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Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade was a United States Supreme Court case. The outcome of the case gave legal definitions to things such a viability of a fetus, and set many regulations involving abortion.
230 Questions
What started the Roe v Wade case?
Jane Roe, whose real name is Norma McCorvey, had three children. The first, by her husband Woody McCorvey, was allegedly kidnapped, then later adopted, by Norma's mother when Norma confessed her sexual orientation was either bi- or lesbian.
She got pregnant with a second child sometime in 1965. The child was adopted by the baby's father under the condition that McCorvey never attempt contact.
The Roe baby at the center of the abortion case was conceived in 1969.
McCorvey, who was homeless and living on the street during her pregnancy, wanted to get an abortion, but was prevented from doing so by Texas law. She gave birth to the Roe baby in June 1970, and gave her up for private adoption.
McCorvey claims she lent her name to the case because her circumstances fit a profile the pro-choice lawyers felt was compelling. She claims they approached her about challenging the Texas anti-abortion laws; she didn't contact them. McCorvey said she really had nothing to do with the case: never testified, never appeared in court, and only learned of the Supreme Court ruling sometime after-the-fact.
McCorvey's situation was used to create a pro-choice test case because she had inquired about an abortion and was prevented by law from receiving one. She has since become a staunch pro-life advocate.
Slightly Different Version
ROE v. WADE all started in 1969 when a young girl, Norma L. McCorvey, discovered she was pregnant then realized that she was in desperate need of an abortion. The state of Texas says that, "abortion is allowed and performed in the cases of rape and incest"; anti-abortion state.
That being her only problem her friends suggested that she claim the pregnancy to be from a product of rape. However, this plan failed; there was no police report on record documenting the alleged rape. McCorvey attempted to obtain an illegal abortion, but found the unauthorized site closed down by the police.
Later on she then was referred to attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington. The next year, attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington filed a law suit in a U.S. District Court in Texas on behalf of Norma L. McCorvey.
During this time, McCorvey was no longer claiming her pregnancy was the result of rape and then stated she had lied earlier about being raped. The defendant in the case was Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, representing the State of Texas vs. Norma McCorvey.
The US District Court ruled in McCorvey's favor on the merits, but declined to grant an injunction against the enforcement of the laws barring abortion. The District Court based their decision off a previous case, Griswold v. Connecticut, regarding a right to use contraceptives.
The case was subsequently appealed and eventually reached the US Supreme Court.
Which did the Supreme Court uphold in the case of Roe v. Wade?
In the case of Roe verses Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that all women have the right to get an abortion during the first trimester of a pregnancy. This was later changed to until the middle of the second trimester of pregnancy or anytime if the womanâ??s life is danger.
The plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, (1973) was identified as "Jane Roe," a common proxy for the name of someone who wishes to remain anonymous. The real plaintiff in the case was Norma McCorvey.
McCorvey never had an abortion. She gave birth to a baby girl who was immediately placed for adoption. McCorvey renounced her pro-choice stance in recent years and has become a Right to Life activist.
Case Citation:
Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973)
What was one of the arguments opponents of the amendment made?
What was the Supreme Court's ruling in the Roe v. Wade case of 1973?
What is the importance of roe v wade?
- 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.
How can Roe v. Wade be reversed?
There are three ways Roe v. Wade, (1973) can be overturned:
- Since Roe vs. Wade was a Supreme Court decision, the Supreme Court can effectively overturn the decision by ruling against abortion in a future case.
- Congress can pass legislation protecting the fetus from the moment of conception (There are usually several bills addressing this issue in committee during each Congressional term. The 111th Congress (current) includes three House Resolutions and one Senate bill.).
- Congress and the states can amend the Constitution to include the definition of "person" to include the unborn (this is the least likely scenario).
What was the Supreme Court's ruling in the Roe v Wade case of 1973?
The right to an abortion was protected by a constitutional right to privacy.
Is roe v wade an example of judicial review?
Yes, Roe v. Wade is an example of judicial review, as it involved the Supreme Court assessing the constitutionality of state laws regarding abortion. In this landmark 1973 decision, the Court ruled that a woman's right to privacy, under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, extended to her decision to have an abortion. This case exemplifies how the judiciary can invalidate laws that it finds inconsistent with the Constitution.
What did the Supreme Court decide in the case Roe v Wade-?
The court assured the right to a legal abortion.
What was the vote of the roe v wade case?
The supreme court decision in the case Roe v. Wade was 7 votes for Roe, and 2 votes against Roe. ....... legal provision: Due process.
the judges in the case were ( by last name ):
Burger ( wrote a regular conurence..... voted for women to have a right to abbortion.)
Douglas ( wrote a regular concurence)
Brennan ( voted with the majority)
Stewart ( wrote a regular concurence)
White ( wrote a dissent ... voted that we should not have the right to abbortion.)
Marshall ( voted with the majority)
Blackmun ( wrote the majority opinion)
Powell ( voted with the majority)
Rehnquist ( wrote a dissent.)
What Justices were in Roe v Wade?
The Burger Court vote in Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113 (1973) was split 7-2, as contrasted with the later 5-4 Rehnquist Court vote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 US 833 (1992), a later case that upheld Roe and removed many obstacles in state laws restricting women's access to abortion without overtly prohibiting it. The the voting shift in the latter case was caused by the addition of more conservative justices to the Court, following a long string of Republican Presidencies.
Majority (Roe)
Chief Justice Warren Burger
Justice William O. Douglas
Justice William J. Brennan
Justice Potter Stewart
Justice Thurgood Marshall
Justice Harry Blackmun*
Justice Lewis Powell
Dissenting (Wade)
Justice Byron White
Justice William Rehnquist
* Justice Blackmun wrote the majority opinion.
Who appointed judges in roe v Wade case?
The Chief Justice was Warren E. Burger, nominated by Richard Nixon. Associate Justices Lewis F. Powell, Jr. and Harry Blackmun were also nominated by Nixon. All three of them supported the majority decision, which was written by Blackmun. The fourth Nixon appointee, William Rehnquist, dissented. Also supporting the majority position were Thurgood Marshall, nominated by Lyndon Johnson; William O. Douglas, nominated by Franklin D. Roosevelt; and William J. Brennan, Jr. and Potter Stewart, both nominated by Dwight D. Eisenhower. Finally, writing the dissenting opinion was Byron White, nominated by John F. Kennedy.
Why was the decision of roe v. Wade important to feminists?
The decision of Roe v Wade was important for feminists because it protected women's rights to have control over their own bodies. It made it a legal requirement for women to be able to access abortion so that they were not forced to continue an unintended pregnancy against their will or/and at risk to their health, nor did they have to risk their lives by seeking illegal abortion.
How did the Webster v Reproductive Health Services decision modify the Roe v Wade decision?
The most important modification Webster made to the decision in Roe was elimination of the bright-line Trimester Rule originally used to determine what procedures could be performed at each stage of pregnancy.
In 1973, the age of viability was generally considered 24-28 weeks, with the Court opting to support the lower end of the threshold. In the last 38 years, medical advances have allowed doctors to (occasionally) save fetuses at close to 20 weeks (late second trimester). In light of these changes, Missouri law requires physicians to perform fetal viability tests at 20 or more weeks gestation. If the fetus can potentially live outside the womb, the abortion is prohibited. This seems reasonable in light of current technology.
Webster also covered certain issues not addressed in Roe, such as whether public funding had to be used to perform medically unnecessary abortions, and whether public employees were allowed to counsel pregnant women about abortion. This may restrict access and create a bit of a burden for lower income women.
Summary of Webster
In Webster v Reproductive Health Services, (1989), the Supreme Court decided by a vote of 5-4 that a Missouri state law restricting access to abortion was not unconstitutional. The specific statutory provisions upheld by the Court included the state's refusal to "use public employees and public facilities... in performing or assisting abortions unnecessary to save the mother's life"; the prohibition against encouraging and counseling women to have abortions; and a mandate that physicians perform fetal viability tests on women in their "twentieth (or more) week of pregnancy."
Case Citation:
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989)
The National Organization for Women was founded in 1966; Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court in 1973; thus, seven years passed between the founding of NOW and the Court ruling in Roe v. Wade.
1. political ideology: president picks Judges that share the same political views:helps get things that the president supported and passed.
2. Race and Sex: Helps make the Judges more diverse and can represent america in a larger spectrum. Evenly distributed.
3. Age and Experience: the older the judge the better the record. you can determine what kind of judge he or she will be by looking at past rulings.
The most controversial application of the right occurs in cases involving?
The most controversial applications of the right of privacy have come in cases that raise this question: to what extent can a state limit a women's right to an abortion?The leading case in Roe v. wade, 1973. there, the supreme court struck down a Texas law that made abortion a crime except when necessary to save the life of the mother.
What were some guidelines established by the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade?
Roe v. Wade, (1973) was a landmark United States Supreme Court case establishing 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.
The Court established guidelines for abortion according to a strict "trimester rule."
- No statutory restriction on abortion allowed during the first trimester.
"For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician."
- After the first trimester, but prior to fetal viability, the State may regulate abortion in a reasonable way, if it promotes the health of the mother.
"For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health."
- Once the fetus reaches viability, the States may choose to prohibit abortion except where necessary to preserve the health or life of the mother.
"For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother."
The Supreme Court did not impose its own regulations on abortion; it only set guidelines for the states to follow.
Although Roe v. Wade was based on a Texas law, the Supreme Court decision legalized abortion in every state in the nation.
Case Citation:
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)
Roe v. Wade made it legal to have an abortion until the baby can live outside of the womb without the mom. It protected a woman's right to decide what happens to her body and that the interest of the woman is greater than the potential baby until the baby is old enough that it could live outside the womb by itself.
Did the Supreme Court make a mistake in Roe v Wade by becoming involved in something too political?
At the time the Roe vs Wade decision was handed down, it was not seen as "too political." The political battles have grown up around it over the years.
