"[J]ustice Blackmun's extensive research at the Mayo Clinic over the summer of 1972 convinced him to rely on the history of medical attitudes toward abortion in drafting Roe. As importantly, the final draft of Roe relied not on the Equal Protection Clause but rather on a privacy right related to interests in procreation, marriage, and contraception already recognized by the Court. Blackmun seemed to believe that the framing of abortion as a medical matter and a privacy right would minimize the controversy that would greet the opinion. In January 1973, in order to achieve this goal, he drafted a proposed announcement of the decision, acknowledging the complexity of the issue while stressing that "abortion is essentially a medical decision." The final draft of Roe more explicitly used Blackmun's framing of the abortion right as a way of avoiding the controversy surrounding abortion in general and the racial politics of abortion in particular[.]"
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Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the
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