiction.
Another case was United States v. Vuitch, in which they considered the constitutionality
of a District of Columbia statute which banned abortion except when the mother's life or
health was endangered. The Court upheld the statue on the grounds that the word
"health" was not unconstitutionally vague and placed the burden of proof concerning
dangers to the life or health of the mother on the prosecutor instead of on the person
who had performed the abortion.[41]
Justice Douglas with his family on Christmas Eve, 1939. His wife divorced him in 1952 and his private
life involved repeated drinking and womanizing during the '60s and '70s prior to his retirement.[42]

Justice William O. Douglas wrote a lengthy dissenting opinion to this case. He argued

that the right to marital privacy and the limitation of family size from Griswold v.
Connecticut also applied here, although he acknowledged that "And on the other side is
the belief of many that the fetus, once formed, is a member of the human family and
that mere personal inconvenience cannot justify the fetus' destruction." He also
challenged the majority opinion with a series of hypothetical questions asking whether
"health" might also include the stigma of having an illegitimate child, anxiety from the
pregnancy being unwanted, the physical work of raising a child, the financial drain from
the added expense of another child, and far off health risks that may never actually
materialize in a similar fashion to how risks were warded off
with prophylactic appendectomy.[43] Justice Douglas's dissent made a similar legal
argument to the one used two years later in Roe v. Wade.[44] The following day after their
decision was announced, the court voted to hear both Roe and Doe.[45]
According to Justice Blackmun, Justice Stewart felt the cases were a straightforward
application of Younger v. Harris, and enough justices agreed to hear the cases in order
to review whether they would be suitable for federal as opposed to only state courts.
[46]
 This sort of review was not about the constitutionality of abortion and would not have
required evidence, witnesses, or a record of facts. [47] The oral argument was scheduled
by the full Court for December 13, 1971. Before the Court could hear the oral argument,
justices Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan II retired. Chief Justice Warren
Burger asked Justice Potter Stewart and Justice Blackmun to determine
whether Roe and Doe, among others, should be heard as scheduled. They
recommended that the Court continue on as scheduled. [48]
Oral argument
As she began speaking for the oral argument, Sarah Weddington was unaware that the
Court had decided to hear the case in order to decide which courts had jurisdiction to
hear it rather than as an attempt to overturn abortion laws in a broad ruling. She began
by bringing up constitutional reasons why the Court should overturn Texas's abortion
law, but Justice Stewart asked questions directed towards the jurisdiction question
instead. Weddington replied that she saw no problem with jurisdiction and continued to
talk about a constitutional right to abortion.[49] Overall, she spent between 20 and 30
minutes discussing jurisdiction and procedure instead of constitutional issues. [46]
In his opening argument in defense of the abortion restrictions, attorney Jay Floyd made
what was later described as the "worst joke in legal history". [50] Appearing against two
female lawyers, Floyd began, "Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the Court. It's an old
joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they are going to
have the last word." His remark was met with cold silence; one observer thought that
Chief Justice Burger "was going to come right off the bench at him. He glared him
down."[51][52]
McCorvey did not attend either of the oral arguments along with her two lawyers. After
talking McCorvey out of getting an illegal abortion and getting her name signed on an
affidavit for the lawsuit, Weddington did not speak again with McCorvey until four
months after Roe was decided.[53]
Initial discussions

The judicial replacements

After the first argument session, all seven remaining justices tentatively agreed that the
Texas law should be struck down, but on varying grounds. [54] Burger assigned the task of
writing the Court's opinions for both Roe and Doe to Blackmun.[55] Justice Douglas
suggested to Justice Blackmun that Chief Justice Burger assigned the opinions to him
out of malicious intention, but Justice Blackmun disagreed. He knew that Chief Justice
Burger could not write it himself because the abortion was too controversial, and his
opinions might get rejected by the majority. He also understood why the other justices
could not be assigned to write the opinions: Justice Douglas was too liberal for the
public to accept his word. Likewise, he might split the Court's vote by writing something
radical. In addition, the quality of his opinions had suffered recently. Justice Brennan
was the only Catholic on the Court, and he would would have to face Catholic political
groups which were against abortion. If Justice Marshall wrote the opinions, the ruling
would be perceived as being directed towards African Americans, and he would have to
face the displeasure of African American political groups. Justice Stewart would have
trouble going far enough in legalizing abortion. [56]
Justice Blackmun started by working on a preliminary opinion for Roe which argued that
Texas's law was unconstitutionally vague.[55] At this point, justices Black and Harlan had
been replaced by justices William Rehnquist and Lewis F. Powell Jr., but the first
argument had already occurred before they became Supreme Court justices. But
Justice Blackmun felt that his opinion did not adequately reflect his liberal colleagues'
views.[57] In March, 1972, the court issued a ruling in Eisenstadt v. Baird, a landmark
case which applied the earlier marital privacy right now also to unmarried individuals. [58]
In May 1972, Justice Blackmun proposed that the case be reargued. Justice Douglas
threatened to write a dissent from the reargument order because he and the other
liberal justices were suspicious that Rehnquist and Powell would vote to uphold
the Texas abortion statutes. He was coaxed out of the action by his colleagues, and
instead his dissent was merely mentioned in the reargument order without further
statement or opinion.[59][60] The case was reargued on October 11, 1972. Weddington
continued to represent the pseudonymous Jane Roe, and Texas Assistant Attorney
General Robert C. Flowers replaced Jay Floyd for Texas. [61]
Drafting the opinion

George Frampton (left), clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun (right)

Blackmun continued to work on his opinions in both cases over the summer recess,
even though there was no guarantee that he would be assigned to write them again.
Over the recess, he spent a week researching the history of abortion at the Mayo
Clinic in Minnesota, where he had worked in the 1950s. He talked daily on the phone
with George Frampton, his 28-year old law clerk who stayed behind in Washington,
D.C.[62] Frampton researched the history of abortion using a book authored by Lawrence
Lader, the founding chairman of what is now called NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Blackmun's papers made available since his death contain at least seven citations [63] for
Lader's 1966 book, Abortion.[62] Chapter 16 of his book, "A Blueprint for Changing U.S.
Abortion Laws" predicted that if abortion were to be legalized, "the possibility of
community opposition is slight".[64] Lader also predicted that "If such a theoretical case
was carried to a high court, perhaps even the U.S. Supreme Court, and the judges
confirmed a broad interpretation of the meaning of a threat to life, undoubtedly a
landmark in abortion decisions would be reached." [65] After the Court held the second
argument session, Powell said he would agree with Blackmun's conclusion but pushed
for Roe to be the lead of the two abortion cases being considered. Powell also
suggested that the Court strike down the Texas law on privacy grounds. Byron White
was unwilling to sign on to Blackmun's opinion, and Rehnquist had already decided to
dissent.[66]
During the drafting process, the justices discussed the trimester framework at great
length. Powell had suggested that the point where the state could intervene be placed
at viability, which Thurgood Marshall supported as well.[67] In an internal memo to the
other justices before the majority decision was published, Blackmun wrote: "You will
observe that I have concluded that the end of the first trimester is critical. This is
arbitrary, but perhaps any other selected point, such as quickening or viability, is equally
arbitrary."[68][69] Roe supporters point out, however, that the memo only reflects
Blackmun's uncertainty about the timing of the trimester framework, not the framework
or the holding itself.[70] Contrary to Blackmun, Douglas preferred the first-trimester line.
[71]
 Stewart said the lines were "legislative" and wanted more flexibility and consideration
paid to state legislatures, though he joined Blackmun's decision. [72] William J. Brennan
Jr. proposed abandoning frameworks based on the age of the fetus and instead
allowing states to regulate the procedure based on its safety for the mother. [71]

Supreme Court decision

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in favor of Norma
McCorvey ("Jane Roe") holding that women in the United States had a fundamental
right to choose whether to have abortions without excessive government restriction and
striking down Texas's abortion ban as unconstitutional. The decision was issued
together with a companion case, Doe v. Bolton, that involved a similar challenge
to Georgia's abortion laws.
Opinion of the Court

The Burger Court in 1973

Seven justices formed the majority and joined an opinion written by Justice Harry
Blackmun. The opinion recited the facts of the case, then dealt with issues of procedure
and justiciability before proceeding to the main constitutional issues of the case.
Mootness
The Court's opinion first addressed mootness, a legal doctrine which bars American
federal courts from hearing cases that have ceased to be "live" controversies because
of intervening events.[73] Under a normal application of the principle, McCorvey's appeal
had become moot because she had already given birth to her child and no longer had a
pregnancy to abort.[74]
The Court concluded that an established exception to the mootness doctrine allows
consideration of cases that are "capable of repetition, yet evading review". [75] Blackmun
noted that the woman using the name Roe might get pregnant again, and pregnancy
would normally conclude more quickly than an appellate process: "If that termination
makes a case moot, pregnancy litigation seldom will survive much beyond the trial
stage, and appellate review will be effectively denied." [76]
Abortion and right to privacy
After dealing with mootness and standing, the Court proceeded to the main issue of the
case: the constitutionality of Texas's abortion law. The Court first surveyed abortion's
legal status throughout the history of Roman law and the Anglo-American common law.
[5]
 It also reviewed the developments of medical procedures and technology used in
abortions.[5]
After its historical survey, the Court introduced the concept of a constitutional "right to
privacy" that it said had been intimated in its earlier decisions Meyer v.
Nebraska and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, which involved parental control
over childrearing, and in Griswold v. Connecticut, which involved contraception.[5] Then,
"with virtually no further explanation of the privacy value", [6] the Court ruled that
regardless of exactly which of its provisions were involved, the U.S. Constitution's
guarantees of liberty covered a right to privacy that protected a pregnant woman's
decision whether to abort a pregnancy. [77]
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of
personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or ... in the Ninth
Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a
woman's decision whether to terminate her pregnancy.

— Roe, 410 U.S. at 153.[78]

The Court reasoned that outlawing abortions would infringe a pregnant woman's right to
privacy for several reasons: having unwanted children "may force upon the woman a
distressful life and future"; it may bring imminent psychological harm; caring for the child
may tax the mother's physical and mental health; and because there may be "distress,
for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child". [79]
But the Court rejected the notion that this right to privacy was absolute. [5] It held instead
that the abortion right must be balanced against other government interests.[80] Two
government interests were held to be sufficiently "compelling" to permit states to impose
some limitations on pregnant women's right to choose to have an abortion: first,
protecting the mother's health, and second, protecting the life of the fetus.[80]
A State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, maintaining
medical standards, and in protecting potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these
respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors
that govern the abortion decision. ... We, therefore, 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.

— Roe, 410 U.S. at 154.

Texas's lawyers had argued that total bans on abortion were justifiable because life
began at the moment of conception, and therefore the state's governmental interest in
protecting prenatal life applied to all pregnancies regardless of their stage.[6] The Court
said that there was no indication that the Constitution's uses of the word "person" were
meant to include fetuses, and it rejected Texas's argument that a fetus should be
considered a "person" with a legal and constitutional right to life.[80] The Court observed
that there was still great disagreement over when an unborn fetus becomes a living
being.[81]
We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the
respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any
consensus, the judiciary, in this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a
position to speculate as to the answer.

— Roe, 410 U.S. at 159.[82]

To balance women's rights to privacy and state governments' interests in protecting
mothers' health and prenatal life, the Court created a framework based on the
three trimesters of pregnancy. During the first trimester, when it was believed that the
procedure was safer than childbirth, the Court ruled that a state government could place
no restrictions on women's ability to choose to abort pregnancies other than imposing
minimal medical safeguards, such as requiring abortions to be performed
by licensed physicians.[6] From the second trimester on, the Court ruled that evidence of
increasing risks to the mother's health gave states a compelling interest that allowed
them to enact medical regulations on abortion procedures so long as they were
reasonable and "narrowly tailored" to protecting mothers' health. [6] From the beginning of
the third trimester on—the point at which a fetus became viable under the medical
technology available in the early 1970s—the Court ruled that a state's interest in
protecting prenatal life became so compelling that it could legally prohibit all abortions
except where necessary to protect the mother's life or health. [6]
Having completed its analysis, the Court concluded that Texas's abortion statutes were
unconstitutional and struck them down.
A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality
only a life-saving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage
and without recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

— Roe, 410 U.S. at 164.

Concurrences
Three justices from the majority filed concurring opinions in the case. Justice Potter
Stewart wrote a concurring opinion in which he said that even though the Constitution
makes no mention of the right to choose to have an abortion without interference, he
thought the Court's decision was a permissible interpretation of the doctrine
of substantive due process, which says that the Due Process Clause's protection of
liberty extends beyond simple procedures and protects certain fundamental rights. [83]
[6]
 Justice William O. Douglas's concurring opinion described his view that although the
Court was correct to find that the right to choose to have an abortion was a fundamental
right, he thought it would have been better to derive it from the Ninth Amendment—
which states that the fact that a right is not specifically enumerated in the Constitution
shall not be construed to mean that American people do not possess it—rather than
through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. [83][6] Chief Justice Warren
Burger wrote a concurrence in which he wrote that he thought it would be permissible to
allow a state to require two physicians to certify an abortion before it could be
performed.[83]
Dissents

Justices Byron White (left) and William Rehnquist (right), the two dissenters from Roe v. Wade
Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist dissented from the Court's decision, and
their dissenting opinions touched on points that would lead to later criticism of Roe.
[6]
 White's dissent was issued with Roe's companion case, Doe v. Bolton, and described
his belief that the Court had no basis for deciding between the competing values of
pregnant women and unborn children.
I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's
judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for
pregnant women and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that
right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The
upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States
are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued
existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of
possible impacts on the woman, on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial
power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its
judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that
the Constitution extends to this Court.

— Doe, 410 U.S. at 221–22 (White, J., dissenting). [84]

White argued that the abortion issue, "for the most part, should be left with the people
and the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs." [85]
Rehnquist's dissent compared the majority's use of substantive due process to the
Court's repudiated use of the doctrine in the 1905 case Lochner v. New York.[6] He
elaborated on several of White's points, asserting that the Court's historical analysis
was flawed:
To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the
Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters
of the Amendment. As early as 1821, the first state law dealing directly with abortion
was enacted by the Connecticut Legislature. By the time of the adoption of the
Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, there were at least 36 laws enacted by state
or territorial legislatures limiting abortion. While many States have amended or updated
their laws, 21 of the laws on the books in 1868 remain in effect today.

— Roe, 410 U.S. at 174–76 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). [86][87][88]

From this historical record, Rehnquist concluded, "There apparently was no question
concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the
Fourteenth Amendment was adopted." Therefore, in his view, "the drafters did not
intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to
legislate with respect to this matter."[89]

Reception
There was a strong response to the decision shortly after it was issued. [90] The most
prominent organized groups which responded to Roe are NARAL Pro-Choice America
and the National Right to Life Committee.
Support for Roe
Along with support for abortion rights

2021 Women's March, many speakers bemoaned a looming threat to Roe.[91]

Advocates of Roe describe it as vital to the preservation of women's rights, personal

freedom, bodily integrity, and privacy. Advocates have also reasoned that access to
safe abortion and reproductive freedom generally are fundamental rights. Supporters
of Roe contend that even if abortion rights are also supported by another portion of the
constitution, the decision in 1973 accurately founds the right in the Fourteenth
Amendment. Others support Roe despite concern that the fundamental right to abortion
is found elsewhere in the Constitution but not in the portions referenced in the 1973
decision.[92][93]
Support for Roe, but opposition to legalized abortion
Opinion polls indicate that a sizable minority of the American population opposes
overturning Roe, but also desires to make abortion illegal in ways that Roe does not
permit. This is attributed to poll respondents misunderstanding Roe v. Wade or
misinterpreting the poll question.[94]
Opposition to Roe
Opposition to Roe, but support for abortion rights
Some supporters of abortion rights oppose Roe v. Wade on the grounds that it laid a
foundation for abortion in civil rights rather than in human rights, which are broader and
would require government entities to take active measures to ensure every woman has
access to abortion.[95] This particular position is indicated by the use of rhetoric
concerning "reproductive justice" which replaces earlier rhetoric centered around
"choice", such as the "pro-choice" label.[96] Reproductive justice proponents contend that
factors permitting choice are unequal, thus perpetuating oppression and serving to
divide women.[97] Reproductive justice advocates instead want abortion to be considered
an affirmative right that the government would be obligated to guarantee equal access
to, even if the women seeking abortions are nonwhite, poor, or live outside
major metropolitan areas.[98] With a broader interpretation of the right to an abortion, it
would be possible to require all new obstetricians to be in favor of abortion rights, lest as
professionals they employ conscience clauses and refuse to perform abortions.[99] In
1989, the decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services ruled against an
affirmative right to nontherapeutic abortions and noted that states would not be required
to pay for them.[100]
Some in academia have equated the denial of abortion rights to compulsory
motherhood, and because of this abortion bans violate the Thirteenth Amendment:
When women are compelled to carry and bear children, they are subjected to
'involuntary servitude' in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. Even if the woman has
stipulated to have consented to the risk of pregnancy, that does not permit the state to
force her to remain pregnant.[92]
In 1993, a district court rejected an attempt to justify abortion rights apart from Roe and
instead upon the basis that pregnancy and childrearing constituted "involuntary
servitude".[101]
Opposition to both Roe and abortion

March for Life, 2020

Every year, on the anniversary of the decision, opponents of abortion march

up Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., in
the March for Life.[102] Around 250,000 people attended the march until 2010. [103]
[104]
 Estimates put the 2011 and 2012 attendances at 400,000 each, [105] and the 2013
March for Life drew an estimated 650,000 people. [106]
Opponents of Roe assert that the decision lacks a valid constitutional foundation. [107] Like
the dissenters in Roe, they maintain that the Constitution is silent on the issue, and that
proper solutions to the question would best be found via state legislatures and the
legislative process, rather than through an all-encompassing ruling from the Supreme
Court.[108]
A prominent argument against the Roe decision is that, in the absence of consensus
about when meaningful life begins, it is best to avoid the risk of doing harm. [109]
In response to Roe v. Wade, most states enacted or attempted to enact laws limiting or
regulating abortion, such as laws requiring parental consent or parental notification for
minors to obtain abortions; spousal mutual consent laws; spousal notification laws; laws
requiring abortions to be performed in hospitals, not clinics; laws barring state funding
for abortions; laws banning intact dilation and extraction, also known as partial-birth
abortion; laws requiring waiting periods before abortions; and laws mandating that
women read certain types of literature and watch a fetal ultrasound before undergoing
an abortion.[110] In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, barring the federal
government from using Medicaid to fund abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or a
threat to the life of the mother. The Supreme Court struck down some
state restrictions in a long series of cases stretching from the mid-1970s to the late
1980s, but upheld restrictions on funding, including the Hyde Amendment, in the case
of Harris v. McRae (1980).[111]
Some opponents of abortion maintain that personhood begins
at fertilization or conception, and should therefore be protected by the Constitution; [93] the
dissenting justices in Roe instead wrote that decisions about abortion "should be left
with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their
affairs."[112]
Responses within the legal profession
Liberal and feminist legal scholars have had various reactions to Roe, not always giving
the decision unqualified support. One argument is that Justice Blackmun reached the
correct result but went about it the wrong way.[113] Another is that the end achieved
by Roe does not justify its means of judicial fiat.[114]

In 1997, Justice Blackmun (grave, left) gave his papers to the Library of Congress under terms concerning
when his papers, including notes tracing the development of the Roe opinion, would be released. To
accommodate demand on the day of the final release to the general public five years after his death, the library
set up a temporary media center with 18 workstations. The two employees in the foreground are from CNN.[115]

David Garrow noted that the decision in Roe (and also Doe v. Bolton) "owed a great
amount of their substance and language" to Blackmun's law clerks, George Frampton
and Randall Bezanson. He thought the extent of their contributions were remarkable,
and that the clerks exhibited an "unusually assertive and forceful manner" in voicing
their views to Blackmun. In his research it was the earliest significant example he found
of this behavior pattern, which grew more consistent later on. In Garrow's evaluation,
the clerks' contributions were "historically significant and perhaps decisive" in shaping
the two decisions.[116]
In response to Garrow, Edward Lazarus noted that Blackmun's later clerks like himself
did not need as much direction on reproductive rights since they had Blackmun's prior
opinions to draw from. Lazarus thought that on at least some occasions when legal
formulations were created for opinions to be published in Blackmun's name, the justice
himself was not engaged in originating every significant thought pattern that they
employed. Lazarus agreed that Garrow's depiction [116] of how the trimester framework
came about was an example of one of these occasions. He concluded:
The problem of excessive clerk delegation was less serious in Blackmun's chambers
than Garrow suggests but is also more commonplace among the justices. The modern
Supreme Court has deep problems in its decisional culture and the overuse of law
clerks is an aspect of this.[117]
Justice John Paul Stevens, while agreeing with the decision, has suggested that it
should have been more narrowly focused on the issue of privacy. According to Stevens,
if the decision had avoided the trimester framework and simply stated that the right to
privacy included a right to choose abortion, "it might have been much more acceptable"
from a legal standpoint.[118] Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had, before joining the Court,
criticized the decision for ending a nascent movement to liberalize abortion law through
legislation.[119] Ginsburg has also faulted the Court's approach for being "about a doctor's
freedom to practice his profession as he thinks best ... It wasn't woman-centered. It was
physician-centered."[120] Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox thought the "failure to
confront the issue in principled terms leaves the opinion to read like a set of hospital
rules and regulations whose validity is good enough this week but will be destroyed with
new statistics upon the medical risks of child birth and abortion or new advances in
providing for the separate existence of a fetus. Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer
will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the
Constitution."[121]
In a highly cited Yale Law Journal article published in the months after the decision, [8] the
American legal scholar John Hart Ely strongly criticized Roe as a decision that was
disconnected from American constitutional law. [122]
What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the
language of the Constitution, the framers' thinking respecting the specific problem in
issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation's
governmental structure. ... The problem with Roe is not so much that it bungles the
question it sets itself, but rather that it sets itself a question the Constitution has not
made the Court's business. ... [Roe] is bad because it is bad constitutional law, or rather
because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to
be.[123]
American constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe had similar thoughts: "One of the
most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the
substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found." [124] Liberal law
professors Alan Dershowitz,[125] Cass Sunstein,[126] and Kermit Roosevelt have also
expressed disappointment with Roe v. Wade.[127]
Jeffrey Rosen[128] and Michael Kinsley[129] echo Ginsburg, arguing that a legislative
movement would have been the correct way to build a more durable consensus in
support of abortion rights. William Saletan wrote, "Blackmun's papers vindicate every
indictment of Roe: invention, overreach, arbitrariness, textual indifference."[130] Benjamin
Wittes has written that Roe "disenfranchised millions of conservatives on an issue about
which they care deeply."[131] And Edward Lazarus, a former Blackmun clerk who
"loved Roe's author like a grandfather," wrote: "As a matter of constitutional
interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible. ... Justice
Blackmun's opinion provides essentially no reasoning in support of its holding. And in
the almost 30 years since Roe's announcement, no one has produced a convincing
defense of Roe on its own terms."[132]
Richard Epstein thought that the majority opinion relied on a book written by William
Lloyd Prosser about tort law when it stated, that it "is said" that recovery
of damages was allowed "only if the fetus was viable, or at least quick, when the injuries
were sustained".[133] He compared this to what was actually written[134] in the book, which
was that "when actually faced with the issue for decision, almost all of the jurisdictions
have allowed recovery even though the injury occurred during the early weeks of
pregnancy, when the child was neither viable nor quick." [135]
The assertion that the Supreme Court was making a legislative decision is often
repeated by opponents of the ruling.[136] The "viability" criterion is still in effect, although
the point of viability has changed as medical science has found ways to
help premature babies survive.[137]
Later responses by those involved
Harry Blackmun
Justice Blackmun, who authored the Roe decision, subsequently had mixed feelings
about his role in the case. During a 1974 television interview, he stated that Roe "will be
regarded as one of the worst mistakes in the court's history or one of its great decisions,
a turning point."[138]
In a 1983 interview for a newspaper journalist, he responded that he was "mildly
annoyed at those, law professors included, who personalize it" because "it was a
decision of the court, not my decision. There were seven votes." As a Methodist, he felt
hurt that Methodist pastors wrote condemning letters to him, but as time past by, the
letters did not hurt "as much anymore". In defense he responded, "People
misunderstand. I am not for abortion. I hope my family never has to face such a
decision", noting that "I still think it was a correct decision" because "we were deciding a
constitutional issue, not a moral one."[139]
He described Roe as a "a no-win case" and predicted that, "fifty years from now,
depending on the fate of the proposed constitutional amendment, abortion probably will
not be as great a legal issue. I think it will continue to be a moral issue, however." [138] He
reflected that his role in the decision meant he was most known as the "author of the
abortion decision". His response was that "we all pick up tags. I'll carry this one to my
grave" and "so be it".[139]
In 1987, Justice Blackmun explained in a letter to Chief Justice Rehnquist: [140]
I remember that the old Chief appointed a screening committee, chaired by Potter, to
select those cases that could (it was assumed) be adequately heard by a Court of
seven. I was on that little committee. We did not do a good job. Potter pressed for Roe
v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton to be heard and did so in the misapprehension that they
involved nothing more than an application of Younger v. Harris. How wrong we were.
In 1991, he regretted how the Court decided to hear Roe and Doe in a televised
interview: It was a serious mistake ... We did a poor job. I think the committee should
have deferred them until we had a full Court." [141]
In 1992 he stood by the analytical framework he established in Roe during the
subsequent Casey case.[142] He often gave speeches and lectures promoting Roe v.
Wade and criticizing Roe's critics.[143]
Norma McCorvey
During the 1970s although some years after Roe, Norma McCorvey had a nightmare
concerning "little babies lying around with daggers in their hearts". This was the first of a
series of recurring nightmares which kept her awake at night.[144] She became worried
and wondered, "What really, had I done?" [145] and "Well, how do they kill a baby inside a
mother's stomach anyway?" McCorvey later reflected: [146]
I couldn't get the thought out of my mind. I realize it sounds very naïve, especially for a
woman who had already conceived and delivered three children. Though I had seen
and experienced more than my share of the world, there were some things about which
I still didn't have a clue—and this was one of them. Ironically enough, Jane Roe may
have known less about abortion than anyone else.
After years of working with and accompanying others in the abortion rights movement,
Norma McCorvey became part of the anti-abortion movement from 1995 until shortly
before her death in 2017.
.[147] In 1998, she testified to Congress:
It was my pseudonym, Jane Roe, which had been used to create the "right" to abortion
out of legal thin air. But Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee never told me that what I
was signing would allow women to come up to me 15, 20 years later and say, "Thank
you for allowing me to have my five or six abortions. Without you, it wouldn't have been
possible." Sarah never mentioned women using abortions as a form of birth control. We
talked about truly desperate and needy women, not women already wearing maternity
clothes.[37]

Judge Edith Jones

In 2002, along with Sandra Cano (Mary Doe) from Doe v. Bolton and Bernard

Nathanson, a co-founder of NARAL Pro-Choice America, McCorvey appeared in a
television advertisement intended to get the Bush administration to nominate members
to the Supreme Court who would oppose abortion. [148]
As a party to the original litigation, she sought to reopen the case in U.S. District
Court in Texas to have Roe v. Wade overturned. However, the Fifth Circuit decided that
her case was moot, in McCorvey v. Hill.[149] In a concurring opinion, Judge Edith
Jones agreed that McCorvey was raising legitimate questions about emotional and
other harm suffered by women who have had abortions, about increased resources
available for the care of unwanted children, and about new scientific understanding of
fetal development. However, Jones said she was compelled to agree that the case was
moot.[150][151] On February 22, 2005, the Supreme Court refused to grant a writ of certiorari,
and McCorvey's appeal ended.[152]
In an interview shortly before her death, McCorvey stated that she had taken an anti-
abortion position because she had been paid to do so and that her campaign against
abortion had been an act. She also stated that it did not matter to her if women wanted
to have an abortion and they should be free to choose. [153][154] Rob Schenck,
a Methodist pastor and activist who once had anti-abortion views stated that he and
others helped entice McCorvey to claim she changed sides and also stated that what
they had done with her was "highly unethical" and he had "profound regret" over the
matter.[155]
Following this interview, McCorvey talked positively with a priest she knew well about a
message she wanted him to convey at the next March for Life. The message concerned
encouraging young people to oppose abortion. The priest, Frank Pavone, reflected after
her death that "There was no indication whatsoever, at the end of her life" that she had
given up her pro-life positions.[156]
McCorvey's third child
In 2021, Shelley Thornton, McCorvey's third child who did not get aborted because the
court proceedings took too long, stated she was neither pro-life or pro-choice. She grew
up not knowing that she was the fetus in the Roe case until her birth mother appeared
on the Today show in 1989 and talked about her desire to meet her daughter. In
response, a journalist for the National Enquirer found Thornton as a teenager and told
so her about her prenatal history. This made her very sad. In 1991, Thornton became
pregnant, and did not have an abortion because abortion was "not part of who I was".
By 2021, she had met her two half-siblings, but not her birth mother. She nearly met her
birth mother in 1994, but on the phone, McCorvey told her that she should have thanked
her for not having an abortion. Thornton's visceral reaction was "What! I'm supposed to
thank you for getting knocked up ... and then giving me away?" She told her birth
mother that she "would never, ever thank her for not aborting me". [157] She reflected that
"When someone's pregnant with a baby, and they don't want that baby, that person
develops knowing they're not wanted." [158]
Sarah Weddington
After arguing in Roe v. Wade at the age of 26, Sarah Weddington was elected to
the Texas House of Representatives for three terms. Weddington also was general
counsel for the United States Department of Agriculture, as assistant to
President Jimmy Carter, lecturer at the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, and
speaker and adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin.[159] Sarah Weddington
explained in a speech at the Institute for Educational Ethics in Oklahoma why she used
the false rape charges all the way to the Supreme Court: “My conduct may not have
been totally ethical. But I did it for what I thought were good reasons." [160] Weddington
died on December 26, 2021.[161]

Role in judicial decisions

Inside drawer to Senator Frank Church's (D-ID) senate desk

Shortly after the decision, the Church Amendment of 1973 passed the Senate on a vote
of 92-1 in order to protect private hospitals with a conscientious objection to
abortion from being deprived of funding.[162] Justice Blackmun supported this and other
regulations protecting individual physicians and entire hospitals operated by religious
denominations.[163]
Opposition to Roe on the bench grew when President Reagan, who supported
legislative restrictions on abortion, began making federal judicial appointments in 1981.
Reagan denied that there was any litmus test: "I have never given a litmus test to
anyone that I have appointed to the bench.... . I feel very strongly about those social
issues, but I also place my confidence in the fact that the one thing that I do seek
are judges that will interpret the law and not write the law. We've had too many
examples in recent years of courts and judges legislating." [164]
In addition to justices White and Rehnquist, Reagan-appointee Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor began dissenting from the Court's abortion cases, arguing in 1983 that the
trimester-based analysis devised by the Roe Court was "unworkable."[165] Shortly before
his retirement, Chief Justice Warren Burger suggested in 1986 that Roe be
"reexamined";[166] the associate justice who filled Burger's place on the Court—
Justice Antonin Scalia—vigorously opposed Roe. Concern about
overturning Roe played a major role in the defeat of Robert Bork's nomination to the
Court in 1987; the man eventually appointed to replace Roe-supporter Justice Lewis
Powell was Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Oral hearing for the abortion decision, November 18, 1974

The justices voting in the majority on the Federal Constitutional Court in pre-

unification West Germany rejected the trimester framework in the German
Constitutional Court abortion decision, 1975 on the basis that development during
pregnancy is a continuous whole rather than made up of three trimesters. The Court
found that the right to life extends also to the unborn and that life begins on the
fourteenth day after conception.[167] It also found that the liberties of pregnant mothers
were qualified by the existence of another life inside them. The Court found that "A
compromise which guarantees the protection of the life of the one about to be born and
permits the pregnant woman the freedom of abortion is not possible since the
interruption of pregnancy always means the destruction of the unborn life." [168] It ruled
that the fetus must be protected, and the first responsibility for this lies with the mother,
with a second responsibility in the hands of the legislature. [169] The Court allowed for a
balancing of rights between the mother and unborn child, but required that the rights of
each be considered within a framework which acknowledged the supreme, fundamental
value of human life. Legislation allowing abortion could be constitutional if the rights of
the unborn persons were acknowledged in this manner. [170]
Two minority justices in the ruling for the German Constitutional Court abortion decision
in 1975 remarked that "the Supreme Court of the United States has even regarded
punishment for the interruption of pregnancy, performed by a physician with the consent
of the pregnant woman in the first third of pregnancy, as a violation of fundamental
rights. This would, according to German constitutional law, go too far indeed." [168]
In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada used the rulings in both Roe and Doe v.
Bolton as grounds to find Canada's federal law limiting abortions to certified hospitals
unconstitutional in R. v. Morgentaler.[171]
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
In a 5–4 decision in 1989's Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, Chief Justice
Rehnquist, writing for the Court, declined to explicitly overrule Roe, because "none of
the challenged provisions of the Missouri Act properly before us conflict with the
Constitution." In particular, the Court found that the ability to have an nontherapeutic
abortion was not an affirmative right of the sort that required the state to pay for it. [100] In
this case, the Court upheld several abortion restrictions, and modified the Roe trimester
framework.[100]
In concurring opinions, O'Connor refused to reconsider Roe, and Justice Antonin Scalia
criticized the Court and O'Connor for not overruling Roe.[100] Blackmun—author of
the Roe decision—stated in his dissent that White, Kennedy and Rehnquist were
"callous" and "deceptive," that they deserved to be charged with "cowardice and
illegitimacy," and that their plurality opinion "foments disregard for the law."[100] White had
recently opined that the majority reasoning in Roe v. Wade was "warped."[166]
Planned Parenthood v. Casey

1991–1992 Rehnquist Court

During initial deliberations for Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), an initial majority of
five justices (Rehnquist, White, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas) were willing to effectively
overturn Roe. Kennedy changed his mind after the initial conference, [172] and O'Connor,
Kennedy, and Souter joined Blackmun and Stevens to reaffirm the central holding
of Roe,[173] but instead of justifying the liberty to abort as being based on privacy as
in Roe, it justified the liberty in a broader manner. The opinion asserted an individual's
liberty to choose concerning family life and also protection from legal enforcement
intended to maintain traditional sex roles, writing, [174] "Our law affords constitutional
protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family
relationships, child rearing, and education. ... Beliefs about these matters could not
define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the
State."[175] and against the state insisting "upon its own vision of the woman’s role,
however dominant that vision has been in the course of our history and our culture. The
destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her
spiritual imperatives and her place in society." [176]
A plurality of justices found that a fetus was now viable at 23 or 24 weeks rather than at
the 28 week line from 1973.[177] They also felt that fetus viability was "more workable"
than the trimester framework.[178] They abandoned the trimester framework due to two
basic flaws: "in its formulation it misconceives the nature of the pregnant woman's
interest; and in practice it undervalues the State's interest in potential life, as recognized
in Roe."[179] Only Justice Blackmun wanted to retain Roe entirely and issue a decision
completely in favor of Planned Parenthood.[142]
Scalia's dissent acknowledged that abortion rights are of "great importance to many
women", but asserted that it is not a liberty protected by the Constitution for the same
reason bigamy was not protected either: because the Constitution does not mention it,
and because longstanding traditions have permitted it to be legally proscribed.[180] Scalia
concluded that "by foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue
arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even
the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the
imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court
merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish." [181]
Stenberg v. Carhart

The Rehnquist Court in 1998; the nine members pictured are the ones who decided Stenberg v. Carhart.

During the 1990s, the State of Nebraska attempted to ban a certain second-trimester

abortion procedure known as intact dilation and extraction (sometimes called partial
birth abortion). The Nebraska ban allowed other second-trimester abortion procedures
called dilation and evacuation abortions. Ginsburg (who replaced White) stated, "this
law does not save any fetus from destruction, for it targets only 'a method of performing
abortion'."[182] The Supreme Court struck down the Nebraska ban by a 5–4 vote
in Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), citing a right to use the safest method of second trimester
abortion.
Kennedy, who had co-authored the 5–4 Casey decision upholding Roe, was among the
dissenters in Stenberg, writing that Nebraska had done nothing unconstitutional. [182] In his
dissent, Kennedy described in graphic detail exactly how a fetus dies while
being dismembered during a second trimester abortion procedure.[182] He reasoned that
since Nebraska was not seeking to prohibit this particular procedure, termed dilation
and evacuation, the state was free to ban the other procedure, which was sometimes
called "partial birth abortion."
The remaining three dissenters in Stenberg—Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas—
disagreed again with Roe: "Although a State may permit abortion, nothing in the
Constitution dictates that a State must do so." [183]
Gonzales v. Carhart
In 2003, Congress passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act,[184] which led to a lawsuit in
the case of Gonzales v. Carhart.[185] The Court had previously ruled in Stenberg v.
Carhart that a state's ban on "partial birth abortion" was unconstitutional because such a
ban did not have an exception for the health of the woman. [186] The membership of the
Court changed after Stenberg, with John Roberts and Samuel Alito replacing Rehnquist
and O'Connor, respectively.[187][188] The ban at issue in Gonzales v. Carhart was a federal
statute, rather than a state statute as in the Stenberg case, but was otherwise nearly
identical to Stenberg, replicating its vague description of partial-birth abortion and
making no exception for the consideration of the woman's health. [186]
On April 18, 2007, the Supreme Court handed down a 5 to 4 decision upholding the
constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. [188] Kennedy wrote the majority
opinion, asserting that Congress was within its power to generally ban the procedure,
although the Court left the door open for as-applied challenges.[189] Kennedy's opinion did
not reach the question of whether the Court's prior decisions in Roe v. Wade, Planned
Parenthood v. Casey, and Stenberg v. Carhart remained valid, and instead the Court
stated that the challenged statute remained consistent with those past decisions
whether or not those decisions remained valid.[citation needed]
Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito joined the
majority. Justices Ginsburg, joined by Stevens, Souter, and Breyer, dissented, [188]
[187]
 contending that the ruling ignored Supreme Court abortion precedent, and also
offering an equality-based justification for abortion precedent. Thomas filed a concurring
opinion, joined by Scalia, contending that the Court's prior decisions in Roe v.
Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey should be reversed.[190] They also noted that
the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act may have exceeded the powers of Congress under
the Commerce Clause but that the question was not raised.[191]
Dubay v. Wells
Judge David Lawson

Dubay v. Wells was a 2006 paternity case where a man argued he should not have to
pay child support for a child he did not want to parent. The case was billed as "Roe v.
Wade for men".[192]
On March 9, 2006, Dubay filed a lawsuit before the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Michigan. Michigan's Attorney General, Joel D. McGormley, made
a motion to have the case dismissed. On July 17, 2006, District Court Judge David
Lawson agreed and dismissed Dubay's lawsuit.[193] He appealed it once, to the United
States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which also dismissed it, and stated:
Dubay's claim that a man's right to disclaim fatherhood would be analogous to a
woman's right to abortion rests upon a false analogy. In the case of a father seeking to
opt out of fatherhood and thereby avoid child support obligations, the child is already in
existence and the state therefore has an important interest in providing for his or her
support.[194]

Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt

The Roberts Court in 2010; eight of the nine members pictured are the ones who decided Whole Woman's
Health v. Hellerstedt. Justice Scalia (front row, second left) died before the decision.

In the case of Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the most significant abortion rights

case before the Supreme Court since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992,[195][196][197] the
Supreme Court in a 5–3 decision on June 27, 2016, swept away forms of state
restrictions on the way abortion clinics can function. In 2013, the Texas legislature
enacted restrictions on the performance of abortions services that created an undue
burden for women seeking an abortion by requiring abortion doctors to have difficult-to-
obtain admitting privileges at a local hospital and by requiring clinics to have costly
hospital-grade facilities. The Court struck down these two provisions from the law at
issue in a facial manner—that is, the very words of the provisions were invalid, no
matter how they might be applied in any practical situation. The ruling also stated that
the task of judging whether a law puts an unconstitutional burden on a woman's right to
abortion belongs with the courts and not the legislatures. [198]
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
Main article: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is a pending case that the Supreme
Court is expected to decide in 2022. It is a legal challenge to Mississippi's
2018 Gestational Age Act, which had banned abortions after 15 weeks with sole
exceptions for medical emergencies or fetal abnormality. Federal courts
had enjoined the state from enforcing the law after the state's only abortion
clinic, Jackson Women's Health Organization, filed suit immediately after passage; the
federal courts identified the law violated the 24-week point of viability established
by Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court certified the petition in May 2021, limited to the
question of "Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are
unconstitutional", which raised the question of whether the Court will use the case to
overturn all or part of Roe v. Wade.[199][200] The oral argument was held December 1, 2021.
[201]
 During the oral argument, Justice Alito asked,[202]
"What was the — the principal source that the Court relied on in Roe for its historical
analysis? Who was the author of that — of that article?"
Julie Rikelman, the senior director of litigation at the Center for Reproductive Rights,
responded:[202]
I apologize, Your Honor, I don't remember the author. I know that the Court spent many
pages of the opinion doing a historical analysis. There's also a brief on behalf of several
key American historian associations that go through that history in detail because
there's even more information now that supports Roe's legal conclusions.

Role in politics
Presidential positions
Leading up to Roe
President Theodore Roosevelt held that abortion was "pre-natal infanticide" and the
advocacy of abortion was "quite as immoral as to advocate theft or prostitution, and is
even more hurtful".[203]
President Warren G. Harding tried to persuade Nan Britton into aborting their
daughter Elizabeth. Britton recounted:[204]
He wrote that if he had to choose between medicine and an operation he personally
would prefer "the knife". Just reading that word "knife" seemed almost to stab me every
way, and served to strengthen my determination not to consider such a course.
Harding immediately responded "that it was all right with him, he was sorry he had
complained" and acknowledged to her that it was "the greatest experience a woman
ever has". Britton wrote that she "welcomed the experience of childbirth with all my
heart".[204]
Eleanor Roosevelt visited Puerto Rico and wrote that "The population is increasing rapidly".
About needleworkers she wrote that: "A few of them who work in the factories [left] earn fair wages, but for
sewing done in the home [right] they are paid absurdly low wages." [205] The purpose of the operations was to
improve workforce retention, including during the Operation Bootstrap era.[206] Later, USAID grants funded
sterilizations performed at worksites.[207]

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed Justice Douglas,[208] who voted for the

majority in Roe v. Wade.[1] President Roosevelt wanted to lower the birthrate in Puerto
Rico, but population control had been controversial on the island. [209] His advisor, Charles
William Taussig, recounted him discussing his intentions for the island: [210]
I guess the only solution is to use the methods which Hitler used effectively ... It is all
very simple and painless – you have people pass through a narrow passage and then
there is the brrrrr of an electrical apparatus. They are there for twenty seconds and from
then on they are sterile.
He appointed Blanton Winship as territorial governor, who carried out this intention by
enacting Law 116 on May 13, 1937,[211] which established a policy of compulsory
sterilization of Puerto Ricans. Abortion was made effectively legal in 1937 by changes to
the Penal Code. The changes permitted abortion under a broad understanding of what
constitutes health of the mother in order to give doctors wide discretion. [212] The territorial
legislature repealed Law 116 on June 8, 1960. [211] Sterilizations continued under federal
funding to programs operated by the Puerto Rican government and the International
Planned Parenthood Federation.[213] By 1976, over 37% of Puerto Rican women were
sterilized, with the vast majority operated on prior to reaching the age of 30. [214]
During the Truman administration, special consultant to the Secretary of State Stanley
Andrews advocated for population control to be included in President Truman's Point
Four Program, but he was opposed by the Catholic Church.[215] Supreme Commander for
the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur issued an industrialization and urbanization
directive on the basis of "the knowledge that an uncontrolled increase in population in
Japan would have a serious effect on the economic situation and would mitigate against
the accomplishment of the long-range objective of the Occupation to establish a
peaceful, democratic, stable Japan".[216] He later wrote a natural resources report which
included a recommendation that Japan's population be controlled. This was opposed by
Catholic organizations in Tokyo. His report was recalled and he removed the offending
portion of the report.[217][215] Later during Truman's presidency, the occupation-era
Japanese government legalized abortion for broad reasons including the health and
economic well-being of the mother under the Eugenic Protection Law.[217] Most abortions
were done on economic grounds.[218] Abortion was the main method of birth control and
the birth rate fell rapidly.[217] In 1950, Brigader General Crowford Sams stated that "As an
occupying power, it would be a very unwise thing for anybody in the Occupation to
attempt to dictate to the Japanese that they have to limit their families." He thought that
this "would lead to a Communist, or any other charge, that the occupying powers are
trying to strangle the population of Japan." [219]
President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed justices Brennan and Stewart, who voted
with the majority.[208][1]
The Draper Committee, a presidential commission led by General William Henry Draper
Jr., recommended to Eisenhower that the existing military-assistance program be used
to fund population control programs in developing countries, and that the federal
government should expand its funding of human reproduction research. After
the National Catholic Welfare Conference[220] opposed this, President Eisenhower
became concerned that Senator John F. Kennedy, as a Catholic, might also attack it.
President Eisenhower thought it would be bad for the American people to split on a
religious issue in a national political campaign, [221] so he publicly stated that population
problems in other countries were not the responsibility of the U.S. government, and
declined to implement Draper's plan. [222] In his Farewell Address, he warned about the
danger which the scientific-technological elite posed to the future of American
democracy. This warning has been interpreted to include moralistic elites seeking to use
the government to curtail reproduction.[223] After his presidency, Draper continued to
correspond with Eisenhower, who agreed to become an honorary chairman of the
Planned Parenthood Federation along with former President Harry S. Truman. He wrote
in a letter about his fear that the "alarming increase in illegitimate children" was due to
mothers trying to increase their welfare benefits, and stated that in the future the
government may need to limit this practice. [222] In his 1965 book Waging Peace, he urged
an "effective and practicable system of population control" for India and publicly
renounced his prior position about keeping the United States from getting involved in
other countries' population problems. [224]
President John F. Kennedy appointed Justice White, who dissented.[208][1] When an
interviewer asked Kennedy about population control in 1960, he replied, "Now, on the
question of limiting population: as you know the Japanese have been doing it very
vigorously, through abortion, which I think would be repugnant to all Americans. ... Most
people consider their families to be their families, and that it is other people's families
that provide the population explosion." [225]
President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Justice Marshall, who voted with the majority. [208]
[1]
 President Johnson advocated and expanded federal involvement in family planning,
[226]
 but was concerned that African Americans and Catholics would backlash if
population control measures were taken too quickly. [227] The ruling for Roe v. Wade was
released in the morning of the same day that President Johnson died. He died of
a heart attack at 3:13 in the afternoon, Pacific Standard Time.[228]

Signing of Senate Bill 2107 to establish the Rockefeller Commission

President Richard Nixon appointed justices Burger, Blackmun, and Powell who voted

with the majority, and Justice Rehnquist who dissented. [208][1]
In the months after Nixon's inauguration, his advisor Daniel Moynihan organized a task
force to draft a message for President Nixon to deliver to Congress about population
control.[229] One task force member, Philander Claxton from the State Department,
complained that foreigners repeatedly tell U.S. birth control advocates that "we have
plenty of land, and our women want as many children as they can bring up." He
explained, "We can't go to Latin America, encouraging them to accept population
controls while we do not do this at home." He saw the need for domestic birth control
primarily although not entirely, for the purpose of convincing people in underdeveloped
countries of "our sincerity" in promoting population control. [230] President Nixon followed
the committee's instructions and asked Congress to pass a list of new initiatives. Two
pieces of congressional legislation were passed. One created the Title X Family
Planning Program, and the other created the Commission on Population Growth and
the American Future led by John D. Rockefeller III.[229] In 1972, the Rockefeller
Commission published a report urging nationwide elective abortion on demand and
other recommendations, although some commission members dissented. [231]
In a private conversation following the Roe decision which was later revealed as part of
the Nixon tapes, Nixon said, "There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know
that. When you have a black and a white. Or a rape."[232][233] On the same tape, Nixon also
said "Abortions encourage permissiveness" and "It breaks the family".[232] President
Nixon did not publicly comment about Roe v. Wade.[234]
Following Roe
Generally, presidential opinions following Roe have been split along major party lines.
The decision was opposed by Presidents Gerald Ford,[235] Ronald Reagan,[236] George W.
Bush,[237] and Donald Trump.[238] President George H.W. Bush also opposed Roe, though
he had supported abortion rights earlier in his career. [239][240]
During his early career, President Jimmy Carter supported legalizing abortion order to
save the life of a woman or in the event of birth defects, or in other extreme
circumstances.[241] As president, he thought abortion was wrong, but stated that he
"accepted my obligation to enforce the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling, and at the
same time attempted in every way possible to minimize the number of
abortions."[242] Roe was also supported by Presidents Bill Clinton[243] and Barack Obama.
[244]
 In 1981, then-Senator Joe Biden voted for a constitutional amendment allowing
states to overturn  Roe v. Wade but in 1982, he voted against it.[245] In a 2007 memoir he
expressed an opinion that although he was "personally opposed to abortion" he didn't
have the "right to impose" his personal opposition onto others. [246]
State laws regarding Roe
Some states have enacted so-called trigger laws that would take effect in the event
that Roe v. Wade is overturned, with the effect of outlawing abortions on the state level.
Those states include Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and
South Dakota.[247] Additionally, many states did not repeal pre-1973 statutes that banned
abortion, and some of those statutes could again be in force if Roe were reversed.[248]
Other states have passed laws to maintain the legality of abortion if Roe v. Wade is
overturned. Those states include California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland,
Nevada, and Washington.[247]
On April 16, 2012, Mississippi House Bill 1390 was signed into law. [249] The law
attempted to make abortion unfeasible without having to overturn Roe v. Wade.
[250]
 Judge Daniel Porter Jordan III of the United States District Court for the Southern
District of Mississippi granted an injunction against the law on July 13, 2012. [251] On April
15, 2013, he issued another injunction which only applied to a part of the law which
required the individual performing the abortions to have hospital admitting privileges.
[252]
 On July 29, 2014, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit upheld the injunction against part of the law, with Judge Emilio M.
Garza dissenting. The ruling especially relied on a case unrelated to Roe which was
decided "nearly fifty years before the right to an abortion was found in the penumbras of
the Constitution".[253] On February 18, 2015, Mississippi asked the Supreme Court to
hear the case, but they declined to hear it on June 28, 2016. [254]
Alabama House Republicans passed a law on April 30, 2019 that will make abortion a
felony if it goes into effect.[255] It offers only two exceptions: serious health risk to the
mother or a lethal fetal anomaly. Alabama governor Kay Ivey signed the bill into law on
May 14, primarily as a symbolic law in hopes of challenging Roe v. Wade in the
Supreme Court.[256][257][258]
In May 2021, Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 8, creating the Texas Heartbeat
Act and banning abortions as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected. [259] This is
typically as early as six weeks into pregnancy and often before women know they are
pregnant. To avoid conflicting with Roe v. Wade, the law established that any Texas
resident who is not a state or local government employee or official can sue abortion
clinics and doctors who are known to be "aiding and abetting" abortion procedures after
six weeks.[260] A clause forbids anyone who impregnated an abortion patient through
rape, sexual assault, or incest to sue concerning the patient. [261] The enactment date was
September 1, 2021, and the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, refused to block
enforcement of the law that day.[260][262] On October 22, 2021, the Court again did not block
the law's enforcement, and agreed to hear arguments for United States v. Texas
(2021) later, on November 1, 2021.[263] They limited the question to a review of standing.
[264][265]
 On December 10, 2021, the Court dismissed existing lawsuit on the basis that
lower courts should not have accepted it.[266] This decision allows lawsuits against the
executive directors of Texas's medical, nursing, and pharmacy licensing boards and
also against the executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services
Commission, but not certain other lawsuits seeking to overturn the law. [267]

Demographic effects and opinion polls

Roe v. Wade caused a 4.5% decline in births in states that had not previously legalized
abortion.[268] According to a 2019 study, if Roe v. Wade is reversed and some states
prohibit abortion on demand, the increases in travel distance are estimated to prevent at
a low estimate of over 90,000 women and at a high estimate of over 140,000 women
from having abortions in the year following the ruling's overturning. [269] If Roe were to be
overturned by a constitutional amendment which would apply to all the states, fertility
could be expected to increase by 11% because then mothers would not travel to states
where abortion is legal.[270]
The effects of legalized abortion on fertility are stronger for white women than for black
women, and stronger for firstborn children than for subsequent children. In contrast,
funding abortions through Medicaid has stronger fertility effects for black women than
for white women, and for subsequent children than for firstborn children. [271]
Although the legalization of abortion in the United States increased the labor supply of
fertile-aged women in the workforce, it decreased the labor supply of older women. This
is thought to be due to the fact they now had less opportunities to financially support
grandchildren. Older women whose labors became less necessary for the family's
financial wellbeing either left or stayed out of the workforce. [272]
The Donohue–Levitt hypothesis about the legalized abortion and crime effect proposed
that legalized abortion was responsible for reductions in the crime rate. If there is a
relationship between abortion and crime, there are several possibilities which could
explain how abortion lowers crime. One possibility is that crime is disproportionally
committed by young males, and legalizing abortion reduced the number of young
males. Another possibility is that children born in the post-legalization era are less likely
to commit crimes. If this is the case, it might be explained in two ways. One way is that
the sort of women who have abortions are not representative of pregnant women as a
whole; rather they are the sort who are most likely to give birth to children who grow up
to be criminals. In this way, abortion serves to shape American family structure.
[273]
 Studies linking demographics to crime have found that children born to American
teenagers, unmarried mothers, and mothers with lower incomes are more likely to
engage in criminal activity as adolescents. [274] Abortion rates are higher for these
demographics. A second possible way to explain it is that women use abortion to
prevent births until they are most able to provide a stable home environment. Factors
involved in stability include the age, education, income, of the mother, her use of drugs
and alcohol, the presence of a father, and wanted as opposed to unwanted
pregnancies.[273]
Polls of Americans' opinions about abortion indicate they are about equally divided.
Organizations including Gallup,[275][276] Pew,[277] and Harris[278][279] conduct abortion or Roe v.
Wade related polls. Regarding the Roe decision as a whole, more Americans support it
than support overturning it.[280] When pollsters describe various regulations
that Roe prevents legislatures from enacting, support for Roe drops.[280][281] Poll results
relating to abortion indicate nuance and frequently do not directly match up with
respondents' self-identified political affiliations. [282]
The Roe effect is a hypothesis explaining why the practice of abortion will eventually
lead to abortion being restricted or outlawed. The hypothesis is that people in favor of
abortion rights will not parent as many children when abortion is legal, and since
children tend to have similar views to their parents eventually voters will not support
abortion rights.[283] In 2021, the ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 58% of those
without children in their house wanted to see Roe v. Wade upheld, compared to 62% of
non-parents. The All In Together poll found that only 36% with children living in their
house opposed the Texas Heartbeat Act, compared to 54.9% without children. [284]

See also
 List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 410
 List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Burger Court
 Roe vs. Wade (film), released in 1989
 Roe v. Wade (film), released in 2020

References
1. ^ Jump up to:            Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
a b c d e f

2. ^ Mears, William; Franken, Bob (January 22, 2003). "30 years after ruling, ambiguity, anxiety
surround abortion debate". CNN. In all, the Roe and Doe rulings impacted laws in 46 states.
3. ^ Greenhouse 2005, p. 72
4. ^ Jump up to:a b Nowak & Rotunda (2012), § 18.29(a)(i).
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6. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i j Nowak & Rotunda (2012), § 18.29(b)(i).
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9. ^ Chemerinsky (2019), § 10.3.3.1, pp. 892–95..

10. ^ Chemerinsky (2019), § 10.3.3.1, pp. 892–93.
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15. ^ Fact-Checking the Abortion Claims in ‘Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health’ Oral
Arguments by Lauretta Brown, National Catholic Register, December 3, 2021
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should prematurely become old women without having gained property, pierced their unborn,
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20. ^ Imposition of a Western Judicial System in the Hawaiian Monarchy by Jane L.
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25. ^ Caught in the Net by Leslie J. Reagan, Slate September 10, 2021
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27. ^ Roe, 410 U.S. at 131–36, 143.
28. ^ Abortion Before & After Roe by Ted Joyce, Ruoding Tan, and Yuxiu Zhang, footnote 4,
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33. ^ Friedman Goldstein, Leslie (1994). Contemporary Cases in Women's Rights. Madison: The
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the Abor ocess in the Abortion Debate by Margaret G. Farrell and Benjamin N.
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49. ^ The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, New York:
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50. ^ Sant, Geoffrey. "8 horrible courtroom jokes and their ensuing legal
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51. ^ Malphurs 2010, p. 48
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78. ^ Quoted in Chemerinsky (2019), § 10.3.3.1, pp. 854–55.
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81. ^ Chemerinsky (2019), § 10.3.3.1, pp. 855.

82. ^ Quoted in Chemerinsky (2019), § 10.3.3.1, p. 855.
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84. ^ Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), justia.com

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108. ^ Alex Locay (2008).  Unveiling the Left. Xulon Press. p. 187.  ISBN  978-1-60266-
869-0. Retrieved August 2, 2013.  To justify their decision the Court made up a new "right",
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correct even if Justice Blackmun's opinion seems to have been taken from the
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114. ^ Cohen, Richard. "Support Choice, Not Roe", Washington Post, (October 19, 2005):
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Wade", 63 North Carolina Law Review 375 (1985): "The political process was moving in the
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Wade was sort of conjured up out of very general phrases and was recorded, even by most
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scholars—as kind of made-up constitutional law." Stuart Taylor Jr, Online News
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125. ^ "Judges have no special competence, qualifications, or mandate to decide between
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McGuire, New York Sun (November 15, 2005): "What I think is that it just doesn't have the
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much from the beginning ... As a constitutional matter, I think Roe was way overreached."
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constitutional opinion writing, Roe is a serious disappointment. You will be hard-pressed to
find a constitutional law professor, even among those who support the idea of constitutional
protection for the right to choose, who will embrace the opinion itself rather than the result. ...
This is not surprising. As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent. The court pulled its
fundamental right to choose more or less from the constitutional ether. It supported that right
via a lengthy, but purposeless, cross-cultural historical review of abortion restrictions and a
tidy but irrelevant refutation of the straw-man argument that a fetus is a constitutional 'person'
entitled to the protection of the 14th Amendment. ... By declaring an inviolable fundamental
right to abortion, Roe short-circuited the democratic deliberation that is the most reliable
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the best thing that could happen to the federal judiciary, the pro-choice movement, and the
moderate majority of the American people.
 See also: Rosen, Jeffrey  (June 2006).  "The Day After Roe". The Atlantic.
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democratically, rather than by constitutional origami." Quoted in Honest pro-choicers admit
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Additional references

 Chemerinsky, Erwin (2019).  Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies  (6th ed.). New York:
Wolters Kluwer.  ISBN  978-1-4548-9574-9.
 Garrow, David J. (1994).  Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v.
Wade. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-02-542755-6.
 Greenhouse, Linda  (2005). Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court
Journey. New York:  Times Books.  ISBN  978-0-8050-7791-9.
 Lee, Evan Tsen (1992).  "Deconstitutionalizing Justiciability: The Example of Mootness". Harvard
Law Review. 105 (3): 603–69. doi:10.2307/1341536. JSTOR 1341536.
 Malphurs, Ryan A. (2010).  ""People Did Sometimes Stick Things in my Underwear": The Function
of Laughter at the U.S. Supreme Court"  (PDF). Communication Law Review.  10  (2): 48–75.
Retrieved August 10, 2013.
  Nowak, John E.; Rotunda, Ronald D. (2012).  Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and
Procedure (5th  ed.). Eagan, Minnesota: West Thomson/Reuters.  OCLC 798148265.
 Schwartz, Bernard (1988).  The Unpublished Opinions of the Burger Court. Oxford University
Press. p.  103. ISBN 978-0-19-505317-3.

Further reading
 Critchlow, Donald T. (1996).  The Politics of Abortion and Birth Control in Historical Perspective.
University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-01570-5.
 Critchlow, Donald T. (1999).  Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal
Government in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press.  ISBN  978-0-19-504657-1.
 Hull, N. E. H. (2004). The Abortion Rights Controversy in America: A Legal Reader. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-2873-1.
 Hull, N. E. H.; Peter Charles Hoffer (2001). Roe v. Wade: The Abortion Rights Controversy in
American History. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.  ISBN  978-0-7006-1143-0.
 Mohr, James C. (1979).  Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800–
1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-502616-0.
 Rubin, Eva R. [ed.] (1994).  The Abortion Controversy: A Documentary History. Westport, CT:
Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-28476-2.
 Staggenborg, Suzanne (1994). The Pro-Choice Movement: Organization and Activism in the
Abortion Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-506596-1.
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