"In general, three years is hardly time enough for the judicial system to evolve sound analysis for most constitutional issues, and for so emotionally charged an issue as abortion, three years was very little time indeed. The Court could justifiably have let the dispute simmer longer in the lower courts. And technically, the Court could have done so. In Roe, both parties appealed the lower-court decision to the Supreme Court: Jane Roe from the denial of an injunction against enforcement of the statute, and District Attorney Wade from the grant of a declaratory judgment that the statute was unconstitutional. But as the Court acknowledged, its own cases "are to the effect that§ 1253 does not authorize an appeal to this Court from the grant or denial of declaratory relief alone." Thus, only Roe's complaint from the denial of an injunction was properly before the Court on appeal. Nonetheless, the Court held that "those decisions do not foreclose our review of both the injunctive and declaratory aspects of a case of this kind when it is properly here, as this one is, on appeal under § 1253 from specific denial of injunctive relief, and the arguments as to both aspects are necessarily identical." Even if the arguments as to both aspects were strictly speaking identical (which they probably were only if the Court wished them to be), the Court still did not have to decide the constitutional question. It could have stayed the direct appeal on the injunction until the appeal on the declaratory judgment had progressed to the Court through the court of appeals, as technically that appeal should have done. The reason for doing so would have been clear: a decision on the injunction should logically await a decision on constitutionality (the declaratory judgment issue) and a decision on constitutionality should await a fuller consideration by the courts of appeals. Instead, worried that "[i]t would be destructive of time and energy for all concerned were we to rule otherwise," the Court reached out to grab the abortion question and thereby impaired its ability to construct a sound opinion, something much more valuable than time and energy."