What is the importance of roe v wade?

Answer 1

• The Supreme Court's decision established that most laws against abortion violate a constitutional right to privacy, and overturned all state laws outlawing or unduly restricting abortion. It is one of the most controversial decisions in US Supreme Court history.
• It returned the right to make medical decisions to the doctor and patient. States could not limit the right to abortion during the first trimester that was to be left to the "medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician."
• Roe vs. Wade clearly ruled that the states do not have jurisdiction over the bodily functions of a US citizen, additionally it established that a fetus does NOT have legal status as a citizen and thus a 'Right to Life'. In short it legalized abortion, in the more complex sense it established that the state cannot restrict access to medical procedures based solely on the perceived morality of the procedure and nullified the argument that a fetus is also a US citizen and entitled to legal protection under law.
• This is highly significant in that the steps required to overturn Roe vs. Wade would require establishing that a fetus is legally defined as a human life and thus entitled to equal protection under US statute and thus has a 'Right to Life'.
• In terms of the long term consequences it's debatable, the original answer pointed out that there are quite a large number of persons that were not born as a result of the law, however if you look at the work of noted Socio-economist Steven Levitt, Row vs. Wade resulted in a highly significant lower crime rate. This is a result of the fact that many of the unborn children of Roe vs. Wade would have been born to women who could not properly care for them.
• As is generally accepted, neglected, abused, and unwanted children frequently grow up troubled and commit crimes, those children were not born thus they could not commit crimes. This resulted in a curious 'flat line' in crime rates in major cities and urban low income areas ( IE slums and projects) in the early 1990s when a whole new generation of poor urban children would have come of age to engage in self destructive and criminal behavior (age 16 to 17) and did not (as they had been aborted).
• Politically this lack of crime was highly significant in New York City where then Mayor Rudy Giuliani was able to take credit for a dramatic drop in crime rate that really, he had absolutely nothing to do with. This solidified his hold on the political process in New York for the next 10 or so years.
• The significance of Roe vs Wade was that since the decision, which supported a woman's right to choose abortion, was that the abortion process was being legally supported based on the Constitutional "right to privacy."
• It ruled that in the United States a fetus's life is not protected for at least the first three months.
• Consequently, approximately 48 million people were legally aborted since 1973. Given some would have died by now many others would have had children, easily 70 million people are not here today. As a reference the US population is close to 300 million people.
• Another important aspect is that it also gives a father no say in whether his child lives or dies giving that decision to the mother.

Answer 2

It deemed the act of aborting a fetus constitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that making abortions illegal would infringe on the 5th amendment. It also ushered in the federal funding of planned parenthood. Also there is some debate about how it goes against the whole idea of the Constitution.. i.e " We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." The highlighted phrase points our that abortion does not secure the blessings of our posterity i.e "all future generations" What has happened is that the federal government funds and regulates abortions, which goes against the 9th and 10th amendment. So a good solution is that we should let the states decide on what they want to do about abortion. What is most important to know about roe vs wade is that it ushered in the incentives to have government regulated healthcare which is a BIG NO.

Answer 3

Roe vs Wade was a landmark ruling for women. The ruling gave women the right to abortions and control of their own bodies. Feminists believe in the right to choose and safe access to medical care, and Roe vs Wade made this possible.

Answer 4

Because roe succeeded and mad abortion legalized before this it was a Fellony to have an abortion.

Answer 5

why was Roe v. Wade a landmark case