"What most strikes me, looking back a quarter of a century, is how effective the Roe decision has proved itself to be in actually practice as public policy. Perhaps I should say how surprisingly effective, since it has been almost constantly assailed from almost every imaginable perspective since the day it was delivered. Yet, the decision remains fundamentally intact and fundamentally functional, despite unprecedented public debate and legal reassessment. In my view, it is not difficult to understand why Roe has stood so well for this past quarter century. The Roe decision eliminated a body of legislation that was generally unenforced, or even worse, as the Court recognized at the time, enforced capriciously or with prejudicial result. Though seldom stressed, the pre-Roe data on abortion-related injury by race and by income were quite shocking. Actual abortion rates in the United States did not rise substantially or quickly on the heels of the Roe decision. The biggest single statistical change resulted from access to safe and affordable abortions for women of limited means and limited social connections. Principally for that reason, the Roe decision also improved te health and safety of American women, something 19th century legislators had been concerned about. Women faced with agonizing decisions about their lives and the lives of their families were granted a range of dignified private and realistic alternatives that had formerly been available only in clandestine or demeaning ways."