Roe V. Wade Essay

The appellant's and appellee's had specific arguments when the second appeal came around. The appellant's argued that the ninth and fourteenth amendments strongly support the right to abortion. The defense questioned Dr. Hallford's role in the case but the prosecution came back with the comment that he was not an original filer of the suit so if he is inappropriate, it should not affect the case. Their third argument stated, "the state could not actually tell when the moment of death actually occurred - during an abortion or beforehand. She (Weddington) concluded that, just as there could be no presumption of life without proof, neither could there be a presumption of death without proof." (Herda, 65) The appellee's argument was not as straight foreword. They argued that

     Until a pregnant single woman, by the fictional name of Jane Roe, challenged the Texas criminal abortion law, the decision whether or not to terminate the pregnancy was left entirely up to the State. Justice Blackmun, along with six other justices, argued that the decision to abort should be available to the woman-but only up to a certain point during the pregnancy. In order to decide when the decision should fall from the woman's hands to the States, the court resolved to divide the pregnancy into three trimesters. During the first trimester, the State is not liable to regulate. The decision to abort is therefore left to the woman and her physician. This is so because until the end of the first trimester, morality in abortions is less than in normal childbirth. For the subsequent trimester, the State may only regulate the abortion procedure and where the procedure is administered. Once into the third trimester, the State can deny the right to abort entirely, but only if the health or life of the mother is implicated. These trimesters allow the state at liberty to place multiplying restrictions on abortion as the gestation lengthens.

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.

In 1973, the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the Roe v. Wade case. The law of abortion is important because it has to do with the decision of choosing to end the life of an unborn child. It allows women to decide whether or not they are prepared to carry a child inside of them over the course of nine months. Over time there has been a lot of debate on whether or not a woman should be allowed to make this decision, and on certain restrictions that should be applied to these cases. In the past decades there have been many court cases and laws that have either supported pro-life groups or challenged them.

Few Supreme Court decisions have stirred up as much controversy, vitriolic debate, and even violence as the one delivered in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Four decades later, it remains a touchstone for the culture wars in the United States and a pivot upon which much of American politics turns. In fact, the authors of “Roe v. Wade: The Abortion Rights Controversy in American History” state that even today, the case (and its companion cases) “remains the most divisive and controversial judicial decision of the twentieth century” (3). Although it is a landmark case in itself, its continuing influence on American law and politics proves that its legacy lives on far beyond its formal resolution in a court of law. Essentially, the most important points are that the cause of the case’s complexity and drama is the legal relationship between men and women that the ruling mirrored and compounded, the way the medical profession was impacted, and the political significance that the issue still holds presently.

The case began in 1970, when Norma McCorvey, also known as Jane Roe, began seeking a legal abortion. Jane Roes attorney, Sarah Weddington, understood her position because she became pregnant when she was attending law school. Weddington was also working three jobs but could barely afford the procedure (Gold & Donovan, 2017, pp. 58-59). Women were afraid to have abortions due to the risks they would have to take like crossing the Mexico–United States border or other health related risks. Countless abortions either resulted in death or painful infections that would lead to more problems. In fact, untrained doctors would attempt to perform these procedures with no anesthetics and unfit equipment. “As late as 1965, illegal abortion accounted for an estimated 17 percent of all officially

     Have you ever wondered how abortion came to be legal? It was decided in the Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade. The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was a major landmark in not only the abortion issue, but also in American government.

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.

In a seven to two decision written by Justice Harry Blackmun, who was chosen because of prior experience as counsel of a nonprofit medical research group and practice called the Mayo Clinic, the Supreme Court ruled that the Texas law violated Roe 's right to privacy (White 32). The Court contended that the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual 's privacy, otherwise known as a “zone of privacy”, against state laws and referenced past cases which ruled contraception, marriage, and even child rearing as activities covered in a "zone of privacy” (Paltrow 17). The Court then proceeded to argue that this zone of privacy was "broad enough to encompass a woman 's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy” (Paltrow 17). This decision was influenced by and addresses the innumerable psychological, physical, and economic stresses a pregnant woman faces.

The irony of this justification is that this amendment guarantees that states will not “deprive any person of life,” yet it is being used to take away the lives of the unborn. The court saw the state’s protection of citizen’s liberty as extending to a women’s right to have an abortion. The usage of the 14th amendment

Roe v. Wade was a decision made by United States Supreme Court regarding abortion in 1973. It was, and still is, one of the most controversial decisions the Supreme Court has ever made. Abortion is defined “the ending of pregnancy by removing a fetus or embryo before it can survive outside the uterus”. The appellant was a single, pregnant woman from Texas who wished to get an abortion. Prior to the court’s decision, abortion was illegal under Texas state law except in cases where the abortion would save the pregnant woman’s life. The appellee was Henry Wade, a lawyer defending the Texas state law. The court ruled on the side of Roe, with a 7-2 decision. The Supreme Court “ruled that the Texas statute violated Jane Roe's constitutional right to privacy”, and argued that the “Constitution's First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments protect an

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.

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