Title: The Supreme Court . Law, Power & Personality . Famous Dissents . Roe v. Wade (1973) | PBS
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Content: Photo taken from the U.S. House of Representatives Web site
Roe v. Wade (1973)
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in one of the most famous -- and controversial -- cases in its history: Roe v. Wade. A 7-2 majority held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects a woman's " right to privacy ," and that this right encompasses the right to choose to terminate an unwanted or medically dangerous pregnancy. The decision overturned antiabortion statutes in states throughout the country and jump-started a politically powerful "right to life" movement that continues to oppose the decision and seek its reversal. Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist dissented. State antiabortion statutes had been common since the late 19th century, but in the wake of the women's rights movement and the so-called "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s, many women had begun fighting -- through political channels and legal challenges -- for increased access to abortion. Because the struggle for access to safe and legal abortion was increasingly being waged within the nation's legal system, in 1971 the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Roe case even though it could not do so in time for the pregnancy of plaintiff Norma McCorvey to be affected by its outcome. ( At the time of the case, McCorvey employed the pseudonym "Jane Roe" so as to keep the details of her pregnancy private.) The case was argued first in December 1971 and again nearly a year later, in October 1972. Justice Harry Blackmun delivered the opinion of the Court.