"In the immediate aftermath of Roe, organized opposition to the decision was still carried by the National Right to Life Committee and the Catholic Church. The National Right to Life Committee began mobilizing in support of a constitutional amendment that would overturn Roe and constitutionalize an embryo’s/ fetus’s right to life, thereby requiring all states to recriminalize abortion. By 1975, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops had promulgated a Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities that declared that “the decisions of the United States Supreme Court (January 22, 1973) violate the moral order, and have disrupted the legal process which previously attempted to safeguard the rights of children.” The plan urged “[p]assage of a constitutional amendment providing protection for the unborn child to the maximum degree possible,” and “[p]assage of federal and state laws and adoption of administrative policies that will restrict the practice of abortion as much as possible.” During the years after Roe, opponents were unable to muster broad-based support for overturning the decision and requiring abortion’s recriminalization. Many Americans supported the right recognized in Roe, some quite passionately. Others believed that abortion should be decriminalized but criticized the Court for deciding a question that might have been left to the political process. Those who believed the question should have been left to the legislature did not support a human life amendment constitutionalizing prohibitions on abortion of the kind the right-to-life movement was then advocating. Advocates of a human life amendment could not find the support they needed, even among religious leaders."
Roe v. Wade

January 1, 1970

Quote Details

Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Added on April 10, 2026
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English

Sources

p.258

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade