Women

"These procedural issues raised many red flags that the Justices ignored. Shouldn’t the lower courts have conducted a trial, with witnesses, and evidence, and cross-examination? Did either Jane Roe or Mary Doe accurately represent women who wanted abortions? Some of these “technical” issues dealt with two requirements of any viable constitutional case: “standing” (who can bring a suit to challenge a law?) and “case and controversy” (is there any real conflict between the parties that can clarify the constitutional issues?). These two requirements-“standing” and “case and controversy”-are important for sound judicial decisions because they enable judges to see the practical consequences of legislation. Georgia’s attorney Beasley brought both of these requirements directly to the Justice’s attention, but the Justices brushed them aside. The aim of Justices Brennan and Douglas-as evidenced by their phone and written exchanges on December 29 and 30, 1971-was to find the best way to get around them."

"With the promulgation of this new standard, the Casey decision effectively abolishes the fundamental right status of a woman's right to choose, and replaces Roe's strict scrutiny .with a "more permissive" standard calling for consideration of state interests, thereby reducing the level of review to something more akin to heightened scrutiny 38 or rational basis review. Additionally, the Casey undue burden standard shifts the burden of proof from the state to the individuals challenging the regulation." Previously, under Roe's strict scrutiny standard, once facial challengers had proven a restriction impacted the abortion right to any degree, the burden shifted to the state to show that the restriction was narrowly drawn to serve a compelling state purpose. Because the abortion right is no longer fundamental under Casey, challengers of abortion laws face a weightier facial showing of unconstitutionality than was required under Roe: they must prove in the first instance that either "the legislature's purpose was to interfere substantially with a woman's abortion choice, or that a challenged regulation would impose a 'substantial obstacle' to the exercise of that choice.""

"From 1998 until this year, the U.S. adult public’s support for Roe v. Wade had been declining. A year ago, The Harris Poll reported that Roe v. Wade was supported "only by a slender 49 percent to 47 percent plurality" – "support and opposition are almost equal". Today, a majority now supports the U.S. Supreme Court decision (56% vs. 40%) and almost seven in ten think that the U.S. Supreme Court decision will remain unchanged. What might explain such a shift in 18 months?"

"In the Wade case, this Court held unconstitutional a Texas statute making it a crime to procure or attempt an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother's life. The constitutional underpinning of Wade was a recognition that the "liberty" protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment includes not only the freedoms explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but also a freedom of personal choice in certain matters of marriage and family life. [Footnote 18] This implicit constitutional liberty, the Court in Wade held, includes the freedom of a woman to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy. But the Court in Wade also recognized that a State has legitimate interests during a pregnancy in both ensuring the health of the mother and protecting potential human life. These state interests, which were found to be "separate and distinct" and to "gro[w] in substantiality as the woman approaches term," id. at 410 U. S. 162-163, pose a conflict with a woman's untrammeled freedom of choice. In resolving this conflict, the Court held that, before the end of the first trimester of pregnancy, neither state interest is sufficiently substantial to justify any intrusion on the woman's freedom of choice. In the second trimester, the state interest in maternal health was found to be sufficiently substantial to justify regulation reasonably related to that concern. And at viability, usually in the third trimester, the state interest in protecting the potential life of the fetus was found to justify a criminal prohibition against abortions, except where necessary for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. Thus, inasmuch as the Texas criminal statute allowed abortions only where necessary to save the life of the mother and without regard to the stage of the pregnancy, the Court held in Wade that the statute violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464, the Court was presented with the question whether the scope of personal constitutional freedom recognized in Roe v. Wade included an entitlement to Medicaid payments for abortions that are not medically necessary. At issue in Maher was a Connecticut welfare regulation under which Medicaid recipients received payments for medical services incident to childbirth, but not for medical services incident to nontherapeutic abortions. The District Court held that the regulation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the unequal subsidization of childbirth and abortion impinged on the "fundamental right to abortion" recognized in Wade and its progeny. It was the view of this Court that "the District Court misconceived the nature and scope of the fundamental right recognized in Roe." 432 U.S. at 432 U. S. 471. The doctrine of Roe v. Wade, the Court held in Maher, "protects the woman from unduly burdensome interference with her freedom to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy," id. at 432 U. S. 473-474, such as the severe criminal sanctions at issue in Roe v. Wade, supra, or the absolute requirement of spousal consent for an abortion challenged in Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52. But the constitutional freedom recognized in Wade and its progeny, the Maher Court explained, did not prevent Connecticut from making "a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion, and . . implement[ing] that judgment by the allocation of public funds." 432 U.S. at 432 U. S. 474. As the Court elaborated:"

"So much of the first Doe argument in December 1971 was spent on procedural issues that Hames, the attorney for the Georgia plaintiffs, made no statement in her first argument about the constitutional basis of her case or of a right to abortion. And no Justice questioned this. There were virtually no questions on the source of any constitutional right to abortion and almost no questions on the historical basis for such a right. Hames left this fundamental issue to her one-minute rebuttal of Beasley, admitting that “we have not designated a constitutional basis for our case.” So Hames gave a one-sentence answer “I would like to say that it is-we contend that the procedural requirement infringe Due Process and Equal Protection, and that the right of privacy, an enunciated in Griswold, of course, is our basic reliance.” That was the extent of the constitutional discussion at the first oral argument in Doe. The procedural problems should have cautioned the Justices that the Texas and Georgia cases prevented the evaluation of fundamental questions and were unstable and inadequate bases on which to make a decision. According to varius reports, “Burger had complained that part of his problem with the abortion cases resulted from the poor quality of the oral argument. On reargument, he suggested, the Court could appoint ‘friends of the court’ (amici curiae) forboth sides, outside counsel who could make better presentations.” Blackmun, too, acknowledged that the cases were poorly argued the first time. White probably shared this view. Instead, the bloc of four Justices-Douglas, Brennan, Marshall, and Stewart-heavily pressured Blackmun in May and June 1972 against a second argument."

"In Wade, the Court recognized that the State has an "important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life." 410 U.S. at 410 U. S. 162. That interest was found to exist throughout a pregnancy, "grow[ing] in substantiality as the woman approaches term." Id. at 410 U. S. 162-163. See also Beal v. Doe, 432 U.S. at 432 U. S. 445-446. Moreover, in Maher, the Court held that Connecticut's decision to fund the costs associated with childbirth but not those associated with nontherapeutic abortions was a rational means of advancing the legitimate state interest in protecting potential life by encouraging childbirth. 432 U.S. at 432 U. S. 478-479. See also Poelker v. Doe, 432 U. S. 519, 432 U. S. 520-521. It follows that the Hyde Amendment, by encouraging childbirth except in the most urgent circumstances, is rationally related to the legitimate governmental objective of protecting potential life. By subsidizing the medical expenses of indigent women who carry their pregnancies to term while not subsidizing the comparable expenses of women who undergo abortions (except those whose lives are threatened), [Footnote 27] Congress has established incentives that make childbirth a more attractive alternative than abortion for persons eligible for Medicaid. These incentives bear a direct relationship to the legitimate congressional interest in protecting potential life. Nor is it irrational that Congress has authorized federal reimbursement for medically necessary services generally, but not for certain medically necessary abortions. [Footnote 28] Abortion is inherently different from other medical procedures, because no other procedure involves the purposeful termination of a potential life."

"I agree entirely with my Brother STEVENS that the State's interest in protecting the potential life of the fetus cannot justify the exclusion of financially and medically needy women from the benefits to which they would otherwise be entitled solely because the treatment that a doctor has concluded is medically necessary involves an abortion. See post at 448 U. S. 351-352. I write separately to express my continuing disagreement [Footnote 2/1] with the Court's mischaracterization of the nature of the fundamental right recognized in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and its misconception of the manner in which that right is infringed by federal and state legislation withdrawing all funding for medically necessary abortions. Roe v. Wade held that the constitutional right to personal privacy encompasses a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. Roe and its progeny [Footnote 2/2] established that the pregnant woman has a right to be free from state interference with her choice to have an abortion -- a right which, at least prior to the end of the first trimester, absolutely prohibits any governmental regulation of that highly personal decision. [Footnote 2/3] The proposition for which these cases stand thus is not that the State is under an affirmative obligation to ensure access to abortions for all who may desire them; it is that the State must refrain from wielding its enormous power and influence in a manner that might burden the pregnant woman's freedom to choose whether to have an abortion. The Hyde Amendment's denial of public funds for medically necessary abortions plainly intrudes upon this constitutionally protected decision, for both by design and in effect, it serves to coerce indigent pregnant women to bear children that they would otherwise elect not to have. [Footnote 2/4]"

"Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), held that, prior to viability of the fetus, the governmental interest in potential life was insufficient to justify overriding the due process right of a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy by abortion. In the last trimester, however, the State's interest in fetal life was deemed sufficiently strong to warrant a ban on abortions, but only if continuing the pregnancy did not threaten the life or health of the mother. In the latter event, the State was required to respect the choice of the mother to terminate the pregnancy and protect her health. Drawing upon Roe v. Wade and the cases that followed it, MR. JUSTICE STEVENS' dissent extrapolates the general proposition that the governmental interest in potential life may in no event be pursued at the expense of the mother's health. It then notes that, under the Hyde Amendment, Medicaid refuses to fund abortions where carrying to term threatens maternal health but finances other medically indicated procedures, including childbirth. The dissent submits that the Hyde Amendment therefore fails the first requirement imposed by the Fifth Amendment and recognized by the Court's opinion today -- that the challenged official action must serve a legitimate governmental goal, ante at 448 U. S. 324. The argument has a certain internal logic, but it is not legally sound. The constitutional right recognized in Roe v. Wade was the right to choose to undergo an abortion without coercive interference by the government. As the Court points out, Roe v. Wade did not purport to adjudicate a right to have abortions funded by the government, but only to be free from unreasonable official interference with private choice. At an appropriate stage in a pregnancy, for example, abortions could be prohibited to implement the governmental interest in potential life, but in no case to the damage of the health of the mother, whose choice to suffer an abortion rather than risk her health the government was forced to respect. Roe v. Wade thus dealt with the circumstances in which the governmental interest in potential life would justify official interference with the abortion choices of pregnant women. There is no such calculus involved here. The Government does not seek to interfere with or to impose any coercive restraint on the choice of any woman to have an abortion. The woman's choice remains unfettered, the Government is not attempting to use its interest in life to justify a coercive restraint, and hence, in disbursing its Medicaid funds, it is free to implement rationally what Roe v. Wade recognized to be its legitimate interest in a potential life by covering the medical costs of childbirth but denying funds for abortions. Neither Roe v. Wade nor any of the cases decided in its wake invalidates this legislative preference. We decided as much in Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464 (1977), when we rejected the claims that refusing funds for nontherapeutic abortions while defraying the medical costs of childbirth, although not an outright prohibition, nevertheless infringed the fundamental right to choose to terminate a pregnancy by abortion and also violated the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. I would not abandon Maher and extend Roe v. Wade to forbid the legislative policy expressed in the Hyde Amendment"

"Let us not underestimate what is at stake: Having an unwanted child can go a long way toward ruining a woman’s life. And at bottom Roe signals the Court’s judgment that this result cannot be justified by any good that anti-abortion legislation accomplishes. This surely is an understandable conclusion—indeed it is one with which I agree—but ordinarily the Court claims no mandate to second-guess legislative balances, at least not when the Constitution has designated neither of the values in conflict as entitled to special protection. But even assuming it would be a good idea for the Court to assume this function, Roe seems a curious place to have begun. Laws prohibiting the use of “soft” drugs or, even more obviously, homosexual acts between consenting adults can stunt “the preferred life styles” of those against whom enforcement is threatened in very serious ways. It is clear such acts harm no one besides the participants, and indeed the case that the participants are harmed is a rather shaky one. Yet such laws survive, on the theory that there exists a societal consensus that the behavior involved is revolting or at any rate immoral. Of course the consensus is not universal but it is sufficient, and this is what is counted crucial, to get the laws passed and keep them on the books. Whether anti-abortion legislation cramps the life style of an unwilling mother more significantly than anti-homosexuality legislation cramps the life style of a homosexual is a close question. But even granting that it does, the other side of the balance looks very different. For there is more than simple societal revulsion to support legislation restricting abortion: Abortion ends (or if it makes a difference, prevents) the life of a human being other than the one making the choice."

"Despite the fact that abortion was legal in some other countries and in a few states, there were no reliable peer-reviewed medical data, and certainly no long-term studies, about it. Nevertheless, Weddington and Hames argued for the elimination of all state abortion laws, relying on unsubstantiated statistics. For example in the second argument in Doe, Hames admitted that “there aren’t any statistics that are very reliable on this,” but then went on to say that “writers in the area estimate several thousand per year in the United States and several thousand deaths have occurred from illegal abortions.” Likewise, Hames claimed in the first Doe argument that “illegal abortion and the complications therefrom is the largest single cause of maternal mortality in the United States. Therefore, abortion statutes have resulted in one of our nation’s largest health problems.” This was a large claim for which there was no basis in the record, though this claim was made in several amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs. No Justice questioned Hames on this or any of her other undocumented sociological claims."

"No doubt, the central conceptual foundation of the decision, namely, the right to privacy, was solidly grounded in constitutional adjudication prior to “Roe”. For a long time the twentieth century Court had been protecting personal rights of a non-economic nature by applying the expansive reading of “liberty” as used by the 14th Amendment. The majority did not fail to mention this line of cases based-explicitly or implicitly-on the privacy rationale. "Meyer v. Nebraska” (1923) is one of the early examples of this trend. Here the Court reversed the conviction of a teacher for teaching German and thus violating a state law prohibiting the teaching of a foreign language to young children, declaring that the “liberty” protected by the 14th Amendment included “freedom from bodily restraint as well as the right to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life,…and, generally, to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” The Court found the Nebraska law “materially” interfered “with the power of parents to control the education of their own [children]” (p.401). Two years later, in “Pierce v. Society of Sisters” (1925), the Court invalidated an Oregon law, requiring all children to attend public schools, because it interfered with the liberty to raise and educate children as their parents and guardians wished. Next came “Skinner v. Oklahoma” (1942), which invalidated the Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act, providing for compulsory sterilization after a third conviction for a felony “involving moral turpitude” but excluding such felonies as embezzlement.” “we are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race,” said Justice Douglas (p. 541). “Skinner” was, indeed, an extraordinary decision because the Court acknowledged the existence of a “basic liberty” not tied to a specific constitutional guarantee (Gunther, p. 503)."

"Thus, despite flowery rhetoric about the State's "substantial" and "profound" interest in "potential human life," and criticism of Roe for undervaluing that interest, the joint opinion permits the State to pursue that interest only so long as it is not too successful. As Justice BLACKMUN recognizes (with evident hope), ante, at ____, the "undue burden" standard may ultimately require the invalidation of each provision upheld today if it can be shown, on a better record, that the State is too effectively "express[ing] a preference for childbirth over abortion," ante, at ____. Reason finds no refuge in this jurisprudence of confusion."

""In Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, the Court held that a woman's right to decide whether to abort a pregnancy is entitled to constitutional protection. That decision . . . is now part of our law. . . ." Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 428 U. S. 101 (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part)."

"Roe v. Wade involved Texas statutes making it a crime to "procure an abortion," except when attempted to save the pregnant woman's life. 410 U.S. at 410 U. S. 117-118. Doe v. Bolton involved the somewhat less onerous Georgia statutes making abortion a crime in most circumstances, the exceptions being abortions to save the pregnant woman from life or permanent health endangerment, cases in which there was a very likely irremediable birth defect in the child, and cases in which the pregnancy was the result of rape. Those exceptions were subject to burdensome prior medical approvals, which were held to be unconstitutional. Subsequent cases have invalidated other burdens on the pregnant woman's free choice to abort. See Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, supra, (consent required of husband or, for an unmarried woman under 18, of a parent); Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U. S. 622 (consent required of either parent or superior court judge for an unmarried woman under 18)."

"In responding to my analysis of this case, MR. JUSTICE WHITE has described the constitutional right recognized in Roe v. Wade as "the right to choose to undergo an abortion without coercive interference by the government" or a right "only to be free from unreasonable official interference with private choice." Ante at 448 U. S. 327, 448 U. S. 328. No such language is found in the Roe opinion itself. Rather, that case squarely held that state interference is unreasonable if it attaches a greater importance to the interest in potential life than to the interest in protecting the mother's health. One could with equal justification describe the right protected by the First Amendment as the right to make speeches without coercive interference by the government and then sustain a government subsidy for all medically needy persons except those who publicly advocate a change of administration."

"In more than four decades since its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, the Supreme Court has weighed I on the abortion issue on numerous occasions. Sometimes it has upheld the availability of abortion granted by Roe more often than not, it has leaned toward restricting that availability. Regardless, the Court has repeatedly upheld Roe’s central premise: that the US Constitution guarantees a right of privacy, and that right of privacy includes a woman’s right to have an abortion during the first thirteen weeks of pregnancy (and even after that it necessary in order to safeguard the woman’s life, health, or well-being). But along the way, the anti-abortion (pro-life) movement has convinced legislators in Congress to enact a host of laws aimed at reducing Roe’s effects. Some of these laws require parental notification (in the case of underage females), spousal consent (in the case of married females), or a waiting period before the abortion procedure may be legally performed. Other laws require that women having second-trimester abortions do so in a hospital, rather than in a non-hospital clinic. They also require that physicians use abortion methods that are least harmful to the fetus; that is, they must use methods that will most likely result in the survival of the fetus after removing it from the mother’s womb. More recent laws and regulations also prevent public funds from tax revenues from being spent on abortion procedures. The legislative flood of new laws over the years has led to a string of Supreme Court challenges and ruling that have served not only to limit the scope of Roe, but also to establish Roe as a legal precedent. In so doing, Roe has become the “norm” against which all abortion law challenges are measured."

"On a February afternoon in 1970, 22-year-old Norma McCorvey, a petite woman wearing jeans, sandals, and a shirt tied at her waist, walked into Columbo’s an Italian restaurant in Dallas, Texas. She scanned the red-and-white checked tables, looking for the two women she had arranged to meet. It did not take long to spot them. As McCorvey later recalled in her 1993 autobiography, I Am Roe: My Life, Roe v. Wade, and Freedom of Choice, the women wore expensive-looking suits that were out of place in the casual restaurant. Linda Coffee was tall, thin, dark, and delicate. Sarah Weddington was shorter, blonde, and slightly plump. They were both a little older than McCorvey, more educated, and more sophisticated."

"The abortion decision, including a companion case and two appendices, consumes 104 pages of the Supreme Court’s official reports. It tells little, however, about the Dallas County woman who took the ficticious name of “Jane Roe” to pursue her legal battle against the Texas anti-abortion law. The state prohibited any woman from ending her pregnancy unless it threatened her life. Jane Roe did not want a baby. She could have traveled to Mexico, Puerto Rico, New York or a few other states for an abortion, but she couldn’t afford to leave home. Rather than have an illegal abortion, she gave birth and put the baby up for adoption. Lawyers eager to challenge the state law took up her cause, and she sued Texas authorities in 1979. She lost in a federal trial court but won in the Supreme Court."

"McCorvey had a ninth-grade education. She had been married and divorced. She drank heavily and did drugs. And, though she was a lesbian, McCorvey was pregnant-the reason for meeting with Coffee and Weddington. Feeling intimidated, McCorbey considered walking away. But she stayed, hoping the pair could-and would-provide what she wanted. McCorvey shook Weddington’s hand and thanked her for coming. McCorvey had little in common ith the attorneys-making small talk was uncomfortable. She was eager to get to the point. After ordering pizza and beer, she asked about what she assumed they had come to help her with. McCorvey wanted to know if either rof the lawyers new where she could get an abortion. When they told her they did not, McCorvey felt angry. Again, she considered leaving. But Weddington, at least, seemed sympathetic to McCorvey’s situation, and McCorvey decided to stay. Weddington asked why she wanted an abortion so badly. McCorvey answered that it was hard to find work when she was pregnant. Her mother was raising her first child, whom she hardly ever saw. She was in no shape to be a mother. Weddington recommended McCorvey not get an abortion. Elective abortions were illegal in Texas, as they were in most other states. Illegal abortions were also dangerous. Every year, women bled to deaths the result of abortions, trying to perform them themselves or suffering at the hands of doctor in illegal abortion clinics. Weddington explained that she, coffee, and a group of other like-minded people were working to overturn the Texas law banning abortion. But they needed a lawsuit to accomplish this and woman to put her name on the lawsuit-a pregnant woman just like McCorvey. McCorvey was interested, but she had difficulty keeping track as Weddigton described the legal steps the lawsuit would take: district, appeals, state, and federal courts. But she was impressed with Weddington’s passion. The two lawyers wanted to hear all about McCorvey. She decided to trust the women and told them her story."

"When McCorvey was seeking an abortion, she claimed her pregnancy resulted from rape. She thought the lie would help her situation. The first time she made the claim was to an adoption lawyer she met before McCluskey. He would not help her obtain an abortion. After assuming the child was mixed race, he would not help with an adoption either. McCorvey told Weddington and Coffee the same lie. McCorvey wrote in “I Am Roe”, “The horrible lie-this was the second time I’d used it-pulled at the insides of my stomach.” Again, lying did not help. According to McCorbey, Weddington responded, “Well Norma, it’s awful that you were raped. But actually, the Texas abortion law doesn’t make any exception for rape. So it doesn’t matter in terms of our lawsuit.”"

"Blackmun told a television interviewer in 1974 that the decision he wrote “will be regarded as one of the worst mistakes in the court’s history or one of its greatest decisions, a turning point.” He never doubted it would be highly controversial. “I still think it’s a correct decision,” he said recently in a rare, for-the record interview with The Associated Press, “We were deciding a constitutional issue, not a moral one.” He added, somewhat ruefully, “We all pickup tags. I’ll carry this one to my grave.” Janet Benshoof, director of the American Civil liberties Uninos Reproductive Freedom Project, said it was the most important decision in Supreme Court history for women. “They no longer are criminals for controlling their own reproduction.” She said. On the other side – the “pro-life” side – Is Nellie Gray. She has organized a Jan 22 march on Washington every year since 1974 to protest the decision. “It’s murder pure and simple.” She said. “Abortion means killing babies.”"

"After discussing the pros and cons off McCorvey as their plaintiff, Coffee and Weddington realized the ideal plaintiff simply did not exist. If she were willing to be the plaintiff in the case, the two young lawyers would represent MccCorvey in a fight to change Texas’s abortion legislation. The three women met again. McCorvey signed the legal paperwork, setting into motion a case that would become one of the most controversial and divisive Supreme Court decisions in modern US history."

"It began with an unmarried woman, known only as “Jane Roe.” who was too poor to leave Texas to end her unwanted pregnancy. So she stayed home and gave birth. Then she challenged the state law that outlawed the abortion she would have preferred. Jane Roe didn’t know it when she went to court, but she was setting off a social earthquake that is still shaking America 10 years later. It was a decade ago that justice Harry A. Blackmun, a quiet, meticulous conservative from Minnesota, used Jane Roe’s appeal to write the Supreme Court’s majority opinion legalizing abortion. He said it was “a no-win case.” and he was right. Since the court’s ruling, by a 7-2 vote, was announce Jan. 22, 1973, American women have had 10 million lawful abortions. In recent years, the rate has been one abortion for every three births. Statistical studied indicate that before 1973, American women underwent 200,000 to 1 million illegal abortions annually. The rancorous legal and moral debate over the issue continue unabated a decade later – in church pulpits, editorial pages, the halls of Congress, even in the White House Oval Office. Letters by the tens of thousands, more than the Supreme Court had gotten on any decision before or since, have descended on the justices. Most of them are critical, and most are addressed to Blackmun."

"Weddington began gathering a group of people to assist her with the case, including Coffee, her law school classmate. Coffee was living in Dallas at the time and working as an attorney in a bankruptcy firm. She had clerked for a federal judge, and Weddington was eager for Coffee’s federal court expertise. In December 1969, Coffee readily agreed to help, and the two attorneys began meeting to discuss strategy. They needed one or more plaintiffs, “who could how a personal, direct, significant impact of the Texas anti-abortion statues,” Weddington remembered. It would become an ongoing worry as they drafted the complaint and lined up their legal points."

"Powell's file discloses that a previously unrevealed private response from Rehnquist was one of the first that Blackmun received. Rehnquist acknowledged that "although I am still in significant disagreement with parts of them, I have to take my hat off to you for marshaling as well as I think could be done the arguments on your side. I think I will probably still file a dissent, although more limited than I had contemplated after the conference discussion.""

"THE CHIEF JUSTICE, joined by Justice WHITE, Justice SCALIA, and Justice THOMAS, concluded that: 1. Although Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147, is not directly implicated by the Pennsylvania statute, which simply regulates and does not prohibit abortion, a reexamination of the "fundamental right" Roe accorded to a woman's decision to abort a fetus, with the concomitant requirement that any state regulation of abortion survive "strict scrutiny," id., at 154-156, 93 S.Ct., at 727-728, is warranted by the confusing and uncertain state of this Court's post-Roe decisional law. A review of post-Roe cases demonstrates both that they have expanded upon Roe in imposing increasingly greater restrictions on the States, see Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747, 783, 106 S.Ct. 2169, 2190, 90 L.Ed.2d 779 (Burger, C.J., dissenting), and that the Court has become increasingly more divided, none of the last three such decisions having commanded a majority opinion, see Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U.S. 502, 110 S.Ct. 2972, 111 L.Ed.2d 405; Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417, 110 S.Ct. 2926, 111 L.Ed.2d 344; Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490, 109 S.Ct. 3040, 106 L.Ed.2d 410. This confusion and uncertainty complicated the task of the Court of Appeals, which concluded that the "undue burden" standard adopted by Justice O'CONNOR in Webster and Hodgson governs the present cases. Pp. ____. 2. The Roe Court reached too far when it analogized the right to abort a fetus to the rights involved in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042; Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010; and Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510, and thereby deemed the right to abortion to be "fundamental." None of these decisions endorsed an all-encompassing "right of privacy," as Roe, supra, 410 U.S., at 152-153, 93 S.Ct., at 726, claimed. Because abortion involves the purposeful termination of potential life, the abortion decision must be recognized as sui generis, different in kind from the rights protected in the earlier cases under the rubric of personal or family privacy and autonomy. And the historical traditions of the American people—as evidenced by the English common law and by the American abortion statutes in existence both at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment's adoption and Roe's issuance—do not support the view that the right to terminate one's pregnancy is "fundamental." Thus, enactments abridging that right need not be subjected to strict scrutiny. Pp. ____."

"On the evening of March 2, 1970, Coffee and Weddington made a few final changes to the documents. The following day, March3, Coffee walked to the federal courthouse in Dallas, paying $30 of her own money to file the two cases. Roe’s case was docketed as ccase number 3-3690-B. By naming as their defendant the highest-ranking official responsible for law enforcement in Dallas Country, Texas-District Attorney Henry Wade-the case took on the title Roe v. Wade."

"On March 19, two Dallas attorneys-Fred Brunter and Roy L. Merrill Jr.-asked to have a third plaintiff added to the Roe case. The attorney’s client, James Hallford, was a doctor who had performed baortions for years and had been indicted under the Texas abortion law for performing an illegal abortion. Bruner and Merril argued that the stat e statute was so vague and difficult to interpret that Hallford could not determine when a woman’s life was in danger. Weddington and Coffee were glad to add the physician’s case to theirs, believing it made Roe stronger. The request was granted. Coffee and Weddington had always imagined their case affecting more than McCorvey, their Jane Roe, including the many women facing unwanted pregnancies. The two young lawyers considered the case a good candidate for a class action."

"Faye Wattleton, president of the “pro-choice Planned Parenthood Federation of America, says foes have tried through “legislative mischief” to undo the 1973 decision. “The cases now before the Supreme Court could define the future shape of the battle.” She said. For its part, the Reagan administration is asking the high court to give “heavy deference” to the efforts of state and local governments to regulate abortioins. That approach, says the ACLU’s Ms Benshoof, “would result in absolute chaos,” with “every judge in the country…ruling on personal views.” Ms. Wattleton said it would mean a return to the pre-1973 era, when “a woman’s right to an abortion depended on where she lived.” Daniel Donehey of the Natinoal Right to Life Committee said such an approach would signal “a welcome retreat from an ethic that devalues human life.” “There are a lot of things going on in the abortion industry today that would curl your hair.” Donehey said. “There’s a great need for increased regulation.” Blackmun anticipated deep disagreement over the issue when he wrote in the 1973 opinion that view on abortion are influenced by “one’s philosophy, experiences, exposures to the raw edges of human existence, religious training and moral standards.” Ten years later, he said. “I think (the observation) had a place in that opinion. I think it still would if written today."

"Sarah Weddington was the Attorney Sarah Weddington, the attorney who argued Roe v. Wade before the U.S. Supreme Court, gave a speech at the Education Ethics Institute in Oklahoma. She explained why she defended the sketchy story and false rape charge of a Texas waitress "Jane Roe" all the way to the Supreme Court: "My behavior may not have been totally ethical. But I did it for what I thought were the right reasons." Tulsa World 5/24/93."

"In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court said it should because of the “detriment” that prohibiting abortion “would impose upon the pregnant woman.” That, however, is a policy decision that courts do not have authority to make. The Supreme Court, therefore, said that the 14th Amendment protects a “right to privacy” that “is broad enough” to include abortion. Since the Court made no attempt to actually interpret the 14th Amendment, though, that did not fool anyone, and no constitutional scholar of any ideological stripe even tries to defend it. But that’s where we have been for the past five decades. Roe v. Wade got the job done, making legislative efforts to protect life before birth all but impossible, a policy more permissive than all but ones in seven other nations. Yet the Court now has before it a case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which it may finally acknowledge that Roe v. Wade is an indefensible distortion of the Constitution and overrule it. That would once again put state and local governments in primary charge of abortion policy."

"The U.S. Senate will next week take up S.1975, the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA). Its backers want everyone to believe that it will simply protect by statute the right to abortion that the Supreme Court defined in its Roe v. Wade decision. They know this is a lie, and the rest of the American people need to know it too."

"There were numerous abortion cases in the courts in 1970, and more followed in 1971 and 1972; the Justices could have selected other cases with a factual record. At the time the Justices chose Roe and Doe, at least seven other abortion cases were pending at the Supreme Court. Remarkably, the Justices chose not one but two abortion cases without any factual record. Why?"

"A few years after Roe, a former law clerk for Judge Edward Lumbard (who wrote the first decision in 1972 striking down the Connecticut abortion law) pointed out that the lower court decisions were not thorough and that the Supreme Court was hasty in hearing Roe and Doe before the issues were fully explored in the lower courts."

"And that again is one of the great problems with this case. We know o no facts, there are no facts in this case, no established facts."

"In the lower court hearings of Roe and Do, however, the parties did not present evidence-there were no trials- and the judges did not look at evidence. The federal court hearings in Roe an Do were conducted without examination of medical or other evidence and without hearing witnesses subjected to cross-examination. Instead, both district courts in Texas and Georgia simply decided that “the facts don’t matter” (in the words of Georgia’s attorney, Dorothy Beasley”), and merely held two-hour long oral arguments, in which much of the time was taken up with procedural and jurisdictional questions. Nor was there any intermediate review by an appeals court in Roe and Doe."

"Three years after Roe, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court noting the impropriety of deciding constitutional questions “in the absence of ‘an adequate and full-bodied record.’” In another case four years after Roe, Justice Blackmun wrote, “The problem is a complex one, about which widely differing views can be held, and, as such, it would be somewhat precipitate to take judicial notice of one view over another on the basis of a record as barren as this.”"

"Justice Blackmun’s tally in his opinion in Roe was six federal decisions to strike state abortion statutes and five to sustain, plus two state court decisions to strike state laws, and three state courts to uphold them. The actual tally was: seven federal court decisions struck down state laws, five federal decisions upheld state laws; five state court decisions struck downs state abortion laws, sixteen state courts upheld state laws. A number of other abortion cases in federal court had been thrown out on procedural grounds. Among the nine courts (seven federal, five state) that held state statutes “unconstitutional,” however, there was little consensus in their explanation for why abortion laws were unconstitutional or in their definition of the scope of the abortion right. About the only common theme among the courts was Griswold: the courts cited each other for the notion that Griswold’sbroad phrasesmeant that abortion laws were unconstitutional. The legal advocates put all their hopes on the Supreme Court’s decision in Griswold."

"If 1967 had been the breakthrough year for legislation, 1970 was the year of the court challenge. Challenges to state laws were filed in many federal courts in 1970. Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton were two of some twenty cases attempting to strike down state abortion laws filed in federal courts in various states between 1969 and 1972."

"The activists who spurred the abortion cases, and the Justices, were personally affected by the cultural currents. Roy Lucas took his girlfriend to Puerto rico for an abortion before 1966. Several years before she argued Roe, Sarah Weddington reportedly went to Mexico for an abortion. Justice Blackmun’s daughter revealed in 2006 that she became pregnant while unmarried in 1966. Justice Powell told journalist Nina Totenberg, in an interview after his retirement, that he had helped a law firm “office boy” avoid prosecution when the man was involved in an illegal abortion that resulted in a woman’s death in Richmond, Virginia. And Justice Marshall apparently was also influenced by personal experiences."

"Professor Joseph Dellapenna, the foremost historian of abortion law in the Western world, has argued that, by 1960, such changes shaped the demand for abortion before the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. These included the impact of the Industrial Revolution on family life and work patterns, the entrance of more women into the workforce, greater sexual experimentation, and the desire to limit pregnanct, along with technology that made abortion-in terms of immediate risks-more effective and safer for the woman."

"Concern about population directly influenced the Justices. On December 27, 1971, two weeks after the first argument in Roe and Doe, a psychiatrist from the Cleveland Clinic, Dr Richard A. Schwartz, wrote a letter to Justice Brennan. Believing that the Court would decide the abortion cases before July 1972, Schwartz enclosed a copy of an article he wrote that was scheduled to be published in the August 1972 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, entitled “The Social effects of Legal Abortion.” The abstract read: The yearly number of unwanted children born in the United States is 800,000 or 20 percent of all births. Forty percent of all births in poor families are unwanted. Because of the limitations of contraception the most feasible way of decreasing the incidence of unwanted births is legalization of abortion. If all unwanted births could be prevented, this would lower the birth-rate in the United States by more than 50 percent, substantially lower the incidence of poverty and lead to a decrease in the number of inadequately reared children potentially destined to become criminals, psychotics, drug addicts, and alcoholics."

"The record that came up to this Court contains the amended petition of Jane Roe, an unsigned alias affidavit, and that is all."

"Some of the same Justices who heard and decided Roe and Doe had emphasized the importance of a factual record in prior “privacy” cases. In Poe v. Ullman in 1961, Justice Brennan supported dismissal of the case, in part, because of the “skimpy record.” During the Supreme Court oral argument in January 1971 in the Vuitch case, involving the District of Columbia abortion law, Samuel Huntington, the attorney for the United States, pointed out that the record contained “no development whatever of any of the facts bearing on the charges contained in the indictment,” and Chief Justice Burger noted that the Court might benefit from “a record of testimony as to what is the present state of medical knowledge.” And in his opinion in the Vuitch case decided the day before the Justices voted to hear Roe, Justice White emphasized that “this case comes to us unilluminated by facts or record.” If this was true in Vuitch-which was a comparatively limited inquiry into whether the District of Columbia’s abortion law was “unconstitutionally vague”-it was even truer in Roe and Doe, which aimed to sweep away the abortion laws of all fifty states. It is not as if the Justices were not warned that there was no factual record. In the first Doe argument, Georgia’s attorney, Dorothy Beasley, made the lack-of-factual-record point no less than five times. Beasley pointed out that there was no record to show how abortions were being done under the new 1968 statute in Georgia. Georgia and thirteen other states had enacted these laws between 1967 and 1970, and the Court did not have any facts about how they operated. How could the Supreme Court decide to legalize abortion on a broader basis, through the first and second trimester, when they did not have even a basic understanding, developed through a trial, of how these “reform” statues had operated in the few months or years since they had been enacted? These problems suggest that the Court should have reached no decision, or sent the case back for trial, or taken other cases with a trial record, or at least reached a narrow decision. Instead, the Justices issues one of the broadest decisions possible."

"Justice Blackmun distributed a second draft opinion on November 21, 1972, which still emphasized the end of the first trimester as the “decisive” limit to the right to an abortion: You will observe that I have concluded that the end of the first trimester is critical. This is arbitrary, but perhaps any other selected point, such as quickening or viability, is equally arbitrary."

"Roe and Doe were reargued, back to back, on Wednesday, October 11, 1972, and the nine Justices met subsequently in conference to vote. Blackmun held to his original position and Powell, for the first time, voiced his support. Until the second argument, Blackmun had considered Doe to be more important than Roe, but when the Justices met to vote, Justice Powell urged that Roe be the lead case, and Blackmun agreed."

"Blackmun adopted the expansion to viability, and in a memo to the Justices of December 15 indicated that he would be revising the draft opinions to shift the decisive point from the end of the first trimester to viability. On December 21, Blackmun circulated his revised third draft in Roe, the first to include the trimester framework and the first to identify the right as extending to viability. At this point, the abortion cases were effectively decided."

"Blackmun had been “resident counsel” of the Mayo Clinic during the 1950s. The day after he was assigned the Roe opinion, he wrote Thomas Keys, the Mayo Clinic librarian, and requested research on the history of abortion. Blackmun spent about two weeks there in July, reportedly doing research on the history of abortion and the Hippocratic oath."

"When the Court issued an order for reargument on June 26, Douglas was listed as the only dissenter to the decision to reargue but published no dissent. Sometime before the Fourth of July holiday, however, Douglas’s draft dissent got into the hands of the Washington Post and the New York Times. On July 4, 1972, the Post published a front-page story on the abortion cases, entitled “move by Burger May Shift Court’s Stand on Abortion,” quoting extensively from Douglas’s draft dissent. The New York Times followed with a similar story the following day."

"Back in Washington, Blackmun’s law clerk had substantially revised the draft abortion opinion. He forecast this in an August 4 memo before he finished his clerkship. And then he explained the changes to Blackmun in a memo of August 11, 1972: I have written in, essentially, a limitation of the right depending on the time during pregnancy when the abortion is proposed to be performed. I have chosen the point of viability for this “turning point” (when state interests become compelling) for several reasons: (a) it seems to be the line of most significance to the medical professional, for various purposes; (b) it has considerable analytic basis in terms of the state interest as I have articulated it. The alternative, quickening, no longer seems to have much analytic or medical significance, only historical significance; (c) a number of state laws which have a “time-cut off” after which abortion must be more strongly justified by life or health interests use 24 weeks, which is about the “earliest time of viability.”"