"Thus the test Lochner and its progeny purported to apply is that which would theoretically control the same questions today: whether a plausible argument can be made that the legislative action furthers some permissible governmental goal. The trouble, of course, is they misapplied it. Roe, on the other hand, is quite explicit that the right to an abortion is a “fundamental” one, requiring not merely a “rational” defense for its inhibition but rather a “compelling” one. A second difference between Lochner et al. and Roe has to do with the nature of the legislative judgments being second-guessed. In the main, the “refutations” tendered by the Lochner series were of two sorts. The first took the form of declarations that the goals in terms of which the legislatures’ actions were defended were impermissible. Thus, for example, the equalization of unequal bargaining power and the strengthening of the labor movement are simply ends the legislature had no business pursuing, and consequently its actions cannot thereby be justified. The second form of “refutation” took the form not of denying the legitimacy of the goal relied on but rather of denying the plausibility of the legislature’s empirical judgment that its action would promote that goal."
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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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