Personal Narrative: The Beginning Of A Genocide

There is one remarkable legal battle that changed the American abortion laws to what they are now, Roe v. Wade. It took place in 1973 in Texas. Roe, Norma McCorvey, was an anonymous plaintiff against the State. The ruling, abortion is legal. It gives the mother the right of whether or not to terminated her pregnancy. However, that does not give the woman the right to terminate her pregnancy for any reason during all nine months. ?The court said that the woman may have an abortion until fetal viability, the time at which it first becomes realistically possible for a fetus to live outside the woman?s body. At that point the state?s interest

Norma McCorvey who was the plaintiff took on “Jane Roe” as her alias to protect her real identity. The case was originally filed on Roe’s behalf but it was transformed into a class action suit so that McCorvey could represent all pregnant women. The defendant was Henry B. Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas. Roe had two major hurdles to get over:

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).

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.

Roe v. Wade remains one of the most prominent cases regarding abortion in the U.S due to the fact it was so controversial and impacted the lives of many american woman. The case transpired in Texas, a state which outlawed any form of abortion unless a mother's health became endangered. Norma McCorvey, famously known as Jane Roe, became pregnant for a second time with a child she was unable to care for, she seeked a form of legal abortion in Texas with no luck which lead her to two lawyers who could help bring a lawsuit to assist women in obtaining a legal means for abortion. In the case they used the name Jane Roe to protect her identity and were challenging an attorney from Dallas County Texas, Henry Wade. The case came before the supreme court in 1973, in which the court decision ruled 7 to 2 for abortion to be legal due to the 14th amendment as well as the right to

In the year 1970, it was illegal for women in many states to get an abortion. One day, a woman named Jane Roe wished to challenge those laws which kept her from getting what she wanted: an abortion. Her stand against these laws was, is, and will always be controversial among American citizens and people around the world. The historical court case in which this occurred was called Roe v. Wade, and was caused by the events of one woman and many factors of the country in which she called home.

     In 1970, Norma McCorvey, a single and pregnant woman in Texas wanted to get an abortion. The state laws of Texas at that time stated that it was illegal to have an abortion in Texas. Even though the state told her that she could go to one of the four states in which abortion was legal to have the procedure done, she decided that she could not afford to travel to another state to receive the procedure. Norma McCorvey decided that she would sue the state of Texas, claiming that her

Alternatively, McCorvey’s friends encouragingly suggested she lie and say that her pregnancy was the result of her being raped. McCorvey was not able to provide evidence of which would prove her claim of rape to be true so she was not granted the right to abort her fetus. She then was left with a limitation of options, one being an illegal abortion clinic that she soon found out had been shut down by the police, and the other option being an old abandoned building where McCorvey stated "dirty instruments were scattered around the room, and there was dried blood on the floor.” McCorvey believed it was against the constitutional rights of american citizens to restrict the rights of abortion. These restricting laws were believes by many women to trap them into unfavorable alternatives such as self abortion or abortions performed by unlicensed beings with unsanitary surroundings and equipment. Desperate, McCorvey agreed to participate in a lawsuit against Henry Wade in efforts to make a difference for women around the world with the hopes of retaining her anonymity. An article on encyclopedia.com concerning the Roe v Wade case and it’s background states, “McCorvey chose to remain anonymous for several reasons: she feared publicity would hurt her five-year-old daughter, her parents were against abortion, and she had lied about being raped” (p.9) thus Norma McCorvey was known as Jane Roe in the now infamous case of as Roe v.

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

One day i was simply raking leaves in my yard and tired as i was i leaned on a tree. Then i felt something moving i turned around and it was nothing. I continued to lean and felt it again and again, the moving went faster and and always stopped when i turned. I ignored it and then continued until suddenly…i fell into a pit. There was a statue with a pamphlet in the pedestal that opened up saying that every 613 years a child of prophecy will be born and carry on the will of Hades. I was horrified. It said that you have 2 hours to steal souls and drain the life out of every human with a transformation formula on them. I thought what a transformation formula but i had no idea. I looked at the statue and kicked it several times, but then another pamphlet appeared showing

The phrase ‘history repeats itself’ is applicable only to learning from experiences. Mass genocide, world revolt, corruption on a governmental scale. Such things are put away from us now aren’t they? Surely no one does those things anymore, right? Such was the argument of my sheltered mind. After all, to awaken those haunts from the past, would be a regression of the now established world would it not? It would be horrendous, it would be uncivil. Funnily enough, none of these rationales meant anything as I witnessed these monsters of mass genocide, revolt and the like, who I had long thought had been laid to rest, ravage and in a bloodthirsty massacre steal the lives of 34 minors.

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).

The bike sped down the hill at incredible speeds. I needed to get to the meadow as soon as possible. I only had a limited amount of time there and none of it could be wasted. I got to the meadow and hid my bike and helmet in the trees so no one would steal them while I was exploring the meadow. I ran across the knee-high grass and made my way to my favorite spot. It was a small beach a few feet down from the regular part of the meadow and it gently faded into the murky water of the river. I put down my messenger bag and pulled out a plastic bag and a rope. I left my messenger bag in a crack in the rocks that formed a wall behind me. I didn’t want the bag to get in my way while exploring. I took the rope and tied it to the nearest sturdy tree