UPDATED: MAY 15, 2019 · ORIGINAL: MAR 27, 2018

Roe v. Wade
HISTORY.COM EDITORS

Roe v. Wade was a landmark legal decision

CONTENTS issued on January 22, 1973, in which the U.S.
Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute
1. Abortion Before Roe v. Wade banning abortion, effectively legalizing the
procedure across the United States. The
2. Jane Roe court held that a woman’s right to an
3. Henry Wade abortion was implicit in the right to privacy
protected by the 14th Amendment to the
4. Supreme Court Ruling
Constitution. Prior to Roe v. Wade , abortion
5. Legacy of Roe v. Wade
had been illegal throughout much of the
6. Sources country since the late 19th century.

Roe v. Wade has proved controversial, and

Americans remain divided in their support
for a woman’s right to choose an abortion. Since the 1973 ruling, many states have
imposed restrictions on abortion rights.

Abortion Before Roe v. Wade

Until the late 19th century, abortion was legal in the United States before
“quickening,” the point at which a woman could first feel movements of the fetus,
typically around the fourth month of pregnancy.

Some of the early regulations related to abortion were enacted in the 1820s and
1830s and dealt with the sale of dangerous drugs that women used to induce
abortions. Despite these regulations and the fact that the drugs sometimes proved
fatal to women, they continued to be advertised and sold.

In the late 1850s, the newly established American Medical Association began calling
for the criminalization of abortion, partly in an effort to eliminate doctors’
competitors such as midwives and homeopaths.

Additionally, some nativists, alarmed by the country’s growing population of

immigrants, were anti-abortion because they feared declining birth rates among
white, American-born, Protestant women.

In 1869, the Catholic Church banned abortion at any stage of pregnancy, while in
1873, Congress passed the Comstock law, which made it illegal to distribute
contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs through the U.S. mail. By the 1880s,
abortion was outlawed across most of the country.
During the 1960s, during the women’s rights movement, court cases involving
contraceptives laid the groundwork for Roe v. Wade .

In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law banning the distribution of birth
control to married couples, ruling that the law violated their implied right to privacy
under the U.S. Constitution. And in 1972, the Supreme Court struck down a law
prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried adults.

Meanwhile, in 1970, Hawaii became the first state to legalize abortion, although the
law only applied to the state’s residents. That same year, New York legalized abortion,
with no residency requirement. By the time of Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion was also
legally available in Alaska and Washington.

Jane Roe
In 1969, Norma McCorvey, a Texas woman in her early 20s, sought to terminate an
unwanted pregnancy. McCorvey, who had grown up in difficult, impoverished
circumstances, previously had given birth twice and given up both children for
adoption. At the time of McCorvey’s pregnancy in 1969 abortion was legal in Texas—
but only for the purpose of saving a woman’s life.

While American women with the financial means could obtain abortions by traveling
to other countries where the procedure was safe and legal, or pay a large fee to a U.S.
doctor willing to secretly perform an abortion, those options were out of reach to
McCorvey and many other women.

As a result, some women resorted to illegal, dangerous, “back-alley” abortions or self-

induced abortions. In the 1950s and 1960s, the estimated number of illegal abortions
in the United States ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year, according to the
Guttmacher Institute.

After trying unsuccessfully to get an illegal abortion, McCorvey was referred to Texas
attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, who were interested in challenging
anti-abortion laws.

In court documents, McCorvey became known as “Jane Roe.”

Henry Wade
In 1970, the attorneys filed a lawsuit on behalf of McCorvey and all the other women
“who were or might become pregnant and want to consider all options,” against
Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, where McCorvey lived.

Earlier, in 1964, Wade was in the national spotlight when he prosecuted Jack Ruby,
who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy.

Supreme Court Ruling

In June 1970, a Texas district court ruled that the state’s abortion ban was illegal
because it violated a constitutional right to privacy. Afterward, Wade declared he’d
continue to prosecute doctors who performed abortions.

The case eventually was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, McCovey
gave birth and put the child up for adoption.
On Jan 22, 1973, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, struck down the Texas law
banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure nationwide. In a majority
opinion written by Justice Harry Blackmun, the court declared that a woman’s right to
an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment.

The court divided pregnancy into three trimesters, and declared that the choice to
end a pregnancy in the first trimester was solely up to the woman. In the second
trimester, the government could regulate abortion, although not ban it, in order to
protect the mother’s health.

In the third trimester, the state could prohibit abortion to protect a fetus that could
survive on its own outside the womb, except when a woman’s health was in danger.

Legacy of Roe v. Wade

Norma McCorvey maintained a low profile following the court’s decision, but in the
1980s she was active in the abortion rights movement.

However, in the mid-1990s, after becoming friends with the head of an anti-abortion
group and converting to Catholicism, she turned into a vocal opponent of
the procedure.

Since Roe v. Wade , many states have imposed restrictions that weaken abortion
rights, and Americans remain divided over support for a woman’s right to choose an
abortion.

Sources
Abortion in American History. The Atlantic .
High Court Rules Abortion Legal in First 3 Months. The New York Times .
Norma McCorvey. The Washington Post .
Sarah Weddington. Time .
When Abortion Was a Crime , Leslie J. Reagan. University of California Press.

Citation Information
Article Title
Roe v. Wade

Author
History.com Editors

Website Name
HISTORY

URL
https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/roe-v-wade

Access Date
8 tháng 11, 2019
 Publisher
A&E Television Networks

Last Updated
May 15, 2019

Original Published Date

March 27, 2018

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