The Case Of Roe V. Wade

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

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.

Before women had rights to decide whether they could keep their baby, some states didn’t allow abortion, therefore requiring women to give birth to their child. In today’s current issues, abortion is still a controversial subject with millions of people supporting it or not supporting it. Every woman has the right to make changes to her own physical body, and those rights should not be taken away, according to the constitution. In the very famous case in 1973, “Roe v. Wade”, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion throughout the first trimester of pregnancy. In the article, “Roe’s Pro-Life Legacy”, it is explained how after this movement, the right to abortion, lives have changed and led to lower abortion rates (Sheilds 2013.)

Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)

The research that I chose to elaborate my topic on is the Roe v. Wade court case which is about abortion. The case history is about a woman who was single and pregnant; she decided to bring a stimulating challenge suit to the constitution of Texas laws. The laws that Texas made were given to prohibit mothers from aborting children because it was a crime. They could not do it without medical advice for the reason that it was to save the life of the unborn child. As I begin to go into detail about the court case. First Dr. Hallford, a medical doctor who faced criminal prosecution for violating the state abortion law. Second, you have the Does. They are a married couple with no children who were against Jane Roe and her decisions. Lastly, you have District Attorney Wade. Roe and Hallford had a portion of controversies and declaratory that was warranted. The court ruled a decision relief that was not warranted and the Does criticism was not justiciable. This is a brief synopsis of what the court case will expand on later on in the research paper. I will be utilizing reviews to test what male and female dispositions were towards fetus removal and how they feel about it. The study will extremely differ and I will be getting a broad gender preference perspective of the subject that I decided to do the review on. It will all tie once again into the Roe v. Wade court case. As you are perusing my examination paper; the researcher made an investigation on Chowan University

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

Before the 1973 ruling of the case of Roe v Wade, the estimated average number of illegal abortions every year ranged from 200,000 to 1.5 million. The methods used were violently dangerous including women ingesting toxic substances such as bleach and detergents which often times was ineffective. Women around the country were concerned that the anti-abortion laws conflicted with a person’s right to privacy and equal protection given by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. Gale University’s William Sullivan explains ”The right to abort unborn children is not specifically protected by the Constitution, and prior to 1973, abortion legislation had been understood to be limited to the power of the states per the Tenth

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.

Norma McCorvey was the name she was born with, but to America and to the world she was Jane Roe, a pseudonym for a woman who made abortion legal is all 50 states. Jane Roe was a young, single woman living in Dallas County, Texas, who wanted her pregnancy terminated. However, the state of Texas could not legally allow her an abortion because it wasn’t a life or death situation; a law that had been in place since 1854. Roe, bringing this to the supreme court, argued that this law prohibiting the termination of her pregnancy was a violation of her privacy rights. In the end, Roe was able to overturn this 200 year old standing law and legalize abortion nationwide - but more importantly, this court case’s controversial nature made an impact in

Before Roe v. Wade, women lived in consistent angst and fear of their own bodies, the consequences that were brought by unwanted pregnancies, and the very dangerous back-alley abortions. Preceding 1973, unwed women who got pregnant were fired from their employments. The younger women were sent to maternity homes for mothers who were unwed, and their children were put up for adoption (Gielow). Pregnant women who were married had no choice but to continue to carry their pregnancies to term, nevermind their situations and circumstances. They were forced to carry the unborn child if even if they had many other children to care for and couldn’t possibly afford caring for another child. The women were forced to continue carrying their pregnancies, even if they had cancer, or the fetuses couldn’t survive outside the mother’s womb (Gielow). Roe v. Wade was a dark time. Women were desperate to find an abortion. The methods that were used were both dangerous, and many times, not effective. Desperate women were driven into the back alley, where they endured danger and abuse, sometimes sexual. The “They jabbed into their uteruses with knitting needles and coat hangers. They 'd try to insert chemicals, drain cleaner, fertilizer, radiator-flush, and miss the cervix, corrode an artery and bleed to death” ("Abortion ProCon.org."). Regardless of the legal status of abortion, its fundamental underlying cause, unintended pregnancy, has been a continuing reality for American

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.

Norma McCorvey was a young woman who had dropped out of high school, divorced from her husband, and was raising her five year old daughter with very little money. She tried to obtain an abortion but was unable to under Texas law in 1969. At the time, Texas did not allow women to have abortions unless the mother’s life was in danger. McCorvey had no choice but to carry the baby full term and give up the baby she wanted to abort. Her lawyer also introduced her to two recent graduates of the University of Texas Law School, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee. The three women decided to challenge the constitutionality of Texas’s law and McCorvey became “Jane Roe” in a test case against Henry Wade, the criminal district attorney for Dallas County, Texas. Wade appealed to the Supreme Court the decision of a three-judge federal district court striking down Texas’s law. Justice Blackmun finally handed down the Court’s opinion on January 23, 1973. The Court’s decision was seven to two, and the majority’s opinion was announced by Justice Blackmun. Chief Justice Burger and Justices Douglas and Stewart concurred; Justices Rehnquist and White dissented.

In the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, a young, unmarried, pregnant woman, given the alias “Jane Roe,” was denied the right to an abortion under Texas law. She argued that this was unconstitutional and violated her right to privacy. Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe’s favor, there were stipulations put into place to protect human life.

The Roe v. Wade case is about a woman named Norma McCorvey a.k.a. Jane Roe, who wanted to get an abortion, but the state of Texas had a law that prohibited women from getting an abortion expect to save the woman’s life. This case was originally argued on December 13, 1971. The first time, Roe’s attorney, Sarah Weddington could not locate the constitutional hook of her argument for Justice Potter Stewart. Sarah’s opponent, Jay Floyd misfired from the start. In the second round, on October 11, 1972, Sarah Weddington sharpened her constitutional argument. That led to Sarah’s opponent, Robert Flowers, to come at her with strong questioning from Justices Potter Stewart and Thurgood Marshall. Finally, the case was decided on January 22, 1973. The Roe v. Wade case became prompted as a national debate that still continues today about issues including whether, and to what intent, abortion should be legal.