Roe v. Wade (1973): The Supreme Court Abortion Ruling

Roe v. Wade was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, issued on 22 January 1973, which held that the US Constitution protects a woman’s decision to have an abortion. By a 7-2 majority the Court struck down a Texas law that banned abortion except to save the woman’s life, effectively invalidating most state abortion bans across the country. For almost fifty years the ruling stood at the centre of one of the most divisive debates in American politics, until the Supreme Court overruled it in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022.

Background: abortion law before 1973

During the 19th century most American states passed laws making abortion a crime, often with an exception to save the woman’s life. By the 1960s these laws were under challenge. Doctors, lawyers and the growing women’s movement argued that bans drove women to dangerous illegal procedures, while religious groups and others defended them as protecting unborn life.

Between 1967 and 1972 around a third of the states loosened their laws, many following a model code that allowed abortion in cases of rape, incest, serious foetal abnormality or threats to the woman’s health. In 1970 New York, Hawaii, Alaska and Washington went further and allowed abortion on request early in pregnancy. Texas, however, kept a strict ban dating back to the 1850s.

The case also built on earlier rulings about privacy. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) the Court struck down a ban on contraceptives for married couples, finding a constitutional right to privacy in marital decisions. Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) extended contraceptive rights to unmarried people.

The case: Norma McCorvey and Henry Wade

In 1969 Norma McCorvey, a 21-year-old woman in Dallas who was pregnant for the third time, sought an abortion but could not obtain one legally in Texas. Two young lawyers, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, were looking for a plaintiff to challenge the state law. In March 1970 they filed suit in federal court on her behalf under the pseudonym “Jane Roe”. The defendant was Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County.

In June 1970 a three-judge federal court ruled that the Texas law was unconstitutional but declined to stop it being enforced, so both sides appealed to the Supreme Court. By then McCorvey had given birth, and the child had been placed for adoption. The case continued because the issue was “capable of repetition”, since a pregnancy would always end before a case could reach the Court.

The Court heard arguments on 13 December 1971 and, because two new justices had joined, a second time on 11 October 1972. Weddington, then in her mid-twenties, argued for Roe.

The decision

On 22 January 1973 the Court ruled 7-2 for Roe. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justices William Douglas, William Brennan, Potter Stewart, Thurgood Marshall and Lewis Powell. Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist dissented.

The majority held that the “right of privacy” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of liberty was broad enough to include a woman’s decision whether to end a pregnancy. That right was not absolute: the state also had legitimate interests in protecting the woman’s health and “potential life”. To balance these, the Court set out a framework based on the three trimesters of pregnancy.

On the same day the Court decided Doe v. Bolton, a challenge to Georgia’s law, which struck down several procedural restrictions and defined “health” broadly. In dissent, White called the decision an exercise of “raw judicial power”, and Rehnquist argued that the Constitution’s framers had not intended to protect a right to abortion.

Key people

• Norma McCorvey (1947–2017): The plaintiff known as “Jane Roe”, who later became an opponent of abortion.
• Sarah Weddington (1945–2021) and Linda Coffee (born 1942): The Texas lawyers who brought the case; Weddington argued it before the Supreme Court and later served in the Texas legislature.
• Henry Wade (1914–2001): Long-serving Dallas County district attorney, named as defendant in his official role.
• Harry Blackmun (1908–1999): The justice who wrote the majority opinion, drawing on medical history and research he carried out at the Mayo Clinic, where he had once been legal counsel.
• Byron White and William Rehnquist: The two dissenting justices; Rehnquist later became Chief Justice and continued to argue that Roe was wrongly decided.

Reaction and political debate

Roe immediately reshaped American politics. Supporters saw it as a vital protection for women’s equality, health and control over their lives, building on the wider movement represented by events such as the Women’s Strike for Equality. Opponents, including the Catholic Church and later many evangelical Protestants, saw it as allowing the taking of human life and as an example of judges overriding democratic choices. Some legal scholars who supported abortion rights also criticised the reasoning of the opinion.

Public opinion on abortion has remained divided ever since. Polls over the decades have generally found that most Americans favour abortion being legal in at least some circumstances, while large numbers support some restrictions, and views differ sharply by religion, region and party. The issue came to align closely with the two main political parties from the 1980s onward.

A national anti-abortion movement grew rapidly, and the first March for Life was held in Washington on the anniversary of the ruling in 1974. Abortion became a central issue in elections, party platforms and the confirmation of Supreme Court justices. In 1976 Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which barred the use of federal Medicaid funds for most abortions, and the Court upheld such funding limits in Harris v. McRae (1980).

Casey and later cases

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court reaffirmed what it called the “essential holding” of Roe but replaced the trimester framework. States could now regulate abortion before viability as long as they did not impose an “undue burden”, meaning a substantial obstacle, on a woman seeking one. Under this standard many states adopted waiting periods, parental consent laws and other rules.

Later cases dealt with specific procedures and clinic regulations, such as Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), which upheld a federal ban on a particular late-term method, and Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016), which struck down Texas clinic rules.

Norma McCorvey’s later life

Norma McCorvey revealed her identity in the 1980s and for a time worked at abortion clinics. In 1995 she announced that she had become a Christian and joined the anti-abortion movement. A documentary released in 2020, after her death in 2017, included interviews in which she said she had been paid for her anti-abortion activism, a claim that anti-abortion leaders disputed. Her story illustrates how personal the case was for both sides.

Dobbs and the end of Roe

In 2018 Mississippi passed a law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a direct challenge to the viability line. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, decided on 24 June 2022, the Court upheld the law by 6-3 and, by 5-4, overruled both Roe and Casey. Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion held that the Constitution makes no reference to abortion and that the right was not “deeply rooted” in the nation’s history and tradition, so the issue should be returned to the people and their elected representatives. Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with upholding the Mississippi law but would not have overruled Roe entirely. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented jointly.

After Dobbs, abortion law diverged sharply between states. More than a dozen states enforced bans on abortion at almost all stages of pregnancy, while others added protections to their laws or state constitutions. In August 2022 voters in Kansas rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have removed state protection for abortion, the first of several ballot measures on the issue.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Roe legalised abortion throughout pregnancy. Roe allowed states to ban abortion after viability, with exceptions for the woman’s life or health.
• Myth: Norma McCorvey had an abortion. She never did; she gave birth before the case was decided.
• Myth: Overturning Roe banned abortion nationwide. Dobbs returned the question to the states, which have taken very different approaches.

Timeline

• 3 March 1970: Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington file suit on behalf of “Jane Roe” in Dallas.
• 17 June 1970: A three-judge federal court declares the Texas law unconstitutional.
• 13 December 1971: First Supreme Court argument.
• 11 October 1972: Case reargued before the full Court.
• 22 January 1973: Supreme Court decides Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.
• 29 June 1992: Planned Parenthood v. Casey replaces the trimester framework.
• 24 June 2022: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overrules Roe and Casey.

Why it matters

Roe v. Wade shaped American law, politics and society for half a century. Like Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia, it showed the Supreme Court’s power to settle, or reopen, fundamental questions about individual rights, and its reversal in 2022 made abortion once again a matter decided largely state by state.