Roe+v.+Wade+(R7)

=Roe v. Wade =

Carley, Kristina, and Tyler (Mr. Rieck period 7)

Facts and background information [[image:18_McCorvey_1.JPG align="right" caption="Norma McCorvey ("Jane Roe") on left"]]

 * Norma L. McCorvey (under the name of Jane Roe), an unmarried resident of Texas, wanted to terminate her pregnancy by abortion
 * Roe’s pregnancy, she claimed, was a result of rape (though she later retracted this statement)
 * Texas laws prohibited abortions except in cases where it would save the pregnant woman’s life, as determined by medical advice
 * Women could travel to other states with laws that did not prohibit abortion in order to have their abortions, but it was expensive
 * Illegal abortions were taking place within states, though many were under bad conditions
 * Laws concerning abortions were often vague
 * Roe argued that the statues against abortion violated, in particular, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments
 * State: the unborn child’s right to life is more important than the mother’s right to privacy (their justification of laws prohibiting abortion)
 * The case’s defendant was Henry Wade, a district attorney representing the state of Texas
 * The case reached the Supreme Court on appeal


The case was started due to the belief that the laws against abortion within the United States violated the rights to privacy found under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. The case was made in order to overturn this law and make abortions within the United States legal.


The case discussed whether the right to abortion, including the laws prohibiting it, fell under the constitutional rights to privacy found within the Constitution.


After hearing the case the Court held that abortion did fall under the right to privacy granted by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (stating that people cannot be deprived of liberty or property without the due process of law). The Court, as a result, legalized all abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy, striking down many antiabortion statutes within individual states. However, it did not completely legalize all abortion – second trimester pregnancies were allowed to be regulated by states, and during the third trimester of pregnancy, after the fetus has become viable, states can choose to restrict or completely disallow abortions. Of the nine Supreme Court justices, seven voted in favor of Roe and two voted against. The seven that voted for the case were Warren Burger, William Douglas, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis Powell, and Harry Blackmun. The two against it were William Rehnquist and Byron White.


The justification for the decision all came down to the Court’s interpretation of the rights for privacy found within the Constitution, in particular the Fourteenth Amendment and its Due Process Clause. While the Constitution does not specifically mention privacy, the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment mentions a right all United States citizens have so that they may not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without the due process of law (known as the Due Process Clause). Interpreting the right to liberty as inclusive of a right to privacy, the Court came to the conclusion that abortion (considered an action protected by the right to privacy) was thus protected by the Constitution.


The Supreme Court legalized most abortions with its ruling on this case, though its decision has since been met with controversy. As stated before, there is a widespread belief that the unborn child has a right to life, regardless of whether its mother decides to use her right to privacy to justify an abortion.


  

Dissenting argument
Associate Justice Byron R. White claimed that there was nothing in the Constitution to support the Court’s ruling on the case. William H. Rehnquist agreed, adding that, in order to rule the way they did on the case, the Court found and applied within the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was not expressly mentioned within it. By their reasoning, the Constitution says nothing about abortion specifically and so there should be no federal laws against it, and all decisions should be left up to individual states.

External link
[|Roe v. Wade Case Summary]