"The Supreme Court issued its first abortion opinion on January 22, 1973. That opinion, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973) has ushered in a quarter century of criticism by many academic commentators. In so doing, the Supreme Court created a right to abortion (essentially abortion on demand) that was broader than the abortion rights granted by almost any other western nation. It also federalized the abortion issue, an issue that had been left in the custody of the states for nearly two centuries. Though a fragmented Court itself later backtracked on Roe in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992), it did not overrule all of Roe because, as the O’Connor-Kennedy-Souter plurality candidly stated, it was important to respect precedent. Thus we are left with Roe and the new right that it created, even though a majority of the Justices on the Court today acknowledge that Roe should be accepted simply because it is precedent, not because it is grounded in our constitution."