Roe V. Wade
In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision in Roe v. Wade that would become arguably the most controversial decision of the twentieth century. Using the concept of privacy and the belief that individuals should be able to make important decisions about their own lives, the Court determined that only a pregnant woman and her medical care provider should be involved in a decision to end a pregnancy within the first three months. States were given the right to limit abortions at any time thereafter. The decision resulted in battle lines being formed, and Pro-Choice and Pro-Life advocates, as they came to be known, engaged in a decades-long struggle to control the reproductive rights of American women.
Before Roe v. Wade, only four states and Washington, D.C., provided easy access to abortion. All other states limited access to some degree. Public opinion on abortion shifted, however, when an epidemic of German measles and the exposure of U.S. women to the European tranquilizer Thalidomide resulted in a large number of babies born with serious birth defects. Because abortion access was limited, only those who could afford to travel to one of these states or to a foreign country were allowed the privilege of ending an unwanted or unhealthy pregnancy. Many pregnant women and health care professionals believed that access to safe abortions should be a right and not a privilege and challenged the right of states to restrict access to abortions by trained medical personnel. Desperate women who could not afford to travel often self-aborted or trusted themselves to back-alley abortionists. Both practices frequently led to later health problems, sterility or even death.
Ten years before the decision in Roe v. Wade the women's movement had gained momentum with the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. The birth of this "second wave" of feminism led to a greater awareness of the rights of women. Gaining control of their reproductive rights became a significant way of allowing women to take an equal place in American society. It was argued that women should not be made to become mothers against their will, and the medical community and many churches went on record as supporting the right to choose.
The chief players in this landmark decision were a poor pregnant woman, two young inexperienced lawyers, and a Supreme Court justice with a background in medical law. Norma McCorvey, the pregnant woman who became known as "Jane Roe," claimed that she had been raped by a carnival worker in Augusta, Georgia. She later recanted her story. When McCorvey returned to her home state of Texas and attempted to obtain an abortion, she was told that it was impossible. She was sent to two young lawyers, Sara Weddington and Linda Coffee, who were looking for a pregnant woman willing to serve as a test case to challenge restrictive abortion laws. By the time the case was heard before the Supreme Court, McCorvey had given birth to a baby that was put up for adoption. Weddington presented her first case when she argued before the Supreme Court for the right of "Jane Roe," representing all pregnant women, to determine when and if they gave birth. Coffee continued to consult but took a lesser role as the case progressed through legal channels. Although she was inexperienced, Weddington was a thorough researcher and a quick learner. When it was suggested that she shift her chief argument from equal protection to the right to privacy, she did so. Harry Blackmun, a conservative Republican member of the Supreme Court, was assigned to write the Court's majority opinion in Roe v. Wade. Blackmun devised the trimester system based on available medical information tracing the development of the fetus. He became a lifelong proponent of a woman's right to control her reproductive life and remained true to his convictions even when the Supreme Court shifted to the right.
From its inception, Roe v. Wade incited strong emotions among both its supporters and detractors. Feminists lauded the control it gave to women, and the religious right began a battle to overturn it that would last for decades. Even though Congress had managed to limit the right of poor women to obtain abortions with its passage of the Hyde Amendment in 1976, the Court stood solidly behind the decision. It was the presidency of Ronald Reagan in 1980 that revived the Pro-Life movement. Throughout the 1980s, political candidates turned their views on abortion into campaign slogans. One's position on this issue became the litmus test for entry onto the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1989,the Court backed away from it position in Roe but did not overturn it. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services gave control over access to abortion to individual states and resulted in a number of restrictive abortion laws, such as those passed in Louisiana and Guam.
Given the mood of the conservative Reagan/Bush Court, scholars, political activists, and the legal community all predicted that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade with the 1992 case Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. Then Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall went so far as to write a dissenting vote that only became public after his death. Contrarily, in that election year the Supreme Court reaffirmed their position in Roe v. Wade but upheld restrictions such as informed consent and mandatory waiting periods. They rejected the requirement that married women had to notify their husbands before obtaining an abortion. Once the right to choose was upheld by the conservative court, the focus shifted to the violent attacks on doctors and clinics that performed abortions. After a 1993 decision that, in effect, protected the attackers, the Supreme Court again shifted position and in 1994 allowed severe punishment and fines to serve as a deterrent to the continued attacks on abortion clinics and providers.
The battle between Pro-Choice and Pro-Life supporters is based on core values for both groups. Pro-choice advocates believe that women have the right to control when and if they become mothers and argue that a fetus is not a person in the letter of the law. Pro-Life proponents, on the other hand, insist that a fetus is a person and that its rights should supersede those of the mother. Even though Roe v. Wade continues to protect the right to choose, there is little likelihood of ending the controversy that surrounds it.
Further Reading:
Craig, Barbara Hinkson, and David M. O'Brien. Abortion and American Politics. Chatham, New Jersey, Chatham House Publishers, 1993.
Faux, Marian. Roe v. Wade: The Untold Story of the Landmark Supreme Court Decision That Made Abortion Legal. New York, New American Library, 1988.
Reagan, Leslie J. When Abortion Was Illegal: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997.
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