ROE V. WADE (1973)

DOE V. BOLTON (1973)

At the time Roe was decided, abortion regulation around the country was a patchwork: four states had repealed their antiabortion laws completely, and another thirteen had introduced some reforms, but the remaining thirty-seven maintained near-bans. Under the Texas statute criminalizing abortion, doctors could be jailed for two to five years for performing the procedure. The statute contained only one exception: abortions were allowed to save the mother’s life.

But in 1970, two attorneys, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, filed suit on behalf of a pregnant Texas resident challenging the Texas statute and arguing for her right to an abortion. The district court unanimously ruled the statute unconstitutional but would not issue an injunction against it. The case was then appealed to the Supreme Court, where it had to be argued twice: once in front of a seven-justice panel and again after two additional justices were confirmed to complete the Court. By this time, the ACLU’s general counsel (and future president), Norman Dorsen, had joined the legal team.

The Court ultimately found the statute violated the constitutional right to privacy, first articulated in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) in a case concerning married couples’ right to contraception, and expanded in Roe to encompass an individual’s right to reproductive choice. The Court ultimately held that (1) states could not regulate abortions during the first trimester; (2) from the first trimester until the fetus was viable, states could regulate abortion to protect the mother’s health; and (3) after viability, states could regulate abortion to protect the mother’s health and to protect the potential life of the fetus, even if that meant restricting abortion entirely.

Though Roe established the right to an abortion, its scope continues to be narrowed in cases such as Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (1986), Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), and Gonzales v. Carhart (2007).