Roe v. Wade
In 1970, Jane Roe (a fictional name used in court documents to protect the plaintiff’s identity) filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, where she resided, challenging a Texas law making abortion illegal except by a doctor’s orders to save a woman’s life. In her lawsuit, Roe alleged that the state laws were unconstitutionally vague and abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S Supreme Court in which the court ruled that the United States Constitution protected the right to having an abortion. The decision struck down many abortion laws and caused an ongoing abortion debate in the U.S about whether abortion should be legal and who should decide the legality of abortion. Religious and moral beliefs have also been debated about what role it should or should not play in the political atmosphere. Criminal abortion bans contributed to the death scores of people who were unable to access safe, legal abortion. Under Roe, these bans were unconstitutional, making abortion legal, more accessible, and safer for many pregnant people throughout the country. After and up until the decision to overturn Roe in 2022, the Supreme Court repeatedly reaffirmed that the Constitution protects for abortion as an essential liberty, which is tied to other liberty rights to make personal decisions about family, relationships, and bodily autonomy. Although Roe had a substantial impact on the country, it could not make access a reality for everyone, and low-income people, people of color, young people, and others continued to face obstacles to abortion care.
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In June 2022, in a decision that will reverberate for generations, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ruling there is no federal constitutional right to abortion. The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abandoned nearly 50 years of precedent and marked the first time in history that the Supreme Court has taken away a fundamental right.
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