On January 22, 1973 –37 years ago– the Supreme Court handed down its historic 7-2 decision in the Roe v Wade case, But the arguments have never stopped.
Coincidentally, President Lyndon B. Johnson died the same day. Here is the New York Times front page reports of both stories, with the text of the Roe v Wade story below.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0122.html#article
Why did “Jane Roe” sue Wade? (Adapted from Don’t Know Much About History)
There are few issues more emotionally, politically, or legally divisive in modern America than the future of abortion rights.
Many Americans thought the question was settled on January 22, 1973. That was the day the Supreme Court decided, by a seven-to-two margin, that it was unconstitutional for states to prohibit voluntary abortions before the third month of pregnancy; the decision also limited prohibitions that states might set during the second three months.
The decision grew out of a Texas case involving a woman who, out of desire to protect her privacy, was called Jane Roe in court papers. “Roe” was Norma McCorvey, a single woman living in Texas who became pregnant. She desired an abortion, but was unable to obtain one legally in her home state of Texas, and so she gave birth to a child she put up for adoption. Nonetheless, she brought suit against Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade in an attempt to overturn the restrictive Texas abortion codes. The case ultimately reached the Supreme Court, which made the decision in the case known as Roe v. Wade.
For sixteen years the Roe precedent influenced a series of rulings that liberalized abortion in America. To many Americans, the right to an abortion was a basic matter of private choice, a decision for the woman to make. But to millions of Americans, Roe was simply government-sanctioned murder.
The mostly conservative foes of legal abortion—who call their movement “pro-life”—gained strength in the 1980s, coalescing behind Ronald Reagan and contributing to his election. And it may ultimately be the conservative legacy of his and the appointments of George Bush and his son George W. Bush to the Supreme Court who determine the future of Roe v. Wade. In the summer of 1989, the Supreme Court decided five to four, in the case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, to give states expanded authority to limit abortion rights. The Court also announced that it would hear a series of cases that would give it the opportunity to completely overturn the Roe decision.
In 1998, McCorvey announced a conversion to Christianity and a complete break with the pro-choice movement. Henry Wade, the Dallas prosecutor she had sued and who also prosecuted Jack Ruby, the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, died in 2001.
From Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s majority decision in Roe v. Wade:
The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however . . . the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. . . . They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage; procreation; contraception; family relationships; and child rearing and education.
The right of privacy . . . is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. . . . We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
