"The decision generated an enormous amount of political activism among supporters and opponents of legal abortion, partly because no one expected that the opinion would be so sweeping. Roe v. Wade made abortion legal literally overnight everywhere in the United States. Stunned antiabortion activists immediately set about organizing a campaign to overturn the decision. Meanwhile, pro-choice activists, who had believed that the decision would end any controversy over abortion, were equally shocked when this did not happen. Countless battles have been fought over Roe v. Wade, and the war still rages. That the war has been fought largely in the political arena can be attributed to the fact that the decision, in addition to legalizing abortion, changed the terms of the debate, also overnight. Before the decision, discussion about abortion centered on its morality. An obviously safe and comfortable battleground for antiabortionists, whose opposition was largely religious. After Roe v. Wade, with abortion legal, it was no longer possible to argue that a woman who underwent an abortion was immoral. The decision had converted abortion from a moral struggle into a legal one."
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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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