Jane Roe Abortion Case Study

Abortion, the “early ending of a pregnancy” (“Abortion - Topic Overview” 1), was and remains a controversial topic all across the world. Most states, such as Texas, had made abortions illegal. However, Norma L. McCorvey was a Texas resident with an unwanted pregnancy. “At the time, Texas law only allowed for abortion in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother” (“On This Day” 1). With this, McCorvey was forced to give birth to a child she truthfully did not want; she could not afford to travel to a state where abortion was legal. Therefore, McCorvey, using the alias Jane Roe, sued a man named Henry Wade, a Dallas County State Attorney, who enforced the law of abortion.

These illegal abortions were unsafe, and could be fatal to most women, and put their lives at risk. Jane Roe was a twenty-one year old woman that was pregnant, who represented all of the women who wanted abortions but could not get one. Henry Wade was a Texas attorney General who had defended the state’s law. The Supreme Court ruled for Roe and stated that America’s right to privacy included: the right for a woman to choose whether or not to have her child; and the right for a woman and her doctor to make this decision without state involvement within the first trimester of the pregnancy. It made it possible for woman to get safe, legal abortions from well-trained medical practitioners. Consequently, there was a dramatic decrease in pregnancy related deaths.

In 1973, Norma McCovery who is also known as Jane Roe brought a case to the Supreme Court. She and her defense team claimed that the 1859 Texas abortion law violated women’s constitutional right to have an abortion. Before reaching the Supreme Court, this case, which was a class-action suit, was argued in a Dallas Fifth Circuit Court on May 23, 1970. The judges in Dallas ruled that the Texas law violated Roe’s right to privacy which is found in both the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment, so this case was then sent to the U.S. Supreme Court (Brannen and Hanes, 2001).

Norma McCorvey, who was unable to care for her ready born child felt that abortion was the only solution for her unborn child. But with Texas law only allowing abortions as a means of saving the life of a mother, she was denied the right to an abortion. That’s when Texas lawyers, who were trying desperately to bring a “lawsuit of change”, felt that McCorvey’s case was the one they needed. Unfortunately for Norma, Roe v. Wade was not passed in time for her to abort her baby. Her lawyers argued the woman’s right to abortion was protected by the 9th amendment, being that the denying abortion was a violation of the right to privacy. Abortion ties into privacy; the right to privacy ties into the 1st, 4th, 9th and 14th amendments.

The issue before the Supreme Court on the case of Roe v. Wade was on abortion. In august 1969 a single pregnant woman based in Texas wanted to get rid her pregnancy through an abortion. But her doctor denied the request on a reason that it was against the Texas law. Then Jane Roe identified by the media as Norma McCorvey sued her doctor for refusing to abort her baby she sought legal help and filed against henry wade, district attorney for Dallas County, Texas. Jane Roe argued that the law of Texas was unconstitutional. She later on requested an injunction to restrain Henry Wade. Roe’s lawyer claimed Texas abortion law violated her rights under due process clause of the 14th amendment.

Regardless of the opinions surrounding abortion, a majority of people are familiar with the Supreme court cases of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. These two cases have played a tremendous role in regard to the abortion debate. In 1973, the Roe v. Wade case was ruled in favour of Roe and stated the stringent criminalization of abortion in Texas was deemed unconstitutional under the fourteenth amendment. The law violated the right of privacy, which implied the privacy of a woman’s decision to an abortion. Although the courts agreed with Roe, they also recognized the rights to an abortion are not absolute. Limitations to the right was based on the trimesters of pregnancy with the first trimester protecting the woman’s choice and the third trimester being acceptable for states to regulate or even ban abortions outside of therapeutic reasons.

In March of 1970 Jane Roe filed suit against the state of Texas. She declared that the Texas Criminal Abortion Statues were unconstitutional. Jane Roe claimed that the Texas statue was vague and took away her right of personal privacy. These rights were protected by the first, fourth, fifth, ninth and

Jane Roe, a pregnant mother wanting to abort her child sued in the interest of herself, and other women in comparable circumstances during a struggle to stop Texas from criminalizing all abortions except the ones that would save the life of a mother. Texas had made it a crime to receive an abortion except when the doctor advises the mother have an abortion for her own health and safety. Jane Roe wanted a ruling that declared these Texas’ statutes to be unconstitutional and also, she wanted to prevent the District Attorney from enforcing them. Roe alleged that she was pregnant and unmarried. She could not legally obtain an abortion by a licensed doctor because her life was not endangered. So, she argued that the law was unconstitutional and invaded upon her privacy rights that were protected by multiple amendments and laws. Claiming it invaded upon her privacy rights by not allowing her to abort her child.

Wade, the legal reasoning of right to privacy was further reviewed and solidified. The method used in this form of legal reasoning was "reasoning from precedent", as it follows from the standard of the right to privacy set in Griswold. In the case, the Texas statute in question made it a crime to obtain an abortion unless the purpose was to save the life of the mother. A single, unmarried woman Norma McCorvey wished to terminate her pregnancy under with a licensed physician under safe, clinical conditions and was unable to get a "legal" abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened by the pregnancy and she could not afford to travel to another jurisdiction in order to secure a legal abortion under safe conditions (410 U.S. 113, 1973). She filed suit under the alias of Jane Roe that the Texas laws were unconstitutionally vague and that they abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. On the merits, the District Court held that the "fundamental right of single women and married persons to choose whether to have children is protected by the Ninth Amendment" and that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were void on their face because they were both unconstitutionally vague and constituted an overbroad infringement of the plaintiffs' Ninth Amendment rights (314 F. Supp 1217, 1970)." Under Roe, is also its federal companion Doe v. Bolton. In the case, married couple (the Doe's)

In 1973, the Supreme Court made a decision in one of the most controversial cases in history, the case of Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)), in which abortion was legalized and state anti-abortion statues were struck down for being unconstitutional. This essay will provide a brief history and analysis of the issues of this case for both the woman’s rights and the states interest in the matter. Also, this essay will address the basis for the court ruling in Roe’s favor and the effects this decision has had on subsequent cases involving a woman’s right to choose abortion in the United States. The court’s decision created legal precedent for several subsequent abortion restriction cases and has led to the development of legislation to protect women’s health rights. Although the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was a historic victory for women’s rights, it is still an extremely controversial subject today and continues to be challenged by various groups.

Wade as a whole. Norma McCorvey, better known as Jane Roe, sued Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade on the advice of her attorney Sarah Weddington due to her inability to receive an abortion. This case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and court ruled 7-2 in favor of Roe, making abortion in the first trimester legal in all fifty states (with the states able to make their own laws about the second and third trimesters). The Supreme Court felt that a woman’s access to an abortion fell within her right to privacy. They decided that abortion was constitutional by quoting Amendment XIV, Section 1.i, which says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive a person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Yes, this section of the amendment, does involve a citizen’s right to privacy. However, what does abortion have to do with privacy? Abortion takes away the life of a human- the only privacy this involves is that of the unborn child, who is murdered. This has nothing to do with the mother. This section of the amendment also states

The district court held that the Texas abortion laws violated the right to privacy implied under the Ninth Amendment and extended to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s “due process” clause.

The majority opinion of the case, which was ruled in favor of the plaintiff, was delivered by Justice Harry Blackmun. The Court held the opinion that the fundamental right of a married or single woman, to decide whether or not to have children, is spelled under the Ninth Amendment through the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Therefore, the Texas’s criminal abortion statutes were void as they were constituted in a manner that violates the plaintiff’s Ninth Amendment rights and they were unconstitutionally vague. The court also held that an array of Texas statutes criminalizing abortion in most cases violated a woman’s constitutional right to privacy, which it found to be implicit in the liberty guarantee of the due process clause of

Never in the history of the United States, with the exception of the Slave Trade, has a public policy carved such an unmistakable social divide. Never before has a public policy spurned so many questions about social and political standards of American culture. To understand the abortion controversy and ultimately the Supreme Court’s involvement and decision in Roe v. Wade, the roots of abortion must be examined.

The case of Roe vs. Wade was an example of an individual’s rights and privacy against long held doctrines based on religious beliefs. In 1973, a woman by the name of Norma L. McCorvey, using an alias of Jane Roe, was single and living in Texas. She got pregnant and wanted an abortion, but it was illegal. The case eventually made its way to the United States Supreme Court. The Court recognized in a 7 to 2 decision that the Constitutional right to privacy should include a person’s choice to terminate their pregnancy. This case became not known as one of a person’s right to privacy, but rather the case that legalized abortion (Roe v. Wade).