United States Case Law

"I am a mother and a sister. In addition, I have had the privilege to teach thousands of students -- young men and women -- over the more than 25 years I have been teaching. Each of these individuals has come of age in a era where his or her private decisions to have sex or remain celibate, to use birth control or not, as well as to resort to a safe and legal abortion if needed or to carry a pregnancy to term, were available options. This right has, for women in particular, given them a power over their destinies that women who came before me did not enjoy. The United States, I have always taught, is a land where rights once hard won, are not to be taken for granted, but to be held precious. No right can be more important nor more fundamental than a woman’s right to control her bodily integrity free from governmental interference. As the Court itself has concluded, to do so could be disastrous."

"People are usually surprised to learn that the Roe v. Wade decision was many hours old before I even heard about it. I came home from work-the first day I had been able to work in years, due to depression-and picked up the evening paper. Connie was taking a shower while I read the newspaper. Some newsbreak in the Watergate scandal had captured most of the ink, but in the lower right-hand corner of the Dallas Times Herald I noticed a news item announcing a Supreme Court decision about abortion. “Could this be me?” I thought. The words announcing the Court’s decision gripped me. It “was” me! I had won! And yet it seemed so strange. I had already delivered my baby and placed her for adoption, so it really wasn’t relevant to me-I couldn’t abort a child who had already been born. In the article, I was referred to only through my pseudonym, Jane Roe, so even though they were talking about me, it felt like they were talking about someone else. But I had won. There was some satisfaction in that, anyway. Of course, you might well be wondering how I could have been so far removed. Why wasn’t I at the Supreme Court when the case was argued on my behalf, for instance?"

"As soon as Sarah Weddington had my name on the affidavit, I had served my purpose. She called me back all right-four months after my child was born. “Sarah,” I said. “I had a baby “four months ago”. Where were you then? I didn’t hear from Sarah again. She had said everything was going to be okay and that she would be there, but she wasn’t. This lack of relationship was not exactly a disappointment to me. Though Sarah had passed herself off as my friend, in reality she used me. When I sat down with her and discussed the possibility of getting an abortion, Sarah knew where I could get one, because she had gotten one herself three years before. When I asked her if the court’s decision would come in time for me to get an abortion, she gave an evasive answer. And she did so with the full understanding that it would come way too late to help me. If Sarah Weddington was so interested in abortion, why didn’t she tell me where she got hers? Because I was of no use to her unless I was pregnant. She needed a pregnant woman who would sign the affidavit. If she told me how and where to get an abortion (or introduced me to people who knew, since, as a lawyer, she might have to cover herself, she wouldn’t have a plaintiff. And without a plaintiff, somebody else might get their case before the Supreme Court first. That’s why Sarah actually tried to talk me out of getting an illegal abortion in Mexico, as she had done."

"Debbie Nathan, a proabortion writer, wrote in the Texas Observer (September 25, 1995): “By not effectively informing [Norma] of [where she could get an abortion], the feminists who put together Roe v. Wade turned McCorvey into Choice’s sacrificial lamb-a necessary one, perhaps, but a sacrifice even so.” I never signed up to become a sacrificial lamb for anyone; I was just a young woman who needed help and who turned to the wrong people. After I gave up my child for adoption, I spent year searching the faces of children I passed on the streets and in supermarkets. “Is that her?” I’d ask myself. “Could that be my child?”"

"A number of years later, I read in the newspaper about an abortion clinic being bombed. “Why would anyone want to do that? I thought. I read the entire article and was surprised when one of the bombers referred to “baby killing” going on inside the clinic. I had never been inside a clinic and could not imagine what the man was talking about, but that night, I had a dream in which I saw little babies lying around with daggers in their hearts. It was a horrific vision and I kept Connie up for hours, trying to figure out what it meant. The next morning, I realized I needed to make some sort of sense out of this abortion business. Was Jane Roe, after all. What, really, had I done?"

"Well, how do they kill a baby inside a mother’s stomach, anyway? I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind. I realize it sounds very naïve, especially for a woman who had already conceived and delivered three children. Though I had seen and experienced more than my fair share of the world, there were some things about which I still didn’t have a clue-and this was one of them. Ironically enough, Jane Roe may have known less about abortion than almost anyone else."

"The first time I met Flip face-to-face was during a book signing for my book I am Roe It was a hot June night in Dallas, and my appearance had been announced via flyers, posters, newspaper notices, and the radio, so it was not hard for the antis to be informed and prepared. Rescue was out in full force. Ironically, it was Ronda Mackey-the woman whose daughter eventually got me to church-who distributed a list of tough questions that people could ask me during the open question-and-answer time. After I became a Christian, I finally saw a copy of one of these sheets: Questions to Ask Norma McCorvey (Don’t let people see you looking at this paper) 1. What happened to the baby that you were trying to abort? 2. Have you had an abortion since Roe v. Wade? Have you used you “right to choose”? Why or why not? 3. Ninety-five percent of women who had an abortion said if they had any other choice, they would have taken it (survey done by Nurturing Network). You were in a difficult situation when you were pregnant during Roe What would you have needed in order to give life to your child, or not want an abortion? 4. The Alan Guttmacher Institute determined that over 90 percent of the women who had an abortion suffered complications (physical and/or emotional). What are you doing to help or counsel women after the abortion-especially those who are hurt from it? There were many questions like this, but the last one may have been the most intriguing: 9. It seems the abortion industry has just been using you from the beginning. They used your sad situation to get abortion legalized, then they didn’t even call you when the case was won in the Supreme Court. They didn’t have anything to do with you until the Webster decision, when it seemed like Roe would be overturned. Have you ever intellectually questioned how the abortion industry operates, or the arguments they use? Have they-the feminists and abortion providers-listened to you and changed anything? I think you can see why Ronda eventually ended up being so successful in reaching out to me!"

"Good morning. My name is Norma McCorvey. I'm sorry to admit that I'm the Jane Roe of Roe v Wade. The affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court didn't happen the way I said it did, pure and simple. I lied! Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffey needed an extreme case to make their client look pitiable. Rape seemed to be the ticket. What made rape even worse? A gang rape! It all started out as a little lie, but my little lie grew and became more horrible with each telling. Not only did I lie, but I was lied to. I did not come to the Supreme Court on behalf of a class of women. I wasn't pursuing any legal remedy for my unwanted pregnancy. I did not go to the Federal Courts for relief. I met Sarah Weddington to find out how I could obtain an abortion. She and Linda Coffey said they didn't know where to get one. Sarah already had an abortion but she lied to me just like I lied to her! She knew where to get one, obviously, but I was of no use to her unless I was pregnant. Sarah and Linda were looking for somebody, anybody, to use to further their own agenda. I was their most willing dupe. Since all these lies succeeded in dismantling every state's protection of the unborn child, I think it's fair to say that the entire abortion industry is based on a lie."

"It was my pseudonym, Jane Roe, which had been used to create the "right" to abortion out of legal thin air. But Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffey never told me that what I was signing would allow women to come up to me 15, 20 years later and say, "Thank you for allowing me to have my five or six abortions. Without you, it wouldn't have been possible.""

"I am dedicated to spending the rest of my life undoing the law that bears my name. It is my sincere prayer that there be no 30th anniversary of Roe v Wade. I would like nothing more than to have this law overturned, either by an act of Congress or a reversal in the Supreme Court."

"Senator ASHCROFT. Now, Ms. McCorvey, you indicated that there were a lot of misrepresentations when you sought to have an abortion back in the 1970’s, and you indicated that you weren’t valuable to those who wanted to use you if you had an abortion. You needed to continue to be pregnant? Ms. MCCORVEY. Yes, I had to stay pregnant."

"Thirty-three years ago, I came before the United States District Court Northern District of Texas Dallas Division as the Plaintiff “Jane Roe”, the young woman whose case legalized abortion in the United States, “Roe v. Wade” At that time, I was an uninformed young woman. Today I am a fifty-five-year old woman who knows the tragedy that arose from my unsuspecting acquiescence in allowing my life to be used to legalize abortion."

"In 1970, I told this Court in the form of an affidavit that I desired to obtain an abortion never really understanding the ramifications."

"My personal experience with this three-decade abortion-experiment has compelled me to come forward, not only or myself and the women I represented then, but for those women whom I now represent. It is my participation in this case that began the tragedy, and it is with great hope that I now seek to end the tragedy I began."

"Previously, the courts, without looking into my true circumstances or taking the time to decide the real impact abortion would have upon women, used me, my life, and my circumstances to justify abortion. Those judges who made the earlier decisions never had the advantage of the real facts to base their decision because the entire basis for Roe v. Wade was built upon false assumptions. Consequently, the decision as rendered in a vacuum totally devoid of findings of facts and solely based upon what abortion advocates wanted women. Because the courts allowed my case to proceed without my testimony, without ever explaining to me the reality of abortion, without being cross-examined on my erroneous perception of abortion, a tragic mistake was made - a mistake that this Court has the opportunity to remedy."

"The years following the Roe v. Wade decision have been very difficult, in a number of respects, but my life was never easy."

"[W]hen I became pregnant with the “Roe” baby, I was really in a predicament. My mother expressed her disapproval and told me how irresponsible I had been. She made it clear that she was not going to take care of another baby."

"Although I knew I was pregnant, I waited for a while before I went to the doctor. While I was waiting to be examined, I questioned the some of ladies in the waiting room about whether they knew where a woman could go to have an abortion. A lady told me where an illegal clinic was located and told me that it would cost $250.00. Following our discussion, I told the doctor that I wanted to have an abortion, but he refused stating that abortion was illegal. He didn’t believe in abortion and gave me the phone number of an adoption attorney."

"When I had saved about two hundred dollars, I took a cross-town bus to the illegal clinic, which turned out to be a dentist’s office that had been closed down the previous week. For some reason, I felt relieved yet angry at the same time. All my emotions were peaking; first, I was angry, then I was happy, and then I’d cry. From the abortion clinics, I took the bus to my dad’s apartment and decided to speak with the adoption attorney. The attorney set up the meeting and referred me to Sarah Weddington, the attorney who represented me in Roe v. Wade."

"Following the adoption attorney’s introduction, Weddington invited me out to dinner. Although Weddington and I were about the same age, our lives were quite different. She was a young attorney, and I was homeless and lived in a park. Unconcerned about politics, I sold flowers and an underground newspaper that described the types and availability of illegal narcotics. At the time, I simply sought to survive. During our initial meeting, I met with Sarah Weddington and her friend, Linda Coffee. Both Weddington and Coffee had recently finished law school, and they wanted to bring a class action suit against the State of Texas to legalize abortion."

"During our meeting, they questioned me, “Norma, don’t you think that abortion should be legal?” Unsure, I responded that I did not know. In fact, I did not know what the term abortion” really meant. Back in 1970, no one discussed abortion. It was taboo, and so too was the subject of abortion. The only thing I knew about the word was in the context of war movies. I had heard the word “abort” when John Wayne was flying his plane and ordered the others to “Abort the mission.” I knew “abort” meant that they were “going back”. “Abortion”, to me, meant “going back” to the condition of not being pregnant. I ever looked the word up in the dictionary until after I had already signed the affidavit. I was very naive. For their part my lawyers lied to me about the nature of abortion. Weddington convinced me, “It’s just a piece of tissue. You just missed your period.” I didn’t know during the “Roe v. Wade case that the life of a human being was terminated."

"That evening, the two female lawyer and I discussed the case over a few pitchers of beer and pizza at a small restaurant in Dallas. Weddington, Coffee, and I were drinking beer and trying to come up with a pseudonym for me. I had heard that whenever women were having illegal abortions, they wouldn’t carry any identification with them. An unidentifiable woman was often referred to as Jane Doe. So we were trying to come up with something that would rhyme with “Doe”. After three of our pitchers of beer, we started with the letter “a” and eventually reached “r” and agreed on “Roe”. Then I asked, “What about Jane for the first name?” Janie used to be my imaginary friend as a child. I told them about her and how she always wanted to do good things for people, and it was decided – I became Jane Roe, by the stroke of a pen."

"These young lawyers told me that they had spoken with two or three other women about being in the case, but they didn’t fit their criteria. Although I did know what “critieria” meant, I asked them if I had what it took to be in their suit. They replied, “Yes. You’re white. You’re young, pregnant, and you want an abortion.” At that time, I didn’t know their full intent. Only that they wanted to make abortion legal, and they thought I’d be a good plaintiff. I came for the food, and they led me to believe that they could help me get an abortion."

"After our meeting, I went to my father’s apartment and began to drink alcohol heavily. I was depressed with my plight in life. I tried to drown my troubles in alcohol. Shortly thereafter I even attempted suicide by slitting my wrists. When my father questioned me about what was troubling me, I responded that I was pregnant again. When he asked me what I was going to do, Iresponded that I was thinking about having an abortion. He inquired, “What is that?” I said, “I don’t know. I haven’t looked it up yet.”"

"Later, Weddington and Coffee presented the affidavit for my signature at Coffee’s office. I told them that I trusted them and that I did not need to read the affidavit before I signed it. I never read the affidavit before signing it and do not, to this very day, now what is written in the affidavit. Both Weddington and Coffee were aware that I did not read the affidavit before I signed it. At no time did they tell me that I had to read it before they accepted my signature. I told them that I trusted them. We called ourselves “the three musketeers.” I know now that is one place I went wrong. I should have sat down and I should have read the affidavit. I may not have understood everything in the affidavit and I would have probably signed it anyways. I trusted the lawyers."

"My lawyers never discussed what an abortion is, other than to make the misrepresentation that “it’s only tissue”. I never understood that the child was already in existence. I never understood that the child was a complete separate human being. I was under the false impression that abortion somehow reversed the process and prevented the child from coming into existence. In the two to three years during the case no one, including my lawyers told me that an abortion is actually terminating the life of an actual human being. The courts ever took any testimony about this, and I heard nothing which shed light on what abortion really was."

"In 1972, Sarah Weddington argued in the courts, presumptuously on my behalf, that women should be allowed to obtain a legal abortion. The courts did not ask whether I knew what I was asking for. The abortion decision that destroyed every state law protecting the rights of women and their unborn babies was based on a fundamental misrepresentation. I had never read the affidavit, and I did not know what an abortion was. Weddington and the other supporters of abortion used me and my circumstance to urge the courts to legalize abortion without any meaningful trial which addressed the humanity of the baby, and what abortion would do to women. At that time, I was a street person. I lived, worked, and panhandled out on the streets. My totally powerless circumstance made it easy for them to use me. My presence was a necessary evil. My real interests were not their concern."

"As the class action plaintiff in the most controversial U.S. Supreme Court case of the twentieth century, I only met with the attorneys twice. Once over pizza and beer, when I was told that my baby was only “tissue” and another time at Coffee’s office to sign the affidavit. I had no other personal contacts. I was never invited into court. I never testified. I was never present before any court on any level, and I wasnever at any hearing on my case. The entire case was an abstraction. The facts about abortion were never heard. Totally excluded from every aspect and every issue of the case, I found out about the decision from the newspaper just like the rest of the country."

"In a way, my exclusion, and the exclusion of real meaningful findings of fact in Roe v. Wade, is symbolic of the way in which the women of the nation and their experiences with abortion have been ignored in a national debate by the abortion industry. The view that is presented is the view of what the abortion industry thinks is good for women. The reality of women’s experiences is never presented."

"I never had an abortion gave the baby up for adoption. It was only later in life that I was confronted with the reality of abortion. Being unskilled and uneducated, with alcohol and drug problems, finding and holding a job was always a problem for me. But with my notoriety from Roe v. Wade, abortion facilities, usually paying a dollar an hour more than minimum wage, were always willing to add “Jane Roe” to their ranks."

"Even scholars who agree in principle with the outcome of Roe have criticized the Court’s blanket approach to creating a federally protected right to abortion. Justice Blackmun’s assumption that “the lack of consensus” about when life begins means that “abortion must be permitted,” rather than left to state legislatures, has been criticized as “arbitrary” and unwarranted. When Roe determined that states could not protect preborn humans as persons, “the Court effectively decided that the Constitution requires their exclusion.” Other commentators have contested the central holding of Roe but do not believe the Constitution justifies a blanket policy prohibiting abortion either. Some in this camp have argued that a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution is the best or only way to respond to Roe’s inadequacies.13 Some have advocated returning abortion policy to the states. The late Justice Antonin Scalia frequently noted his opposition to Roe and his belief that individual states should determine their abortion policy through democratic processes. In either case, if Roe’s critics are correct, constitutional scholars must revisit whether the Fourteenth Amendment protects prenatal life or whether each state may choose to permit abortion."

"In the eighteenth century, Coke’s description “quick with child” (the point at which the child is first able to move, then considered to be the beginning of existence) was equated with “quickening” (the point at which the mother first feels fetal movement). This distinction was intended to protect prenatal life as soon as it could be discerned, not to exclude human life from protection prior to that point. Once again, “quickening was a flexible standard of proof—not a substantive judgment on the value of unborn human life.” The Roe Court made much of the quickening rule in its rush to dismiss the personhood of the preborn, but failed to see that the rule was merely a tool of criminal law, not a statement about the value of life prior to perceptible movement in the womb. The “quickening” distinction survived in common law until emergent medical science discovered “that human life began at fertilization,” allowing medical examiners to prove prenatal life and cause of death due to abortion with greater certainty. After this discovery in the early nineteenth century, British courts instructed jurors that “quick with child,” which had earlier meant “formed and animated,” now meant “from the moment of conception.” When determining whether to grant temporary reprieve from execution for a pregnant woman, for example, the court in Regina v. Wycherley81 reinterpreted common law to reflect that new scientific fact in 1838."

"How did the Roe Court avoid the strong historical basis for considering prenatal life “persons” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment? Besides relying on the inaccurate Means brief, Justice Blackmun examined: (1) narrow exceptions to the common law rule against abortion, such as to save the life of the mother; (2) varying degrees of punishment for the crime of abortion, including occasional immunity for women who procured abortions; and (3) the supposed lack of contemporary consensus about the status of preborn humans, to determine that human beings in utero were never “recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.” These arguments against constitutional personhood for the preborn have been repeated by advocates of a state-by-state approach to abortion."

"The Roe Court supposed that narrow exceptions in state abortion statutes for the life of the mother indicated that prenatal human beings were considered nonpersons. But these exceptions were not based “on a legislative preference for the life of the mother over the life of the child, but on the general defense of ‘legal necessity,’” which is connected to self-defense. Only the impending death of the mother was considered a grave enough reason to consider abortion. The acknowledgement of these rare circumstances “does not demonstrate a lack of legislative recognition of the personhood of the unborn child.” Even if Justice Blackmun were correct that Texas’s exception for the life of the mother violated equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, it would not indicate that prenatal life is excluded from the Amendment’s protections. It would only show that Texas inconsistently applied the protections of the Amendment."

"The Roe Court pointed to the varying severity of charges and punishments among state laws proscribing abortion prior to and after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment as evidence that states did not believe in preborn personhood. In some jurisdictions, the maximum sentence for abortion was less severe than for murder. The Court believed this suggested that the law did not include fetuses as persons during this period. But the principle permitting legislatures to determine how to classify and punish different types of unlawful killing is one of historical provenance. It says nothing about the personhood status of the victim. In his Lectures on Law, the early American legal scholar and founding father James Wilson recognized that policy-driven ranges of punishment for crimes of killing were permissible.144 He wrote that “grades of solicitude, discovered, by the law, on the subject of life” exist, and he acknowledged that the law may consider “different degrees of aggression” against life. How these various “degrees may be justified, excused, alleviated, aggravated, redressed, or punished,” he said, “will appear both in the criminal and in the civil code of our municipal law.”"

"Justice Blackmun thought it significant that some states in the mid-nineteenth century did not prosecute women who procured abortion, and found this policy incompatible with prenatal life being included within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment. As already mentioned, however, this immunity likely stemmed from the notion that women were victims of abortion rather than perpetrators. On a practical level, the most likely witness against a criminal abortionist was a woman upon whom an abortion had been performed. Therefore, the legislature may have granted immunity to women in the interest of convicting criminal abortionists. Lending credence to this position is that nearly all states that did impose criminal penalties on abortive women offered immunity to those women who testified against an accused abortion provider. Despite all these considerations, at least seventeen states imposed criminal sanctions upon women who underwent surgical or chemical abortion."

"Pointing to a lack of contemporary consensus about pre- born personhood, the Roe Court asserted that they “need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins,” thereby failing to resolve the crucial question at the crux of the case. Much like the hunter who shoots into a quivering bush without identifying his target, the Court decided, in effect, that the human being in utero “is a non-person without stopping to consider whether or not he is a human being.” Admitting its ignorance on this important question, the Court’s only legally sound response would have been to “err on the side of life, and therefore to legally prohibit virtually all abortions.” After all, the Constitution expressly prohibits deprivations of life without due process of law, while notions of a right to privacy or a liberty interest protecting so-called reproductive rights are at best implied and unenumerated. As explained in Part II, originalist methodology establishes that the Fourteenth Amendment protects every biological member of the human family. Thus, authorizing the killing of a living organism “without knowing whether that being is a human being with a full right to life” would constitute willful judicial recklessness, “even if one later discovered that the being was not fully human.”"

"Rather than weighing the interests of the preborn human being, the Court half-heartedly advocated for the interests of viable fetuses capable of “meaningful life outside the mother’s womb.” The arbiter of whether life is meaningful or not goes unnamed, but in practice the Court acts as the final decision-maker. The wisdom of the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment is evident: protecting all human beings through use of the term “person” avoids troubling inquiries about what constitutes a “meaningful life” worth protecting, and who has the authority to answer such existential questions."

"Roe’s legal judgment about the meaning of the term “person” was far from inevitable. A pre-Roe federal district court decision determined that the rationale of Griswold v. Connecticut did not extend to abortion and distinguished between contraception, which prevents the creation of human life, and abortion, which destroys existing human life. Rejecting the privacy argument, the three-judge panel ruled: [T]he legal conclusions in Griswold as to the rights of individuals to determine without governmental interference whether or not to enter into the process of procreation cannot be extended to cover those situations wherein, voluntarily or involuntarily, the preliminaries have ended, and a new life has begun. Once human life has commenced, the constitutional protections found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments impose upon the state the duty of safeguarding it."

"The facts cannot be honestly evaded: either the Roe Court “arbitrarily denied the unborn the constitutional protections due it or . . . the fourteenth amendment is inadequate as a legal device to protect the fundamental rights of all members of the human family, the avowed purpose of the drafters of the fourteenth amendment.”"

"The Roe decision by Justice Blackmun, as well as the dissents by then-Justice Rehnquist and Justice White, with which Justice Scalia agreed, “are constitutionally unsound.” All permit “violation of the fetus’s constitutionally protected right to life without due process of law.” Returning abortion policy to the states would “leave considerable doubt as to the extent to which human life would receive affirmative protection under the laws of the several states.” The extent to which prenatal life would be protected or not would be dictated by “political pressure and popular sentiment,” potentially “constitutionaliz[ing] the mass murder of millions” of human beings in the womb."

"Tragically, Roe v. Wade allowed the judiciary to regulate which classes are worthy of receiving the “protection of fundamental liberties.” Bound only by its own sense of self-restraint, the Court asserted its absolute authority to define “‘person’ narrowly to fit its perceptions of acceptable public policy” and to “control[] the applicability of the due process clause to specific classes.” The Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence demonstrates the need to reexamine the Court’s role as “sole arbiter of the existence of fundamental rights” based on “its own perception of the relative worth of the parties whose rights are asserted.” That institutional introspection seems unlikely. The Supreme Court’s defense of the central holding in Roe indicates its un-willingness to reverse course and enforce equal protection for prenatal life. Likewise, legislative attempts to ban abortion are unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny, unless invalidating such legislation would threaten the Court’s credibility. In the absence of departmental enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees, a new constitutional amendment explicitly protecting prenatal life is likely necessary."

"Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a statement regarding the judge’s ruling. “The district court’s decision to grant the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction of Alabama’s 2019 abortion law as to pre-viability abortions was not unexpected," Marshall said. "As we have stated before, the State’s objective is to advance our case to the U.S. Supreme Court where we intend to submit evidence that supports our argument that Roe and Casey were wrongly decided and that the Constitution does not prohibit states from protecting unborn children from abortion.”"

"Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, who championed the abortion ban in the Alabama legislature, also responded. “Today’s ruling is both expected and welcomed. Our law was designed to overturn Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court level, and today’s ruling is merely the first of many steps on that legal journey. I remain confident that our mission will be successful and appreciate the support of millions of citizens who support our effort to preserve unborn life,” Collins said."

"State Senator Clyde Chambliss (R-Prattville), the Senate sponsor of the bill, called the judge’s preliminary injunction “judicial activism, pure and simple.” “In 2018, the people of Alabama overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to declare Alabama a pro-life state, and the Human Life Protection Act was passed by supermajorities in both chambers of the Alabama Legislature,” Chambliss said. "Roe v. Wade was a terrible decision, built on faulty legal reasoning, that has resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent babies. The State of Alabama through the Attorney General’s Office will mount a vigorous defense of Alabama’s law in court — may this be the first step to restoring the rule of the U.S. Constitution and a culture of life on this matter.”"

"State Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a response to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood on Aug. 5, declaring his intentions to challenge the Supreme Court’s ruling of Roe V. Wade. An attorney representing Alabama’s three abortion clinics said Marshall’s arguments have already been addressed by the Supreme Court’s consistent defense of allowing people to make personal decisions, including the right to have an abortion. “Alabamians must not be forced to relitigate their settled constitutional rights every time the State of Alabama knowingly and deliberately enacts an unconstitutional abortion law,” Alexa Kolbi-Molina, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation lawyer stated in a court document filed in August. Alabama is one of at least six other states attempting to challenge the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe V. Wade, including Ohio, Georgia, Iowa, North Dakota, Kentucky and Mississippi."

"Held: 1. Doe's case presents a live, justiciable controversy and she has standing to sue, Roe v. Wade, ante p. 410 U. S. 113, as do the physician appellants (who, unlike the physician in Wade, were not charged with abortion violations), and it is therefore unnecessary to resolve the issue of the other appellants' standing. Pp. 410 U. S. 187-189. 2. A woman's constitutional right to an abortion is not absolute. Roe v. Wade, supra. P. 410 U. S. 189."

"In this appeal, the criminal abortion statutes recently enacted in Georgia are challenged on constitutional grounds. The statutes are §§ 26-1201 through 26-1203 of the State's Criminal Code, formulated by Georgia Laws, 1968 Session, pp. 1249, 1277-1280. In Roe v. Wade, ante p. 410 U. S. 113, we today have struck down, as constitutionally defective, the Texas criminal abortion statutes that are representative of provisions long in effect in a majority of our States. The Georgia legislation, however, is different and merits separate consideration."

"Our decision in Roe v. Wade, ante p. 410 U. S. 113, establishes (1) that, despite her pseudonym, we may accept as true, for this case, Mary Doe's existence and her pregnant state on April 16, 1970; (2) that the constitutional issue is substantial; (3) that the interim termination of Doe's and all other Georgia pregnancies in existence in 1970 has not rendered the case moot; and (4) that Doe presents a justiciable controversy, and has standing to maintain the action."

"Three cases in the sensitive and earnestly contested abortion area provide essential background for the present controversy. In Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), this Court concluded that there is a right of privacy, implicit in the liberty secured by the Fourteenth Amendment, that "is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." Id. at 410 U. S. 153. This right, we said, although fundamental, is not absolute or unqualified, and must be considered against important state interests in the health of the pregnant woman and in the potential life of the fetus. "These interests are separate and distinct. Each grows in substantiality as the woman approaches term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes 'compelling.'" Id. at 410 U. S. 162-163. For both logical and biological reasons, we indicated that the State's interest in the potential life of the fetus reaches the compelling point at the stage of viability. Hence, prior to viability, the State may not seek to further this interest by directly restricting a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. [Footnote 7] But after viability, the State, if it chooses, may regulate or even prohibit abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman. Id. at 410 U. S. 163-164. We did not undertake in Roe to examine the various factors that may enter into the determination of viability. We simply observed that, in the medical and scientific communities, a fetus is considered viable if it is "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid." Id. at 410 U. S. 160. We added that there must be a potentiality of "meaningful life," id. at 410 U. S. 163, not merely momentary survival. And we noted that viability "is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks), but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks." Id. at 410 U. S. 160. We thus left the point flexible for anticipated advancements in medical skill. Roe stressed repeatedly the central role of the physician, both in consulting with the woman about whether or not to have an abortion and in determining how any abortion was to be carried out. We indicated that, up to the points where important state interests provide compelling justifications for intervention, "the abortion decision, in all its aspects, is inherently, and primarily, a medical decision," id. at 410 U. S. 166, and we added that, if this privilege were abused, "the usual remedies, judicial and intra-professional, are available." Ibid. Roe's companion case, Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973), underscored the importance of affording the physician adequate discretion in the exercise of his medical judgment. After the Court there reiterated that "a pregnant woman does not have an absolute constitutional right to an abortion on her demand," id. at 410 U. S. 189, the Court discussed, in a vagueness attack context, the Georgia statute's requirement that a physician's decision to perform an abortion must rest upon "his best clinical judgment." The Court found it critical that that judgment "may be exercised in the light of all factors -- physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age -- relevant to the wellbeing of the patient." Id. at 410 U. S. 192."