roe v. wade
Year: 1973
Result: 7-2, favor Roe
Related Constitutional issue/Amendment: 9th Amendment (Right to Privacy), 14th Amendment (Due Process Clause)
Civil rights or Civil liberties: Civil liberties
Significance/precedent: Abortion is included as a right to privacy and is therefore protected by the Constitution albeit with some regulations. Abortions for non-medical (for instance, if the pregnancy would result in health complications for the mother) purposes are permitted in the first trimester of pregnancy. After the first trimester, abortions are once again subject to state regulation. An unborn fetus is not a person under the 14th Amendment. However, state has a "compelling" interest in preserving life.
Quote from majority opinion: “State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a "compelling" point at various stages of the woman's approach to term.
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.”
Summary of dissent: It is hard to believe that the constitutional rights to privacy or liberty are general enough to include the total restriction of state controls on abortion during the first trimester. The ruling has managed to make this area of law more confusing than it was before.
6-word summary: Non-medical abortion permitted in first trimester
Result: 7-2, favor Roe
Related Constitutional issue/Amendment: 9th Amendment (Right to Privacy), 14th Amendment (Due Process Clause)
Civil rights or Civil liberties: Civil liberties
Significance/precedent: Abortion is included as a right to privacy and is therefore protected by the Constitution albeit with some regulations. Abortions for non-medical (for instance, if the pregnancy would result in health complications for the mother) purposes are permitted in the first trimester of pregnancy. After the first trimester, abortions are once again subject to state regulation. An unborn fetus is not a person under the 14th Amendment. However, state has a "compelling" interest in preserving life.
Quote from majority opinion: “State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a "compelling" point at various stages of the woman's approach to term.
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.”
Summary of dissent: It is hard to believe that the constitutional rights to privacy or liberty are general enough to include the total restriction of state controls on abortion during the first trimester. The ruling has managed to make this area of law more confusing than it was before.
6-word summary: Non-medical abortion permitted in first trimester