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Content: Roe V Wade - The Unconstitutional Decision
Roe v Wade gave women the constitutional right to abort, yet Roe in itself is unconstitutional. Roe V Wade - The Unconstitutional Decision
By Carolyn Gargaro
Rightgrrl Co-Founder
February 3, 2000
Updated February 5, 2000
The opinions stated in the following article are mine, however, I would like to thank James Goettel for helping with the relevant legal arguments, to ensure the legal accuracy of this article! Roe v Wadeis undoubtedly one of the Supreme Court's most controversial decisions. Handed down in January of 1973, the Court declared, by a vote of 7 to 2, that abortion was a right guaranteed by the Constitution under an implied right to privacy. Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of the majority opinion, stated
that the Constitution does not  explicitly mention a right to privacy but, "in varying contexts the Court or individual justices have,       indeed, found at least the roots of that right." The right to an abortion was then considered an   extension of this privacy right. As Blackmun stated,"This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the
 Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions
upon state action, as we feel it   is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." This  decision made it unconstitutional for any state to restrict abortion in most circumstances. Because of this decision, I continually hear pro-choice advocates claim that my, and other's, opposition to Roeis uninformed and misplaced, since Roegave women a "constitutuinal right" to an abortion. However, Roe v Wade, the very case which made abortion a constitutional right, is in fact, not based in the Constitution.