What was the US Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade about?

Answer 1

Roe v. Wade, (1973), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case establishing that most laws against abortion violate a constitutional right to privacy, overturning all state laws outlawing or restricting abortion. It is one of the most controversial decisions in U.S. Supreme Court history.

The decision in Roe v. Wade prompted a decades-long national debate over whether terminating pregnancies should be legal (or more precisely, whether a state can deem the act illegal if it chooses to do so); the role of the Supreme Court in constitutional adjudication; and the role of religious views in the political sphere. Roe v. Wade became one of the most politically significant Supreme Court decisions in history, reshaping national politics, dividing the nation into "pro-choice" and "pro-life" camps, and inspiring grassroots activism.

Opposition to Roe comes primarily from those who viewed the Court's decision as illegitimate for straying too far from the text and history of the Constitution, and those possessing beliefs about the personhood of fetal human life.

Support for Roe comes from those who view the decision as necessary to preserve women's equality and personal freedom, and those who believe in the privacy of individual over collective rights, although the opposition to Roe often reference the privacy of the individual when referring to the unborn child. Also law enforcement and health care professionals supported legalizing abortions because before Roe v. Wade, illegal abortions were the number one cause of preventable deaths for women of childbearing age. Workers were tired of scraping dead teenagers off back alleys who tried to get abortions from irreputable sources, and health care workers saw countless women die trying to get what could be a safe and legal procedure.

Answer

Roe (the legal pseudonym used by a pregnant single woman) was a single woman who wanted to get an abortion in the state of Texas in 1971, but couldn't because the procedure was illegal.

Roe v. Wade centrally held that a mother may abort her pregnancy for any reason, up until the "point at which the fetus becomes 'viable.'" The Court defined "viable" as being "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks."

The age of viability is currently 24 weeks, approximately six months.

Answer

Any discussion of Roe v. Wade requires mentioning Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's plurality/majority opinion from Casey v. Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S.Ct. 2791 U.S.Pa., 1992. This may come as a surprise to most, but Roe v. Wade does not reflect the current state of the law regarding abortion. What someone else may tell you notwithstanding, Roe is little more than an easily remembered symbol. Of the many abortion cases the US Supreme Court has decided since Roe, some have significantly altered the legal relevance of Roe. Of those cases, Casey had the greatest affect. Casey actually modified Roe in the following ways:

The idea that the right elucidated in Roe emanated from the Constitution was affirmed, but not enthusiastically. Instead, Justice O'Connor stated that the judicial doctrine of stare decisis required reaffirmation of Roe's essential holding; that a woman's right to choose an abortion before the fetus becomes viable overrides the state's opposing interest in protecting a potential life. While this may sound obvious, as it is an accurate and concise restatement of Roe, it led to increased tension among those who follow Roe. For the first time the high court explicitly voiced the idea that Roeturned on the balancing of competing interests. In so doing, the court explicitly recognized that the state had a reasonable and legitimate interest in protecting a potential life.

The bright line trimester approach of Roe was rejected due to the fact that the state of medical science is not static. [Casey reduced the legal age of viability from 24 to 22 weeks.] In its place, Justice O'Connor specified that if the state regulation did not impose an "undue burden" on a woman's right to choose an abortion, the law would not be struck down. In other words, before a state law regulating an abortion procedure would be struck down as unconstitutional, it would have to impose a substantial obstacle to the woman's effective right to elect the procedure.

Since Casey, the US Supreme Court weakened Roeeven further when it refused to find the 2003 ban on so called "partial-birth abortion" unconstitutional. Gonzales v Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 127 S.Ct 1610 U.S., 2007. Before Gonzales, it was generally accepted that any regulation that prohibits an abortion procedure after the fetus has become viable will be deemed unconstitutional unless it contains an exception to protect the life or the health of the mother. By refusing to find the 2003 ban on "partial-birth abortion" unconstitutional, the majority in Gonzales rejected the necessity of requiring any post viability prohibition of an abortion procedure contain an exception for the life or the health of the mother.

Case Citation:

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

For more information, see Related Questions, below. am i wrong or nah
Roe v. Wade was a court case defending a woman's rights to abortion.

Answer 2

abortion rights